Unforgettable...

"I waited and waited for death but it did not come."

Slowly, I opened my eyes. I could feel a sharp pain in my neck. The air smelt putrid, the ambience sickening. I had been sitting on very rough cement, leaning against an equally rough wall with my head obviously slanting in an uncomfortable position.

In no more than a split second, I took it all in. I had been kidnapped and now I was in a very small room somewhere in an uncompleted building. I remembered how I had noticed two men following me at about two thirty in the afternoon. At a point I started running and they eventually caught up to me; I couldn’t recall anything after that, I didn’t even know what time it was.

Before long I began to hear footsteps; I could tell that it was a man. He was holding a torch and as he appeared at the door he pointed the torch at me, blinding me. He walked up to me with an easy pace; when he was standing right in front of me, he stooped, torch light still on my face. It seemed that he was staring at me for what seemed like eternity. Then in a flash he stood upright again and banged my head really hard against the wall behind me in a single swift action. The pain was explosive, I was sure that was my death, even more so as I noticed the blackness engulf me and my consciousness leave me.

This time, when I woke, the pain in my head was catastrophic; it seemed that my head was run over by a train. It took me a while to fully open my eyes and when I eventually did, there he was sitting right in front of me – my tormentor. I wondered how long he had been there for, though that was the last of my problems. I was unsure of what was to come my way next. Then, for some reason, my eyes wandered to his hands where he held a whip. At that point, I began to imagine dying as a martyr – I hoped I would die as a martyr.

Before long, my stomach made a faint rumbling sound that reminded me of a dying generator – one of those kinds you see in animated comedy. It seemed that my most generous host had understood because he left and returned about twenty minutes later with a loaf of bread and two sachets of water. At first I thought he was going to stab me and then use the water and bread to clean up the mess or even just suffocate me with the bread’s paper bag. Apparently, he bought them for me to eat. He dropped them right beside my head and helped me sit up. For a moment, I was certain he was not the same person who had banged my head against the wall. He placed the bread and water on my lap. I was starving but didn’t have the strength to cut the bread; perhaps it was my fear that sapped my strength. Again, my kind-hearted host fed me till half the bread and all the water was gone. He left and I fell asleep feeling confused.

When I woke up again, it was with ice cold water poured over my head. As I gasped for air, I was whipped with the most painful rope of twisted leather you ever felt. Now I was certain that was death. I waited and waited for death but it did not come. I cried till I could feel my throat no more, I ran from corner to corner of the locked room till I could run no more. Eventually, the soothing blackness came – the temporary death.
When I realized that I must have been back to earth, I wanted to go back to my place of rest. The pain I felt was unbearable. As the memories of my torture came to me, hot tears poured down the side of my face to the floor. I wondered how long I could continue, I didn’t want to believe I had survived the beating.

It was dark, I guessed it was about 2.00am but I still didn’t know how long I had spent there. I began to wonder why my Lord had allowed all that happen to me, then I remembered I hadn’t prayed – stupid me. I reminded myself that under no condition should I miss my prayers. I got up slowly with my whole body shaking in pain. I looked around, and as I expected, there was no water. I ignored the aching in my throat crying for water. With all the strength I could mutter, I bent low enough to dust my palms with some of the dirt on the concrete floor. Painfully, I rubbed my hands over hands, face and feet. I tried to stand but my body wouldn’t let me, so I decided I was going to pray while sitting. I wasn’t sure where to start because I wasn’t sure how many prayers I had missed. I found my hijab lying a few feet away from me. As I crawled to get it, all the muscles, tendons, bones, and cells in my body protested violently. I raised my hands to my ears as I had done all my life, saying the words that glorified my Lord. As I dropped my hands and folded them on my chest, a tear dropped. By the time I had done two complete units of prayer, my clothes were wet with tears. I didn’t know whether it was the physical pain or the psychological pain. Just as I was concluding my prayer with salams, my tormentor appeared at the door. I caught a glimpse of him from the corner of my eye and my heart skipped a beat. I hoped he would go away once he had noticed I had been praying, rather, he went and sat on the seat right in front of me which had served as my sutra.

Distracted, I sat there, my head bowed. Then for the first time, he spoke. My heart skipped a beat again but this time it remained still until after he spoke a sentence. He said, “When you pray like that, do you ask your god to bless you with people to kill? Wait, if the men get virgins in heaven, what do the women get?” the tears were uncontrollable; they just kept coming. I understood that this man was hurting me because of my religion, because of who I am. I could not begin to imagine what the so called Islamist sect, Boko Haram, must have done to him. A side of me felt really sorry for him yet another part was angry at him for taking it all out on a mere girl like me. I wanted to scream and let him know that all the violence perpetrated by those barbarians in the name of Islam had no basis in the religion, that I was sorry for whatever pain had been caused him, and that he should not be taking it out on me; but I could not. Somehow, I could feel his pain. I began to look at the bright side of things – dying because I was a muslim might earn me Allah’s Mercy in the hereafter. At this point, I was ready for death.

My kidnapper, tormentor, and host told me of how he lost his wife, son, and mother in a bomb blast in Kaduna. How he had to leave his home and his means of livelihood for a strange land for he had no family; he never knew his father. I cried for him but I cried even more for how badly the reputation of Islam had been injured by terrorists.

He must have drugged me for I found myself on a hospital bed after I woke.

Dead Stories Diary - My Story

  I know this might sound weird but I think I have found a way to connect to the dead. I had always been a happy child, even in my early teens. I was always the first to break the ice and first to laugh at the dryest jokes. I was quite a handful and the boys just couldn't get enough of me, i was strict about them though. Suddenly i changed, but not without good reason; a little over eleven months ago, my aunt died. Aunt Jane was my best friend. She was mom's youngest sister and had been living with us since I was five. Though she was older by just two years I called her aunt. She died after six days in a coma, she was in an accident on her way back from school, the very day I turned sixteen. She was buried in a graveyard fifteen minutes from our house. UME was two weeks after she died. Though I aced my WAEC & NECO exams, I missed my JAMB cut-off mark by just a stroke. After Jane died, I kept visiting her grave. I often took a mat along and sat on it to meditate, read and have picnics all by myself. After the first two months or so, I knew that it was no longer Jane that brought me to the graveyard but the peace I felt each time I went there. People were beginning to think I wasn't normal but I did not care. Before I knew it, I started creating stories about why and how some of the other dead people had died. My stories were so good that I became impressed with my own creativity. One day, during one of my saturday noons reading at my favorite hanging-out spot, I noticed a lady go to one of the graves and drop flowers. That wasn't the first time I had seen that lady at that particular grave. She was there just staring at the headstone. In a flash I remembered the story I had made up for the dead woman. Several minutes later, I heard her sobbing. I dont where the courage came from, but it came, and the next thing I knew, I was asking the sobbing lady, "what happened?". Surprisingly, she received my question well and she started talking.
  Throughout the time she spoke, I couldn't help but stare at her mouth. I didn't know if she noticed, I didn't really care. When she was through she said "I have to go now", I managed to say "bye". Guess what...yes, you guessed right; her story coincided with mine(the one I made up), the only thing that I got to learn from her was the names of some of the people involved. Trust me, I was scared; I just had to leave that place. I got up and ran; I could have sworn that I ran faster than Usain Bolt ever had. I was so fast that the normal fifteen minutes journey home was reduced to five minutes. That night, I got really sick; it was the worst fever I had ever had and it lasted two days. I made up my mind never to go back to the graveyard.
After much contemplation, I decided to put down the story of the dead woman as fiction without adding or removing any detail, just the way I had created it and the just the way Sandra, the dead woman's daughter had narrated it...

WATCH OUT FOR 'DEAD STORIES DIARY(2)- BELLA WHITE'.

Hearing a Story

It makes me sad hearing a story...hearing a story from a sister in kind...
A story of despair...one that tells of her times of pain, one that tells of her journey through a life that we all must live...
Hearing her story pricks like a million needles thrown spontaneously...her story makes me realise that she went through all of it so I wouldn't have to...

There is always a story to learn from...could be yours or someone else's...

Love So Real

This is something I wrote over a year ago. Hope you like it.


When I left home and was lost, Tricia found me. She held me so tight, she kept me so close. I hated her for she had so much love. Once, I said to her face "I hate you with all my heart". I had stabbed her with my tongue, but she did not mind. Tricia got married, time passed and I did not, I was so mad. While she was away, I burned down her house. I knew that she cried, I knew she was hurt, but she did not mind. Time passed, and I felt alone, I got mad so I drowned her child. I knew that she cried, I knew she was hurt but she did not mind. I got so miserable, I drank poison and died. In my goodbye note, I told her I hated her for she had all I wanted. I had stabbed her with my pen, or so I had thought. I did not care that she was hurt, I did not know that she cared till the day that she read her speech over my grave. She said about me "..she was such a beautiful soul, and I loved her so...". Then I realised all that I had lost. To see her again is my only wish, though there is no price I can pay to undo all the pain.