SKINNIES

A MAN-MONSTER          I left church around 3am after vigil on that Friday. Though, I would be going for a screening by 7:30am in the morning, that was not the reason for leaving at that time.  I left because it was my style.      Before and after then, our pastor had always implored us not to leave the church immediately after the vigil. It was as though my ears were deaf to his appeals. Of course, that was not the first time I would be leaving the church around 3am. My first experience proffered me huge confidence that kept me entangled to the style. I walked in the pace of a running athlete that day but was not even challenged by anyone.      So, on that Friday too, I bounced out of the church like a maggot sprawling out of an overripe Agbalumo . I took my usual route; a street named after one rich Alhaji . The man had gifted the street sufficient streetlights earlier that year, so everywhere ...

SCHOOL GAME “’It’s already the thirtieth time I called Shola today, and he hasn’t picked up. Three days ago, he picked up after the fortieth time. Two days ago and yesterday were thirty-eight times and fifty-three times respectively’ I protested to myself in my bedroom like a mad man, shedding uncontrollable tears that flowed along my cheeks like the urine of a toddler on a sloppy cemented floor. My pillow suddenly took up the role of a handkerchief. ‘Could it be that he is busy attending lectures?’ I asked myself but got no answer. My mood at home and relationship with my siblings and friends suddenly turned sour. I could not hide my depression, the sorrow my heart was housing. Despite the way I was behaving at home, only my friends knew what was going on.      Before Shola left for the university, our relationship was admirable. We always saw each other every day and maintained minimum of 17 hours communication per day. He was my senior colleague when we started ...

                          A PHONE CALL     Truly, if a man visits the market where Fright is traded as goods he will shudder like a baby. I am inarguably one of those many men that have once traded in such market; I thoroughly yielded to the whips of Fear. SKINNIES TALK HUB     I am Richard Eliot, a machine operator in a packaging company. Of course, I am married and blessed with three beautiful girls. Nonetheless, I still want a Ronaldo or a Michael Jackson. So, my wife is pregnant for the fourth time. I always carefully ensured the growth of my manly spirit until one humiliating Wednesday.      It was still morning, but it seemed that the sun was hesitant to show up in the sky. I was on a night shift that week, so I was at home trying to make up the sleep I had missed the previous night. My wife was not around; she had gone for her ante-natal check-up in a gov...

Just a Dream! Click this link to join us on WhatsApp  Skinnies Update Just as a man would glue his calendar unto the wall, Obina and his accomplices were tightly tied to the brown oil drums which were standing even more gallantly than a well-trained military man, at the execution ground in the sunny Thursday's noon. Passers-by and onlookers took pity on him and his fellow crooks as they watched. Obina, a fair-complexioned budding man who was in his late teen years had lived most of his lifetimes miserably. The frowning look on his face was an enough proof that he never regretted any of his actions. As he stared at the firing squad who were awaiting the order to shoot, old memories flooded his mind just like stars do to the sky at night.  Click this link to join us on WhatsApp  Skinnies Update Obina thought of how he lost his parents in a road accident one Saturday's evening while returning from a relative's place. He was only ten years old then and was in Jss ...

A COLD WALK HOME ________________________ Well, here you come. Tired and hunched forward under the weight of stress and a persistent headache. It is only 10:30 at night, and it has been a very long day. From signing up your course forms to sitting for hours in the clinic where you were assigned to have your x-ray done. You managed to get five out of seventeen courses signed.  Two of your lecturers are dead. The virus got them. But you know it wasn't a virus. You know that whatever got those men was looking for you. It was the same reason you were shipped from Abuja to Ibadan; to escape whatever it was pulled out of a private university where you were studying Medicine. Now you study Micro-biology in the University of Ibadan. Late Dr. Rotimi was your father's friend. He was to keep a keen eye on you. The son of a Nigerian politician could never be safe. If your father had his way, he'd have sent you abroad. But that's too late now. The airports nationwide are clogge...

The competition was growing hotter than an ember. You were starting to have second thoughts about everything. The tireless campaigns and your determination to become the Students' Union president. You have to admit that it is all futile. I mean, take a look at Dynamic _ that's his campaign sobriquet. He doesn't persuade much with speech, as is expected of a law student. He had this charming smile that dug holes in either of his cheeks. His nose was straight and pointed. His eyes were bright and teasing. Girls liked to ruffle his hair and tug at his cheeks. Dynamic is a 300-level law student and a rather foregrounded one at that. You rarely see him in the regular sparkling white shirt and dark trousers that were typical of law students. This must be one of the things people liked about him. So Dynamic does not have to stress convincing his voters_ or rather “wooing” his voters. The girls were a sucker for him, and the girls always had their way. Well, it's no...

One could start one's day with a soothing stretch accompanied by a widened yawn or with the warmth of kisses that sit gallantly on the cheeks or forehead. Nonetheless, neither was the case for Ajekuikale on that ugly day. Though the Saturday's morn wore brightness so intense that could be noticed by a blind man, it proffered a groan of pains to him. Ajekuikale, a man who was in his late thirties always wore gaiety on his face as though he owned all the happiness in the world. To his family, he was the very devil's embodiment but he was the best Samaritan to brawlers on the street. He could exchange his heart for bottles of drink for his pals but wouldn't drop a dime for his family at home. Though he had no job, he did receive his late parents' pension. Until that shocking Saturday morning, no one in the neighborhood knew of Asabi's hidden pregnancy. Asabi, Ajekuikale's wife had been pregnant for ten years, even before she bore her second child. ...