LONELY DAYS - BY BAYO ADEBOWALE Chapter 1.0

LONELY DAYS - BY BAYO ADEBOWALE Chapter 1.0

from admin on 07/01/2017 07:48 PM

THE night ajumobi died, nine full moons ago, a shooting star zoomed down the empty sky in a long line of fire; the people of kufi heard the go-away bird hooting a sad mournful tune in the bough of iroko. The meaning of all this was clear to yaremi: ajumobi had been accepted by his maker. His spirit had gone straight to heaven - not missing the way! Yeremi's eyes twinkled. She did not know whether to begin to shed tears of sorrow or tears of gratitude. But because her husband had left alone to the wicked world, 'just like that;and' without a word of farewell; she quickly made a choice : it must be tears of sorrow. Sorrow from the abyss of a trouble heart! Yeremi's face instantly was shadowed in deep misery, and the whole world immediately went blank before her eyes. She made efforts to console herself-even as the distrustful eyes of 'sympathisers' glared from helms of garment, secretly castigating. Yaremi wondered... . Her husband certainly did not die a disgraceful death. For this, she told herself, she must be thankful! Ajumobi did not due an abominable death. No. He did not drink poison out of frustration with life, and he did not fall from the slippery chips of the palm tree on a rainy day. He was not struck by lightning, not by bitten by a cobra and not crushed to death between the falling walls of the village mud buildings. Ajumobi did not hang himself with a rope on the kolanut like the aku firewood cutter whose dead body the people had cut down and had buried at the iloro with indecent haste, inside a shallow, nameless grave filled with loose soil and porous sand. No suicide for Ajumobi. He live like a man, and died like a man. Yeremi was thankful. But the tears now rolled in torrent down her face, streaming into the corner of her mouth and tasting like salt. The temporariness of man's passage on earth was a certainty! Yeremi, at once, surrendered herself to the design of destiny and to the agony of, what seemed to her, an irreplaceable loss. She was the last woman being Ajumobi saw when his eyes were finally closing up in death. What a great honour! Her husband gave her that last- minute parting stare-quick, penetrating, and meaningful... There there was an expression of hot and disappointment in Ajumobi's dying black eyes Yeremi got the massage and with all her heart she tried to communicate to Ajumobi, not only Sorrow and solidarity, but also deep apology For all the wrong she probably had committed. Something told her husband deeply, reproachful glare. She was just ready now to beg, ready to atone, an ready to apologise! The painful finality of ajumobi's last minute on earth rang in Yeremi 's head, splitting her brain with remembered image. She stumble as she stepped out into the sun to pick up her head-tie which had fallen on the ground during the course of prolonged wailing. She was scanned by mourners in all direction. All eyes followed every footstep she took with hostile closeness. And all ears listened, ready to catch her every word in a set-trap. These, obviously were not people merely sitting in silent sympathy in presence of death, but people who were fully bent on humiliating her and destroying her reputation.

---

• • • •

---

---

Click below link to continue

---

---

http://www.nasblog.com.ng/2016/09/novel-lonely-days-chapter-1-by-bayo.html

---

---