Friday, February 22, 2013

Moving Clocks Run Slow: POWER.

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hey guys,

Like i promised, this is the second installment of the story of Addison Pierce. Are we close to finding out who murdered her boyfriend, Denise Igbokwe? Who is guilty; who isn't? Share your thoughts please and expect the next part sooner than your next breath.

MOVING CLOCKS RUN SLOW. (Part 2)


The police came in a rusty gray 504 Peugeot; the door hands had rusted and the seats were torn and smelled of dried sweat and heavy dust. On that Sunday morning, the roads were quiet. The hawkers were out of sight and the motor cyclists were few in numbers.  The streets were adjourned with trees and with the rising of the sun, their leaves glowed. The car was extremely tight; they were four at the back seat and only two could sit comfortably. Ashley and the other officer who hadn’t said a single word rested their backs, while Addison sat out with the bald head police man. The stereo was playing the hip-hop/high-life music of the modern generation: the beats were funky and the entire song had only six lines and a repeated chorus. The female officer was driving; moving her head to the sound from the radio while the fat Yoruba man stared out of the window; his hands were out, gripping onto the roof of the car. 
 
Ashley was staring at Addison too and she felt it. Addison felt the hot air of anxiety and fear breathe down her neck. She wondered if Ashley knew the truth. The car wiggled from time to time and Addison thought she could tell her sister's thoughts with a glance into her eyes, and so the next time they took a pothole, she turned to know her fate. It was nothingness; her face was like a deserted stream at night that nurtured a forbidden secret. Looking into her eyes, they both seemed to have carved out something between themselves that no other person in the car could touch or feel. That something was either the truth, or something far more deadly.

"Have you called Sam?"Addison asked without looking at her.

"No", she whispered before raising her voice "I can't talk when I'm still struggling to breathe. Can't you see how packed we are? A little thing left before we start falling off like popcorn in a cinema bag"

The woman driving rolled her eyes at them through the rear-view.

"I'd call him when we get out of here" Ashley added.

Ashley's beautiful Malaysian hair fell to the side of her eyes and she thought of how calling her boyfriend was the least on her mind. Denise was dead; now mere ashes or like the dust that settled on the roof of the car, or, as the Christians will put it,- has gone to be with the Lord. Sam was married with kids and probably on his way to church wearing a matching lace fabric with his wife. She was not going to think of him or the way he made her feel things. She would not allow herself to feel guilty for ignoring him this past week. She needed her mind to be free from Sam; Denise was dead.

Sam was a billionaire; a very secretive, lying embezzler of the Lagos State government, but at the same time a very gentle and expert lover. Ashley was the petted, cherished young blood he needed on official trips; the desired mistress with a penchant for red lipstick, the worshiped, perfumed goddess that brought men down to race with lizards. She was all these things to Sam- or so he made her believe; sneaking her into his office and pining her hands down on the conference table during moments of brief but exciting sex; coming to have lunch sometimes in their house in Ikoyi. The first time he showed up to her house, Ashley was startled. And after she walked him out with anger and signed off to the delivery of a Cartier wristwatch two days later, she invited him over and introduced him to Addison.

"Meet my new friend." She said to Addison, standing not so close to Sam. "He's saving my sorry ass from not meeting my bank target."

"Nice to meet you" They both exchanged.

That night Addison made dinner and they all laughed and drank wine and talked about the rotting bank policies in the country and even Addison was marveled at how eloquent he spoke. He was so passionate about Nigeria; saying things in black and white on matter concerning foreign policy. Ashley sat in solitude, contended with a glass of wine in her hand as Sam and Addison bickered back and forth over the history of corruption in Nigeria. Sam argued that the white men birthed corruption, and just like every other thing they invented, we felt it; learned it and sunk teeth deep into it. 

"When the British came to our country, they said everything we are doing was barbaric, was wrong, inferior in whatever way" He argued, "and we allowed them. We were fine with them sleeping with our women and sending our children across the atlantic to work tirelessly on plantations. We were fine with them doing all sorts of wrong to get by and acquire power and money; we watched hands behind our backs as this happened time and time after. Now its a way of life for us; doing whatever it takes to acquire power at the expense of anything."

Addison was charmed by his aesthetics. Ashley was proud. And there was no silence in the room but for the moments Sam churned a shot of whiskey down his throat. The cauterized liquid made him shut his eyes for a second or two, and then he continued talking about corruption, and foreign policy, and election rigging and all the numerous things that were wrong with Nigeria, till the stars were within their reach.

From that day, Ashley and Sam only met at the penthouse suit of WestFoster Harbour on Queens Drive, Ikoyi which cost a whooping two thousand dollars a day. Ashley loved walking to the balcony in the morning and staring at the blue ocean before the sun intruded; she loved waiting for the little fishes to pop out; waiting to be blown away by the aromatic presence of the waves. Sometimes Sam would want them to just stay in all day without a care in the world, without the strain of the everyday city life, just the stress of going to get the door when their room services delivers. And Ashley would remind him that she had a job with the bank. He would lay there on the bed, shirtless, expossing his round stomach and brag about how much money he had and how he could take care of her for the rest of her life. Still, Ashley constrained.

Walking through the high walls of WestFoster Harbour made Ashley feel powerful; the high roofs and lavish curtains sown with hundreds of yards of fabrics and embellished beadings threw a splendorous feeling on her total existence .To her, it felt like royalty. The walls swallowed her petite frame, but at the same time acknowledged her strength. And when the polished staffs greeted her at the massive lobbies with huge artworks eating up corners of the wall, it felt like walking the streets of Manhathan in a pair of Giuseppe Zanotti shoes. To her, that was what being a woman was all about; having a certain ability to bring men and everyone to scuffle like trees in a storm without saying a word. She didn't have to shrink.

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To Ashley, the most important part of seeing Sam every weekend wasn’t the fooling around or the lavish gifts his driver emptied into the trunk of her car. It was the few minutes they talked while holding each other, the feeling of security she got with him, the feeling of trust- her mind being the temple of all the secrets behind the fuel subsidy. It was the feeling of being understood and loved without the pressure of reciprocating those gestures that made Ashley agree to go on trips with him. Sometimes they went to Calabar or Abuja, and the other times the beautiful cities in Italy. It made her feel powerful. Before she met Sam, she wouldn’t have believed that she could cuddle up at night with a man who didn't star in her dreams during her teenage years and not be totally preoccupied with sex. And it wasn't because the sex was awful- because indeed it was-, it was for the mere fact that since they met at a hotel lobby 3years ago, Ashley had never met any other man that had held her attention like Sam did. Until recently.


 


 A heavy blanket of silence fell on the police car as Ashley's phone began to ring. All the officers couldn't peel their eyes away from her.

"What?" She yelled.

The officer in front returned his gaze to the road before they all chorused "Nothing oh"

"Who is that?" Addison asked without looking at Ashley.

"Mom"

"Mom?" She was aghast. "Do you think she knows?"

Ashley was silent.

"Are you going to pick?" Addison pressed.

Ashley froze.

"Can you text her and tell her we are in church or something?" Addison continued "she won't stop calling."

Ashley spoke after her phone stopped ringing.

 "We are almost at the station", she squeezed her nose, reacting to a stench "Like i said, when we get there, I'd make use of my phone".

Addison could see the black police man's arm stretched over the back of Ashley's head. There was a patch, washed out with a lighter shade of black by the armpit tract and somehow this made Addison want to chortle, but she desisted and resolved not to pester Ashley anymore till they got to the station. 

They both were already exhausted because the journey from Ikoyi to the Obalende police station felt longer than normal. The traffic lights lasted longer; the pot holes that slowed cars down were multiplied in dozens; everything seemed to drag on, as if to give the wobbly dragons enough time to catch up with Addison. As they drove, Ashley began to think of the unforeseen; the fact that they were on their way to the station just dawned on her. She wanted to freak out; allow the movement around her throat break free through her mouth; maybe caress her arms copiously to relax the hair sprouting from their tiny pores; but she had to be strong for her sister. Being strong was never a trait of Addison: the average woman of whom when a man told her he loved her, felt a feeling of accomplishment. That him loving her validated her existence and made her feel complete and powerful. Addison was an excitable woman who only tried to understand love through the intensity of its presence; a woman in whom her feelings were much stronger than her reasoning. In the past she had always been so thirsty to experience love; that only that feeling of loving someone had power over her. Any relationship she could not transform into painful, overwhelming and intoxicating love, she would let go. Ordinary love didn't and will never impress her. Addison only believed in intoxication, in ecstasy. And in the past when ordinary love would shackle her, or when an intoxicating love would turn into an ordinary, trivial experience, she would escape. One way or another. "No more walls", she would tell herself when it was finally over.  
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The police men exchanged random conversations and once there was a joke about the President's wife and Addison could tell that her sister desperately wanted to laugh. Somehow Ashley now found a certain comfort in the triviality of the evidence. There was no case and truthfully, a colleague of Addison could get her out of there in no time. Or she could call up Sam. Still she worried each time there was a stop sign; each time a familiar billboard reminded her of the closeness to the police station. It was as though fear had crawled inside her head and burrowed itself into her subconscious. Her heart began to race.


Copyright © 2013 Keside Anosike. All Rights Reserved.




SONG BENEATH THE SONG.

As i mentioned last week, I'd be sharing the songs which i listened to as i wrote the story, and seeing as I made this during lunch at work, i have to pull a rain check on that notion. Nonetheless, here are incredible songs to sink into this weekend and unwind and basically just relax.

 

 

 1, A Storm Is Gonna Come- Piers Faccini

 

2, Drifting Further Away- Powderfinger

 

 

3, New York- Blind Pilot.

 

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Moving Clocks Run Slow.

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 Hey guys! 
This is the first installment of a series of short stories I intend sharing on here. The character's name is Addison and she honestly is one of the most emblematic characters I've ever written. Not to beat a dead horse; my consistence on sharing the stories totally depends on how well received it is. Her journey is sad but inspiring and hopelessly beautiful

MOVING CLOCKS RUN SLOW.

The morning broke with the wind which made the doors downstairs rattle like snare drums; Ashley was still sleeping on her bed, her legs crawled up to her tummy and her hands tucked in between her laps. The drapes in the room were swirling like the rage of the ocean. The room had a soft, light lavender color with white furniture. It wasn't so big, yet it made an average room look bigger. The bed was made of white fine wood and had three shelves underneath, also with a soft, lavender colored flower bedding- matching the flower imprint on the whole bed. Beside it was a nightstand with a pink rose in a vase. He gave her that rose flower on that summer morning; she waking up in his office shirt that went down to her knees and him backing the sun with his chiseled physique.
"Good morning sunshine" he had said hurriedly before kissing her forehead. 
"Aww, you didn't have to". Her cheeks flushed.
"I have to run out immediately." He ignored her dramatic reaction to the flower because he knew she had already seen it at the back of his car. He took off his boxer shorts and headed for the shower.
Addison rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands and soon thought of rushing down to make him pancakes. Her hair was in a messy loose bun and only two buttons in the shirt was done. She looked into the mirror shortly, greased her palms with her saliva and ran it over her hair. She needed to be perect even when he wasn't paying attention.
"Are you going to join me? He yelled.
 "I wouldn't say no to that for the rest of my life'
She smiled. She wanted this everyday; to feel the stickiness of his tongue in her mouth each morning and to scrub his legs as they soaked into a bathtub. She wanted him at all times, everywhere, and it wasn't just him she wanted; she felt like she needed his soul to align with hers, that without that, she would need to breathe into a bag. It was in all the little things she did; how she would hold his hands as they shopped through the aisles of Shoprite and get her mother to send him hand written notes when she visited. It was Addison that would pick out the fleck of dust that settled on his hair even as the pastor preached during church service. It was every time she needed him; everywhere, at the heave of her chest to her lungs. And during the day at work, she would look out of her office window into the city and think of him. She would call him when that happens and sometimes he tells her that he was about to call her and they would smile hard at each other without knowing. Somehow this made Addison feel important; a two minute call from him during lunch; a text message of a joke they shared recently; and the times when he showed up to her office unannounced. She felt special and was convinced that he needed her also. All she wanted was to be like the air that he breathes in that moment when they shared a kiss. She wanted to be that unnoticed but at the same time, that necessary. And each night he was not by her side, she would trundle from one edge of the bed to another and fondle her pillow till the sounds of Elton John drove her to sleep. As day was to night; Addison was sure of a life time with him. She needed him.

In front of the vase was a picture of Addison when she was younger. In it she was sitting on a carpeted floor, smiling happily. She smiled with her younger self. She hadn’t changed much; she realized. She still had the baby looking small face, her almost black-brown eyes matched perfectly with her light skin which was darker than an olive skin. She sighed and dropped the frame face flat and walked away.
Addison walked towards the balcony, her feet heavy from last night. Her body ached; it felt like she was walking on hot coal and shattered glasses. She didn’t make any noise as she moved across, lifting the door higher as she opened it to avoid waking Ashley. Outside the wind blew harder, It flowed around trees like mud oozing between toes. It blew like a wild beast tangled in a net; hissed and roared like dragons. A gap under the corrugated roof above wailed like a flute. The clock ticked forcefully, as if trying to break its cover. Everywhere was quiet for a few seconds and then Addison began to feel the coldness of the bare marble floor run up her spine. Her head was spinning. A blast of arctic air speared through her silk night dress and prickled along her skin; sinking down to her very bones. She was expecting the phone to ring and she was afraid of what she was going to hear. It wasn't like Addison didn’t know what to expect; she knew it too well and that was all there was to frighten her. 
Addison held unto the rails of the balcony, somehow she didn’t feel its coldness or its rust. Her gaze was lost south; her oval face thrown up into the air that the scratch from last night was visible. The red lines that turned her yellow skin into a pale pink was soothed by the fresh, mystic breeze. She thought about the soft warmness that embellished his eyes and made it feel like a safe haven; a magical, forbidden temple of all her dreams and fears. She didn’t hear the little chants from Ashley; she didn’t hear the faint footsteps also. She was busy looking at the clouds, wondering what it was that made God so mad.



“Ad, there are people downstairs. They’re asking to see you”

Addison turned around; gripping firmly to the rails like she swallowed her heart at the sound of Ashley’s voice. She was staring at her little sister, knowing fully well that the people downstairs, the people that came in this boisterous wind; this hostile, gusty and puissant wind, were the police.



“I didn’t hear you come in Ash. Who are they?” She said and cleared her throat. “They want to see me? Really?”

“Yes. I didn’t let them in of course but apparently they’ve been down a while”

“How many of them?

“Umm, I think about 4?

“4?” Her eyes widening as quickly as her mouth went wide open.

“You are scaring me sis. Should I phone mum?" Ashley sounded worried.

“No. We better hurry up and find out what they want”

The stairs on the stairway felt longer for Addison as she walked down with a fold of her flowing beige nightdress under her arm. The air in the living room was thick. It was like the windows haven’t been opened for days. Addison felt like she would asphyxiate.

“Get the windows while I go talk to them” She said to Ashley and watched her back turn. Ashley was taller than her even though she was older with four years. Her legs were thinner and her waist was slim and proportional to her buttocks. She was every man's dream.



The door knob felt cold as Addison reached out for it.

“Good day madam. I believe this is Flat F?” Said the fat man on uniform. He was black and from all indications, extremely comfortable in it.

“Yes. How may I help you?. Addison asked; trying so hard not to wet her pants. His face was flat and he had long, deep tribal marks.

“Great. Are you Miss Addison Pierce?”

“Yes, this is she. Once again how may I….”

“We are here concerning the murder of Mr Denise Igbokwe. We believe you know him?” The female police officer with dreads cut her short. “He was found dead in his car and while our men cleared out the car, we found this”


She was holding a piece of Addison Pierce MD’s business card which had blood stains on it. She held it up in the air and even as Addison tried to squint to get a firm glimpse of it; she knew she didn’t have to. She knew she didn’t need to. She knew her card well enough and she was staring at it, somehow wishing the grounds could open and swallow her.



“Oh my God. He is what?” She said and covered her mouth in sobs.

In that brief moment, she still thought of him. She wouldn't be able to give him all the love she could hold in her soul; she felt that all the love withering inside will aggrieve her entire being; that they will howl around like little devils, and while some will tug at her eyes, others will pierce her heart into stringent pieces.
The other officer that had toothpick in his mouth walked over to Addison as she leaned on the cold steer door. He had his head shaven and his sleeves were rolled up.

“Madam, we will like you to follow us to the station regarding this case as this is the only evidence we have”

“Can I see..”

“An I.D?" The officer chuckled as he dipped his hands into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. “We are not here to stain your rugs madam. Sergeant Okoro from the Obalende police station”

Addison genuinely tried to read the card. The words were merging with words and she somehow couldn’t blurt out any more questions. She was so on edge that she could feel the blood flowing in her palms.  Nothing tickled her laps. She hadn’t wet herself yet and she couldn’t believe why.

“Are you arresting her?” Ashley questioned, holding a glass of water. Addison turned back to look at her before running into her arms. The living room didn’t feel so choked up again, they were breathing normally.

The police men were getting impatient; the female officer and the fat dark man were already talking in low voices. The other officer who hadn’t said a word left to receive a call, while the officer with tooth pick still in his mouth joined the others as they all talked in low tones; sounding like ants licking on sugar.

“We are not arresting her. We just have a few questions for her” said the female officer.

“Can I come?

“Ashley.." Addison exclaimed

“What? They’re taking you to the station and you want me to be at home watching TV? I’m not leaving you alone. No way in hell” Ashley yelled.

“I’m sorry, you can come. But we don’t have all day to waste. We are leaving this minute. “The female officer insisted.

“I’d grab my purse”

The wind had stopped by the time they were leaving their apartment in Parkview and Addison knew too well that the wild caged beast had been let out and all the dragons were racing after her. 


Copyright © 2013 Keside Anosike. All Rights Reserved.




SONG BENEATH THE SONG.

This segment is overloaded. Often times people say a song is depressing just because it's quiet and this literally gets under my skin, lol. I mean, some of the most uplifting songs ever are quiet piano ballads. I find 'jolly happy-go-lucky pop music' more depressing because it seems so shallow and soulless, don't you think so?

 I've been listening to a lot of new stuff but for a change, I'm sharing the songs I worked with while writing this. Would be fun to try that out now, wouldn't it? 

1, James Vincent McMorrow - Wicked Games.

2, James Vincent McMorrow- Down The Burning Rope.


3, Griffin House- Waterfall.





 4, Zola Jesus- Skin