Micheal Bello's Story - Love's Transient won the Winter Flash Fiction Competition in 2024. Micheal is currently studying computer science and software engineering at JPTS/Joint Professional Training and Support, in Nigeria.
Love's Transient Copyrighted, Micheal Bello.
(Episodic.)
The courtroom was filled with the judge, jury, lawyers, my sister, and her husband. But it was her husband's stance that baffled me— Justice and the justice holder. Rotten to the core. I reminisced on the moments: it all began when I was 8 years old and moved to Lagos. Everything was new and overwhelming, including my new school and classmates. But it was my sister's husband, Mr. Meka, who would change my life forever.
​
As I grew older, I started to develop feelings for him. One fateful evening, four years after we first met, an unexpected moment occurred. My towel slipped, and he saw me in a way that would alter our relationship forever.
He began to pursue me, slipping away from my sister's lack of interest. I became his, and our secret nights became a routine. Until that day. I had thoughts; Maybe, I should take action.
​
(Few days before court.)
The brightly lit room, magnified, like the opulently furnished room— casting an aura of desolation and euphoria. Discordant. My gaze veered to the essay on the desk, titled, "The democratic world of the innocents" by Chukwuemeka Okigbo: The law stipulated a clear age limit... (I flipped over to the end) exploited by older people.
The evening naturalism hue stretched towards the windowsill. The cacophony seeped through the window, the Hausas — a jarring melee.
"Yoh-wa. Oga. Welcome!"
I recoiled like a cowering snail retreating behind its shell at the sound of the car, looming, menacing, and impending, like a suffocating feeling stifling my heart gbim gbim gbim.
I threw the book as it thudded silently on the rough bed sheet, covertly, it rolled into a hidden pose. I fumbled with the key in the doorknob again, creating an embellishment of smooth and low drags.
I watched as Tafa's piercing gaze followed me like a clandestine observer. Tafa’s our gateman - and has sought me out countless times on sex escapades.
This idiotic creature.
I commandeered the bags as I forced through the room, dumped the bags on the bed— an envelope slipped open. Brown. And the pictures. Wait! My heart jumped with force, thumping. A current of fear passed through me as I watched the entrance and slumped my body after every pause and footsteps.
Her eyes followed; I knew I was doomed. Her husband kowtowed a pleading stance.
“You disappoint me,” her chest heaved up and down as she hollered,
"You're going back," she stormed out with her fists in the air.
​
(The night.)
Funnily, she left me, and the beast returned. His bare chest and hairy torso exuding a raw sexuality. He climbed 1nto the bed; I inclined towards the bedhead and glaring at him with a grievance pout. He leaned in and snuffed me like a dog searching for something.
"You need to change your ways," he whispered. "This... thing between us will ruin my marriage and your education."
“What about my feelings?” I asked with question marks.
“Had it been I met you first, I'd have married you. ” His fingers traced a sensitive path.
“And, now— whattt do you think of me?”
“The Juliet,” he looked at me with lust, “I love.”
​
I crowed like a baby until the night rolled over.
{Edited for Website}
'I recoiled like a cowering snail retreating behind its shell at the sound of the car, looming, menacing, and impending, like a suffocating feeling stifling my heart.'
Geometry of childhood
Copyrighted, Micheal Bello.
When a child hungers for the taste of her mother,
it's a birthright, a taboo.
When a child crunches on a teeth-washing wood
or a bitter cola, with a slow and crumpled face,
it's not a taboo.
The feeling is like living centuries of years.
Every night, I'd climb a tree and watch
my shadow slip under the tree's breath.
I'd watch my finger touch the depth of the sky.
I once built a nest with the curves of my palms.
Then, Mother would say: the taste of a mother's breast
inspires the fingers of a child.
And that child crawls again, four years old,
while the plain, once green, now lies grey and desolate.
I'd murmur by the gesture of summer's ennui & the ojuju
ghost written by the curves of the adults.
Mama would shower me with plenty of kisses, gross and sickly beautiful.
Perhaps, the more I grew, the draping shade in the afternoon changed & thatched roofs: somber brown like the evening.
&, yes, I was happy while checking the frame of the roofs, children skating away, cows mowing slowly with the Fulanis and the chattering when the moon came out of hiding.
But the whispers in my ears are grief-shaken, comfort cuddling and tears pouring. Thatched roofs would bear the rain today while it falls from the scaled sky.
{Edited For Website}
Invisible Runway
Copyrighted, Trycent Milimo.
​
I've seen airplanes taking off and landing
on the runway at Harry Mwanga Nkumbula
international airport in Livingstone.
I watched them from the first floor
of a building where I was standing.
Walls were shaking to thunderous sound,
"Gruuu! Gruuu! Gruuu."
My runway is invisible,
I once heard airplanes taking off and landing below my diaphragm.
My muscles lost their strength
just because I had water to last only for a day,
and fire to warn myself at night.
When I visited my brother in the morning,
he made me sit at the dinner table.
On it was the empty cream-white papier-mâché
I visualized fruits resting on a centrepiece:
apples, bananas, or pineapples.
I swallowed saliva sending a message to the ancestors of an unknown.
Worms biting my empty stomach,
then, I heard an airplane taking off once again.
We'll eat when my wife returns from the market, he said.
Trycent Milimo is a Zambian writer. His featured poem won the inaugural
Bridgette James Regional Poetry Competition.