Godwin Inyang's Blog

 WARNING: ADULT CONTENT! As the news spread about the returnee, his friends were trooping in, slapping his hand and clapping his shoulder and back. Seeing the mood the father was in, they ordered more bottles of beer and meat.The place was foggy with cigarette smoke. The language changed from Efik diluted with Ibibio and Annang dialects to pidgin English as the Ejagham and Bekwarra-speaking fellows joined their friends. The party was on till dusk. When night bimbled in, the young men and their girlfriends melted away for fear of the known unknown, the police who could swoop in or not. Everyone went away with the instruction by Utai to 'draw the ear' of their friend, Imo. Honestly,  the boys didn't stop smoking and the police boots like vultures' talons on the iron sheets of a slaughter-house didn't stop descending click-clack on the shanties. When the ill-timed marathon persisted, Amba and all his friends eventually vanished from their homes. They slept the nights o...

WARNING: ADULT CONTENT! 'My brother, see me see trouble,' Amba narrated his tale to a group of friends. 'As I hear the kick and Ada shouting and the mention of police, na so I remove my clothes and say make I quick comot outside for the dark. I don sneak from house finish, na so I hear hand grab me for waist. Wetin help me be say I don remove clothes. Policeman see say I no wear anything, na so he on him torchlight. He shout: "Stop or I shoot!" Ah, for mind I say shoot. You catch me with something? Even clothes sef I no wear. Na so I tear race.' His audience were laughing and clapping. Behind the curtains of their louvred window, the Udiongs were smiling. So Amba was the guy the policeman chased naked into their farm? 'But the wahala wey dey now be say the police people no be from here. We don reach station, we no see Ada. But dem direct us to Zone 6,' Adim, Ada's boyfriend, said.  'Ah, na Zone 6 guys? E mean the matter serious,' Amba said....

 WARNING: ADULT CONTENT! A hard kick on a door. A female voice screeched: 'Help me o! Help me o! ...' The din awoke the entire neighbourhood. Eyes stared in the dark and ears were strained to pick the bits of what was amiss. Mr Udiong, in his boxers, removed his hands from his wife's belly as she had suddenly frozen her response to his romantic moves. He stepped down from the bed and tiptoed to the window near the source of the commotion. He pushed the curtain slightly and peered outside. The sky was clear with the stars twinkling in it and the moon peeped from the horizon. Two points of electric light familiarly shimmered at Mr Udiong from the other bank of the brook which adjoined the neighbourhood. The solar-powered security lamps were the only constant ones around and they were one of a poultry farm and the other of the convention ground of a Christian sect. 'Open the door or we would break it,' a voice boomed after a second bang on the door. 'We are police!...

 Iwang saw children running around in a yard kicking a round piece of plastic (or was it leather?), saw a woman in another yard holding a pot with pieces of paper in both hands and striding from a a small shack into a big building and then, he tilted forward and saw in another compound a man lying supine on a mat crossing his legs, one hand holding a gadget to his ear and the other fanning himself with a piece of cardboard. Then, Iwang's eyes roved a bit far and he saw humans banging pieces of wood with their hammers as they covered them with wide sheets of shiny metal. Though Iwang had an inking what it was but he curiously asked his friend: 'What are they doing with stones and wood and making so much noise with their hands?' 'Just what we heard a lovebird told the other lovebirds. They're building a home just like the others,' Isang replied and showed the litter of human homes to his friend. Iwang shook his head. 'They destroy our accommodation but build t...

 The two lovebirds lifted from the tree and swung their wings swiftly in the direction Isang was leading. Along the way, they chatted about everything and everyone they saw. Up above the trees, the birds charted their course with their mental compasses. They were also guided by the sizes, heights and barks of trees; the unique colours like the flaming heads of some and the spaces indicating a valley, stream or even a path for motorized vehicles. Where smoke billowed or its smell was perceived showed nearby was a shack with a human occupant who was probably a hunter, someone setting traps or a gatherer of wild produce. The small spaces humans occupied were along the banks of streams. Isang and Iwang used to count them with the digits of one limb but currently, the picture was drastically changing. With the time his brain computed they had flown, he was certain the imposing edifice he was looking for should just loom in the distance with its yellowish points this fruitful season. But...

 The gold disc had gradually turned silver with blinding beams that pierced through spaces in the overly green foliage of the jungle. The dewdrops were spirited away. Though baking above the outer layer of the leafage, it was comfortably cool below. Isang was sitting on a comfy spot on the bough of an African oil bean tree preening himself. The tree was quite leafy with its dark brown pods dangling from twigs. Now and then, a pod popped open and the seeds were scattered about. They dropped in the vast thicket below, slapping the leaves and branches of shrubs before thudding on the ground. A stream nearby was gurgling, a songbird was singing  and the big birds were soaring above, cawing, as they searched in all directions for brunch. Isang had to groom himself as in a few minutes he was heading to meet his fiancee and her retinue of fun-loving friends whom he had promised to take out for lunch. (This is a long-standing tradition of lovebirds. They would whistle and mimic other ...

 I'm utterly reworking the entire verse with the sole intent of having it from the beginning to the end written in rhyming couplets. Though that was the form I'd wanted to use from the start but based on a complaint from the very first publisher I sent the first three hundred plus stanzas to that the lines were too long, I did break them up forcing the rhyming to appear 'scattered' . But I'm now going back to what I had in mind originally. The new version is currently uploading on the blog (drfixitepic.blogspot.com). And there are exciting additions to the old tale. Yeah, if you want to stand in my shoes and understand some of the concepts better as 'Dr Fixit' is a tale built around wildlife (don't forget an army ant is the main character and the core villain is the praying mantis), then you wouldn't mind looking up my videos of real wildlife constantly uploading on my YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/@godwininyang).