November 09, 2007

The Secret of Joy

Excerpts

For Ms B

My mother closed her eyes and put her head in her hands as my father stood up immediately and pointed to the front door of our home. You are never to set foot in this house again…as far as I am concerned you are dead to me. With a pained cry for help, my mother leapt to her feet and knelt down beside me and began begging my father. Weeping profusely, she pleaded with him not to take this stand. If I had looked up that day, I may have seen the look on my father – the dejected look of a man who was losing control of everything he believed in. He walked past us that day and my mother followed behind him still pleading with him to change his mind. It would be the last time I would see my father in a long time. While it was the most difficult decision I had ever had to make I did not think it was fair for me to trade my joy for his.

Two months later, on a breezy morning at the Ikoyi Registry in Lagos, Nduka and I became husband and wife.

9 comments:

Ms. Catwalq said...

That was long and good...
when is the published collection of your works coming out?

I initially thought Ebun was going to end up with Segun...I would have taken it that way...a kind of doomed love triangle

Kiibaati said...

This story is too real to be fiction. But then, life "imitates good fiction". It's a rather sad story but in life we have to learn to find joy in simple things.

Anonymous said...

Long but beautiful story.
I enjoyed every bit of it.
Welldone and Thank you.

SOLOMONSYDELLE said...

That story ended beautifully. The message was universal. I will second the comment made by other about its length, reading on a computer screen is oddly hard to do sometimes.

Nevertheless, it was excellent. Oh, you might want to review the 3rd paragraph, where you refer to Biola as a "he" when in fact, I think you were talking about Segun...

Catwalq: That would have been interesting...a love triangle. Na wa oh...

Unknown said...

@all - thanks for taking the time to read this incredibly long short story

@catwalq - I'll be sure to let you when the publication hits the bookstores...a love triangle...that's another angle worth looking into for another story lol

@kiibaati - you hit the nail on the head...I guess art imitates real life in more ways that we can imagine

@ omohemi - Thank you

@ SS - Thanks for your comments and for stopping by...I'll try to make the next one shorter...and also check and revise that third paragraph you refer to.

Olu said...

WOW!
WOW!
WOW!
BRAVO!
THIS IS GREAT!
I AM SO IMPRESSED!
ITS 5AM HERE, I HAVE TO WAKE UP EARLY TOMORROW BUT I WAS HOOKED ON THIS STORY, AND LIKE CATWALQ, I INITIALLY THOUGHT IT WOULD BE A LOVE TRIANGLE!
I STILL LOVE THIS ENDING!

Anonymous said...

Great story, i was drected to this link from facebook (young, fly & nigerian)and i thoroughly enjoyed the story.
It's very realistic, at some point i thought i could recognise some of these characters in society today.
very well written.

Unknown said...

@ Olu - I was going to apologize for keeping you up so late...but it seems like you enjoyed it so I won't even bother but say thank you for stopping by and for your very kind comments

Unknown said...

@Dara - Thanks for stopping by and for your kind comments

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