Short Story

Ajadi regretted ever marrying this woman, who beats him at the slightest provocation. He wasn’t so tall and strong like his wife; he was skinny. At times he would wonder if it was a woman he got married to and shakes his head regretfully for his wrong choice.

Two months later, the tenants couldn’t risk the looming health hazards and they started packing out of the house one by one. Within the next three months, all the tenants had left unwillingly.

Everybody knew Mama Aro to be wicked in the neighbourhood. She was a landlady living with her tenants in the heart of Surulere, Lagos. There was hardly any tenant that could spend two years in her house.

“I will tell the Police to arrest you for failing to pay your debts, is that understood? When you get to the Police station, you’ll explain such utter gibberish to the Police. Get out of my sight please,” he retorted.

On a particular starry Saturday night, in the heat and spasm of hot love-making, the frail old woman suddenly had a cardiac arrest and gave up the ghost right on the bed.

“In order not to be defeated by our enemies, we need people of like minds who would go along with us in prayers.” This realisation made Williams go the extra mile by engaging in prayer session with his staff every morning before the commencement of duty.

He wrote her memorable letters that further cemented their relationship and kindled the flame of love in her soul. There was this poetic prose he wrote her that filled her with passion and joy.

Haruna was a chronic wife-beater and an unrepentant sadist. When he was in his usual bitter, angry and cantankerous mood, he would stammer, and bawled orders that would frighten his kind-hearted and soft-tempered wife.

Frank Onuchi had an unrelenting habit of speaking the truth and fighting for the downtrodden. He hated seeing people suffer and would go to any length to show his concern for the plight of the masses.