When I was younger, I secretly believed my mother could fly. To be honest, those heels could delude anyone into believing they could – add a full flowing boubou and you had a superman woman right there, complete with boots and a cape! She certainly was not ultra light – all us kids, and her aversion to wastage in any and every form meant she was always only just under a healthy weight. For all my reading of Essential Biology I should have known that real mothers could not fly; only fairy god mothers could – but the anecdotal evidence seemed to suggest that mine did, for the sheer number of times she caught me pants down – no pun intended.
Once whilst reading my umpteenth Nick Carter adventure – devouring with relish the dexterity with which between Wilhelmina (his German Luger), Hugo (his ultra useful pearl handled stiletto) and Pierre (his gas bomb), he managed to blow just about any and every enemy out of the way – she managed to surprise me at the precise moment the Killmaster was on the verge of surmounting those twin peaks of delight a la 007. She had suddenly appeared at my side; I was too shell shocked to react – the only good part was the book fell open to a shoot ‘em up section – otherwise Father Callistus’ keg of holy water might have been invoked or worse the deliverance committee might have been called in.
That night, she proved she hadn’t lost her knack for ghosting into space like a world class striker attacking a corner at the far post and blind siding the goalkeeper. It certainly didn’t help that I was reading this blog…..and giggling like a teenage girl lost in the throes of delirious laughter occasioned by the tickles of her puppy love….all at 3.00am… The reflections of the screen in my glasses must have alerted her to the fact that this was no ordinary word fest! In amazing presence of mind (or so I thought), I hit the windows key +D key combo, the screen quickly switching to my benign desktop.
She smiled that wry smile of hers that seemed to say boy! you’ve still not learnt, right?
I scanned her face for any obvious signs of displeasure. None. She and I have always had this near telepathic link up; scratch that, she has always read me like a book. I wonder what it is she will say, but Uncle Wole didn’t teach her in vain… she always gives a master class…
I held her unnerving gaze for all of 18.46981 seconds… She pulled the chair next to me out and still holding my gaze asked… What do you write about? Just that! She just knows I have a blog, and she knows I will not tell the url. But she dares me to examine my motivations..
I ponder…. wonder….. try to remember….. all the things I have written…. a letter to her, numerous rants, of love spurned, of near death experiences…… no singular answer can encapsulate all the things I have written about… As she stands up to leave, I mutter…
In retrospect, everything…
Recent Comments