by Ebelenna Esomnofu
This globe is an incensed leopard; it tin tear you lot into pieces similar a filthy rag amongst its claws together with sip your blood equally though it was carmine wine.
Max learnt this when Peter, his academy ally, visited him inwards Onitsha, Anambra State, all the agency from Port Harcourt.
That sunny afternoon, Max donned his cardigan together with that risible fedora that made his friends ever giggle together with whisper Michael Jackson behind his dorsum together with and then coaxed Peter into driving him downward to Nsugbe – a dusty, stony, greenish, melodramatic town at the bottom of Onitsha.
And equally they savoured their iced beer together with cigarettes at Splendid Suites together with Hotel, Peter, who instantly plant amongst First Bank inwards Port Harcourt, flies to Dubai together with Red People's Republic of China to purchase gilded jewelries together with flamboyant suits, cruises inwards a trendy SUV [which Max neither knew the raise or model] together with owns mansions inwards Lagos, Awka together with Enugu relinquished his typical mysterious self.
Though people easily called him successful, the immature adult man entirely longed to live happy. To real experience what that 1 give-and-take meant: happiness.
In a morose, albeit loud tone, he told Max how he had lately attempted suicide.
The timid-looking barmaid nearby looked dorsum inwards shock.
Seeming to observe, Peter instantly lowered his voice.
He told Max how he had 1 time swallowed a box of sleeping pills, hoping to slumber on till eternity, entirely yet to constitute himself awake together with witting days after.
How he’d tied a rope around his cervix together with fastened it to the ceiling fan together with and then climbed a stool.
And yet he did non die; the rope had separate nether his weight.
He dived into the Niger River once.
A fisherman rescued him. If that real could live called that.
He felt, at that time, that what the fisherman did was purely an unforgivable act of wickedness.
“Why?” Max asked him.
"I wishing the fisherman hadn’t rescued me, Max," Peter said.
“You conduct maintain all the things I could entirely dream of, thence why?”
"I wishing I were you.”
“You can’t wishing that. You can’t want my piteous life.”
“Poor but happy, precisely what I ever wanted.”
Max stared at him.
“I won’t forgive God for creating me this way. For making me abnormal. I want to live normal, Max, but it isn’t possible. How distressing it is! It is instantly a cliche to state that I envy you. "
Max swallowed his surprise. “I ain no duplexes or cars, Peter. I write for newspapers together with learn inwards a secondary school—well, I know why you lot want to live me...you are homosexual, together with what close it? Don't kill yourself. Why live normal similar me when you lot tin live happy? Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 majority title. Fucking a adult man gives you lot joy, together with so, again, why live normal when you lot tin live happy? Why?"
Peter continued equally if he did non take away heed Max's encouraging endorsement of Peter's sexuality. "Oh Max, I fuck men together with it doesn't experience right. I can't halt it. I wishing I could, but I can't. May God assist me!"
Max lowered his drained glass, refilled it, together with said amongst a frown, "Stop behaving similar a rich baby...if I were you, I wouldn’t mumble that preposterous prayer; conduct maintain what you lot are together with displace on. Look, Peter, you lot are non the offset together with you lot are non going to live the last. Men bonk men all the time. Women bonk women all the time. I real I wishing I were gay thence that you lot could encounter something to fuck. Something gratis to fuck!"
Peter's eyes fell; he dropped his half-finished cigarette on the tiled flooring together with stamped it amongst the sole of his Italian shoe.
He glanced at his spotter together with said, "Don't brand fun of my sexuality", amongst a strength that startled Max.
"I am non making fun of your sexuality, Peter, together with you lot know it. I reiterate, if I were gay, I would give you lot my donkey for free, but I am not."
A modest menstruation of quiet passed.
Then Max said, sadly, after drinking from his glass, "I wishing you lot were gay, my love Max. You are the entirely 1 who accepted what I am."
His tearful tone brought dorsum the memories of their academy days.
"You are a walking flower," came from Peter's quivering lips the offset twenty-four hr menstruation they he together with Max met at the SUG party.
The pickup business was nakedly rehearsed for such occasions.
"Flower?" Max said, together with faked a chuckle.
He understood correct away that Peter was a homosexual. Not because Peter walked amongst the elegance of a cat. Not because Peter applied mascara together with faint carmine lipstick together with a sweet-smelling Baby Powder.
Not because Peter's vocalization was soft together with feminine. Not because Peter gestured amongst fragile fingers together with chewed mucilage noisily.
Not because Peter preferred to hug boys instead of the conventional handshake. Not because Peter habitually stared at the gigantic statue of a chained naked adult man inwards the College.
But because Peter's eyes were honest together with they coated no emotion: they announced unabashedly what the heed real felt.
That drizzling day, Peter's moist eyes said: ‘I love you, Max. Like a adult man loves a woman.’
Max constitute this confession of love oddly beneficial: he was a author together with blogger together with he had got an stance for a novella.
And thence when Max got domicile he told his 4th campus girlfriend, who was also a writer, albeit nasty, close this, his novel admirer.
He yearned to know if she would okay the stance or shriek that if Max wrote the homoerotic fiction, these cowardly Nigerian publishers would toss the manuscript out the window.
Because Nigerians, the target audience, burnt to ashes yesteryear the fires of religion together with religiosity, would rather read a story close grown men shooting together with killing themselves than 1 showing them belongings hands, kissing, or professing love.
But her response was disappointingly infantile.
"He loves a adult man similar him! Good God, the guy must live possessed!" Chioma exclaimed, together with and then scrambled out of the bed where she previously lay similar a dead cockroach reading a Harlequin Romance novel.
"What is his bloody name, Max my darling? Please, Max—no, no, don't tell me. Don't tell me! I know, of course. It must live that sissy. That devilish Peter. For Christ's sake, what is a adult man looking for inwards some other man's boxers?"
"Pleasure perhaps," Max replied amongst a depression laugh.
Chioma regarded him amongst apparent suspicion. “Have you lot joined them, Max?"
"They conduct maintain joined me," Max retorted.
Now that he together with Chioma were inwards a serious relationship, Max would non conduct chances tell her that he together with Peter were drinking Hero beer together with smoking Benson together with Hedges together at Nsugbe.
The scandalous intelligence would for certain stab her inwards the breast amongst a knife.
Max had ordered some other ii bottles of Hero beer together with ii plates of turkey meat.
They talked close Buhari's malfunctioning ears together with the Biafra agitation, Hillary Clinton's unsinking courage together with Donald Trump's vehement vow to ban Muslims from entering the US.
And of shape the incredible inflation across Nigeria.
And equally the Sun began its depression descent into the horizon, their conversation softened into literature.
"Don't you lot real assent that V. C Andrew's Flowers inwards the Attic is a piddling histrionic?" Max asked, together with lifted his drinking glass to his lips.
Mmmm...now all doubts were erased: Hero beer, non Gulder, was
really the ultimate.
Max had begun to experience fantabulous after the 3rd light-green bottle. "Or haven’t you lot read the novel?"
"I conduct maintain read it, of course. Is it non the story of Christopher, an adolescent man child who had romantic feelings amongst his fifteen-year one-time sis Cathy? You lent me that Gothic novel...see, I real did non mislaid that novel; my woman parent burnt it. She is extremely religious, you lot know. But that majority is horrible. Chris shouldn't conduct maintain raped his sister."
"It wasn't rape; they made love." Max shifted inwards his Life Beer chair.
"Cathy is also inwards love amongst Chris. She loved that her blood brother broke her virginity. She desired him to fuck her again. I didn't abhor them. I rather felt sorry for them. I blame their selfish mum."
"And grandmother?"
Max lit a cigarette together with nodded his acquiescence.
"Do you lot nonetheless write?" Peter shouted, over the dissonance of the loud speakers.
The managing director had inserted a Bob Marley CD: Africa unite, unite for the produce goodness of your people...
"Yes, I nonetheless write. I conduct maintain finished my novel. It is titled Madness. Tentatively called They Have Gone Bananas, at first. But I dislike long titles, don't you? Nkem is its protagonist. It is a severe satire. 573 pages long. Epic inwards scope. Dickensian indeed. I oftentimes lock myself inwards the room for weeks together with write together with write until my hands get down to milk shiver together with my caput ache. Peter, I set besides much of myself inwards that voluminous novel. Someday, I hope, that novel volition live finally polished together with sent out for publication together with accepted together with my fame volition run circular the nation together with fifty-fifty beyond. Amen!"
Peter hated this, his speech communication fifty-fifty earlier it ended; he shouldn't conduct maintain disclosed his ambition.
He had never told anyone, except his love brothers together with ii sisters close this novel he had been writing behind locked doors for years. It was this Hero beer.
He was high. So tardily to tell now.
"You'll brand it," Peter said, together with and then squeezed Max's hand. "Your first
poem—or was it a brusk story or poetic brusk story? — real wowed me, thanks."
"Thanks, too. For reading it, I mean."
A hush descended. It was fourth dimension to leave.
"You're beautiful, Max. Mind-bogglingly beautiful," Peter said, equally they floated toward his BMW, which was parked nether the whistling orangish tree. "I enjoyed your company, really. When shall I encounter you lot again?"
"Yesterday."
"Be serious, please. I won't touching on you. I promise. Now, when shall I encounter you lot again?"
"I am ever busy reading together with writing, you lot know. I conduct maintain an article to complete this..."
"When shall I encounter you lot again, Max?"
"Peter, my writing is selfish and..."
"For the love of God, when shall I encounter you lot again?"
Max sighed. “Any day."
"Good. Now buss me goodbye."
Max's eyes widened inwards wonder. Was Peter out of his senses? Did he think he was on the street of New York? No, no; Peter was only drunk.
Not tipsy. Drunk. Fully gone.
"Peter Uwankwo, are you lot mad?" was Max's answer.
Then Peter did what shocked Max: threw Peter on the auto bonnet together with unzipped Max's crisp dark trousers.
Max yanked him off together with dashed dorsum into the Splendid Hotel, zipping his trousers.
Ten or xv painful minutes later, Max returned to Peter's BMW together with saw what would haunt him till the balance of his life.
Peter was haemorrhage inwards the grass; he had stabbed himself to decease amongst abrupt Fe he conceivably retrieved from his car.
On the grass was a note:
I'm sorry, Max. Take my auto equally my penalisation for the sexual assault. I love you lot together with I am sorry for loving you. Forgive me, but I conduct maintain to terminate this abnormal feeling for men.
Max folded the banking concern annotation amongst trembling hands together with scurried homeward.
***
Ebelenna Esomnofu was born inwards Onitsha, Anambra State of Nigeria.
He read English linguistic communication together with Literature at the University of Nigeria.
His stories conduct maintain appeared inwards One Story, African Writer, Storried, Genius Blog, AGNI (pending). Sumber http://www.dnbstories.com/
This globe is an incensed leopard; it tin tear you lot into pieces similar a filthy rag amongst its claws together with sip your blood equally though it was carmine wine.
Max learnt this when Peter, his academy ally, visited him inwards Onitsha, Anambra State, all the agency from Port Harcourt.
That sunny afternoon, Max donned his cardigan together with that risible fedora that made his friends ever giggle together with whisper Michael Jackson behind his dorsum together with and then coaxed Peter into driving him downward to Nsugbe – a dusty, stony, greenish, melodramatic town at the bottom of Onitsha.
And equally they savoured their iced beer together with cigarettes at Splendid Suites together with Hotel, Peter, who instantly plant amongst First Bank inwards Port Harcourt, flies to Dubai together with Red People's Republic of China to purchase gilded jewelries together with flamboyant suits, cruises inwards a trendy SUV [which Max neither knew the raise or model] together with owns mansions inwards Lagos, Awka together with Enugu relinquished his typical mysterious self.
Though people easily called him successful, the immature adult man entirely longed to live happy. To real experience what that 1 give-and-take meant: happiness.
In a morose, albeit loud tone, he told Max how he had lately attempted suicide.
The timid-looking barmaid nearby looked dorsum inwards shock.
Seeming to observe, Peter instantly lowered his voice.
He told Max how he had 1 time swallowed a box of sleeping pills, hoping to slumber on till eternity, entirely yet to constitute himself awake together with witting days after.
How he’d tied a rope around his cervix together with fastened it to the ceiling fan together with and then climbed a stool.
And yet he did non die; the rope had separate nether his weight.
He dived into the Niger River once.
A fisherman rescued him. If that real could live called that.
He felt, at that time, that what the fisherman did was purely an unforgivable act of wickedness.
“Why?” Max asked him.
"I wishing the fisherman hadn’t rescued me, Max," Peter said.
“You conduct maintain all the things I could entirely dream of, thence why?”
"I wishing I were you.”
“You can’t wishing that. You can’t want my piteous life.”
“Poor but happy, precisely what I ever wanted.”
Max stared at him.
“I won’t forgive God for creating me this way. For making me abnormal. I want to live normal, Max, but it isn’t possible. How distressing it is! It is instantly a cliche to state that I envy you. "
Max swallowed his surprise. “I ain no duplexes or cars, Peter. I write for newspapers together with learn inwards a secondary school—well, I know why you lot want to live me...you are homosexual, together with what close it? Don't kill yourself. Why live normal similar me when you lot tin live happy? Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 majority title. Fucking a adult man gives you lot joy, together with so, again, why live normal when you lot tin live happy? Why?"
Peter continued equally if he did non take away heed Max's encouraging endorsement of Peter's sexuality. "Oh Max, I fuck men together with it doesn't experience right. I can't halt it. I wishing I could, but I can't. May God assist me!"
Max lowered his drained glass, refilled it, together with said amongst a frown, "Stop behaving similar a rich baby...if I were you, I wouldn’t mumble that preposterous prayer; conduct maintain what you lot are together with displace on. Look, Peter, you lot are non the offset together with you lot are non going to live the last. Men bonk men all the time. Women bonk women all the time. I real I wishing I were gay thence that you lot could encounter something to fuck. Something gratis to fuck!"
Peter's eyes fell; he dropped his half-finished cigarette on the tiled flooring together with stamped it amongst the sole of his Italian shoe.
He glanced at his spotter together with said, "Don't brand fun of my sexuality", amongst a strength that startled Max.
"I am non making fun of your sexuality, Peter, together with you lot know it. I reiterate, if I were gay, I would give you lot my donkey for free, but I am not."
A modest menstruation of quiet passed.
Then Max said, sadly, after drinking from his glass, "I wishing you lot were gay, my love Max. You are the entirely 1 who accepted what I am."
His tearful tone brought dorsum the memories of their academy days.
"You are a walking flower," came from Peter's quivering lips the offset twenty-four hr menstruation they he together with Max met at the SUG party.
The pickup business was nakedly rehearsed for such occasions.
"Flower?" Max said, together with faked a chuckle.
He understood correct away that Peter was a homosexual. Not because Peter walked amongst the elegance of a cat. Not because Peter applied mascara together with faint carmine lipstick together with a sweet-smelling Baby Powder.
Not because Peter's vocalization was soft together with feminine. Not because Peter gestured amongst fragile fingers together with chewed mucilage noisily.
Not because Peter preferred to hug boys instead of the conventional handshake. Not because Peter habitually stared at the gigantic statue of a chained naked adult man inwards the College.
But because Peter's eyes were honest together with they coated no emotion: they announced unabashedly what the heed real felt.
That drizzling day, Peter's moist eyes said: ‘I love you, Max. Like a adult man loves a woman.’
Max constitute this confession of love oddly beneficial: he was a author together with blogger together with he had got an stance for a novella.
And thence when Max got domicile he told his 4th campus girlfriend, who was also a writer, albeit nasty, close this, his novel admirer.
He yearned to know if she would okay the stance or shriek that if Max wrote the homoerotic fiction, these cowardly Nigerian publishers would toss the manuscript out the window.
Because Nigerians, the target audience, burnt to ashes yesteryear the fires of religion together with religiosity, would rather read a story close grown men shooting together with killing themselves than 1 showing them belongings hands, kissing, or professing love.
But her response was disappointingly infantile.
"He loves a adult man similar him! Good God, the guy must live possessed!" Chioma exclaimed, together with and then scrambled out of the bed where she previously lay similar a dead cockroach reading a Harlequin Romance novel.
"What is his bloody name, Max my darling? Please, Max—no, no, don't tell me. Don't tell me! I know, of course. It must live that sissy. That devilish Peter. For Christ's sake, what is a adult man looking for inwards some other man's boxers?"
"Pleasure perhaps," Max replied amongst a depression laugh.
Chioma regarded him amongst apparent suspicion. “Have you lot joined them, Max?"
"They conduct maintain joined me," Max retorted.
Now that he together with Chioma were inwards a serious relationship, Max would non conduct chances tell her that he together with Peter were drinking Hero beer together with smoking Benson together with Hedges together at Nsugbe.
The scandalous intelligence would for certain stab her inwards the breast amongst a knife.
Max had ordered some other ii bottles of Hero beer together with ii plates of turkey meat.
They talked close Buhari's malfunctioning ears together with the Biafra agitation, Hillary Clinton's unsinking courage together with Donald Trump's vehement vow to ban Muslims from entering the US.
And of shape the incredible inflation across Nigeria.
And equally the Sun began its depression descent into the horizon, their conversation softened into literature.
"Don't you lot real assent that V. C Andrew's Flowers inwards the Attic is a piddling histrionic?" Max asked, together with lifted his drinking glass to his lips.
Mmmm...now all doubts were erased: Hero beer, non Gulder, was
really the ultimate.
Max had begun to experience fantabulous after the 3rd light-green bottle. "Or haven’t you lot read the novel?"
"I conduct maintain read it, of course. Is it non the story of Christopher, an adolescent man child who had romantic feelings amongst his fifteen-year one-time sis Cathy? You lent me that Gothic novel...see, I real did non mislaid that novel; my woman parent burnt it. She is extremely religious, you lot know. But that majority is horrible. Chris shouldn't conduct maintain raped his sister."
"It wasn't rape; they made love." Max shifted inwards his Life Beer chair.
"Cathy is also inwards love amongst Chris. She loved that her blood brother broke her virginity. She desired him to fuck her again. I didn't abhor them. I rather felt sorry for them. I blame their selfish mum."
"And grandmother?"
Max lit a cigarette together with nodded his acquiescence.
"Do you lot nonetheless write?" Peter shouted, over the dissonance of the loud speakers.
The managing director had inserted a Bob Marley CD: Africa unite, unite for the produce goodness of your people...
"Yes, I nonetheless write. I conduct maintain finished my novel. It is titled Madness. Tentatively called They Have Gone Bananas, at first. But I dislike long titles, don't you? Nkem is its protagonist. It is a severe satire. 573 pages long. Epic inwards scope. Dickensian indeed. I oftentimes lock myself inwards the room for weeks together with write together with write until my hands get down to milk shiver together with my caput ache. Peter, I set besides much of myself inwards that voluminous novel. Someday, I hope, that novel volition live finally polished together with sent out for publication together with accepted together with my fame volition run circular the nation together with fifty-fifty beyond. Amen!"
Peter hated this, his speech communication fifty-fifty earlier it ended; he shouldn't conduct maintain disclosed his ambition.
He had never told anyone, except his love brothers together with ii sisters close this novel he had been writing behind locked doors for years. It was this Hero beer.
He was high. So tardily to tell now.
"You'll brand it," Peter said, together with and then squeezed Max's hand. "Your first
poem—or was it a brusk story or poetic brusk story? — real wowed me, thanks."
"Thanks, too. For reading it, I mean."
A hush descended. It was fourth dimension to leave.
"You're beautiful, Max. Mind-bogglingly beautiful," Peter said, equally they floated toward his BMW, which was parked nether the whistling orangish tree. "I enjoyed your company, really. When shall I encounter you lot again?"
"Yesterday."
"Be serious, please. I won't touching on you. I promise. Now, when shall I encounter you lot again?"
"I am ever busy reading together with writing, you lot know. I conduct maintain an article to complete this..."
"When shall I encounter you lot again, Max?"
"Peter, my writing is selfish and..."
"For the love of God, when shall I encounter you lot again?"
Max sighed. “Any day."
"Good. Now buss me goodbye."
Max's eyes widened inwards wonder. Was Peter out of his senses? Did he think he was on the street of New York? No, no; Peter was only drunk.
Not tipsy. Drunk. Fully gone.
"Peter Uwankwo, are you lot mad?" was Max's answer.
Then Peter did what shocked Max: threw Peter on the auto bonnet together with unzipped Max's crisp dark trousers.
Max yanked him off together with dashed dorsum into the Splendid Hotel, zipping his trousers.
Ten or xv painful minutes later, Max returned to Peter's BMW together with saw what would haunt him till the balance of his life.
Peter was haemorrhage inwards the grass; he had stabbed himself to decease amongst abrupt Fe he conceivably retrieved from his car.
On the grass was a note:
I'm sorry, Max. Take my auto equally my penalisation for the sexual assault. I love you lot together with I am sorry for loving you. Forgive me, but I conduct maintain to terminate this abnormal feeling for men.
Max folded the banking concern annotation amongst trembling hands together with scurried homeward.
***
Ebelenna Esomnofu was born inwards Onitsha, Anambra State of Nigeria.
He read English linguistic communication together with Literature at the University of Nigeria.
His stories conduct maintain appeared inwards One Story, African Writer, Storried, Genius Blog, AGNI (pending). Sumber http://www.dnbstories.com/