Who will marry my mother? part 1

Hello, it's been a long time...i was...um...recuperating.
I have a tonic for you today--an excerpt from my 'diary of words'...

short-story @Naijamatta

“How can I not take?” I murmur to my friend, my brother who cannot stop gawking at me. There is a great disbelief in his eyes. I just reveal to him that I have bargained with Chief Ogobe, the reigning politician of our miserable little village. Twenty kegs of palm wine plus a farmland is hard to refuse. I cannot stop reveling. I shall become rich after the elections. Chief Ogobe will become a senator.

We are poor in my village; we have only one school. Our chiefs are rich; their children school in big cities. The prayer of every ‘pikin’ in my miserable village is to stop chewing palm kernel. But everyone has a dream—to become a ‘politician’, someday. Mine is about to manifest. I trust Chief Ogobe!

“How can you take?” my friend challenges me in a rather fierce disposition. “If you take, who will marry my mother, our mother?”

His words push me. Often we refer to our village as our mother and a politician as her lover. There’s nothing sweet on earth they have not promised her. One certain time, a young lover pledged to give her a new life and sadly, as expected almost choked her to death while she was asleep. But our mother, like the human soul never dies!

Among my brothers in the village, I am the most learned. I have a class six certificate that looks authentic. I hid it in a cave so the rebels will not find it. They will wipe their bowels should they set eyes. But it is because of my certificate that Chief Ogobe has approached me. He wants me to convince my brothers to support him in the forthcoming elections. This is a lethal supplication. It can ignite the salvo of the rebels. Do I need worry? For the rebels are also my brothers, just that they now live at the back of our house. They will not vote even if I tell them. It is the maltreating of our mother that disgruntles them. They want her to stop dallying. They want her to marry.

What Chief Ogobe promises me will be my most valued possessions and I will not reject it. “Go and invite the others. Tell them there’s a party in my mansion and I shall reward you.” Isn’t that cool?

“It is not!” My friend retorts to my chagrin. He stammers heavily: “You are taking ‘beeyaib’ from chief”. He means ‘bribe’, a word in English that rhymes with ‘corruption’ in politics. In my village parlance, ‘soured breast milk’ is the name. It is the same carrot that enriched Chief Ogobe who was once an anointed rebel.

*some more*...soon
Follow me on twitter @naijamatta