VOTE DEAR JOHN

Not everyday I come here to appeal that people should vote a certain property to win, but this piece really got to me so follow this link and vote  http://prize.etisalat.com.ng/dear-john/

 meanwhile below is the piece and I thought it was worth sharing

Yesterday, mama returned from the village and said to me, “That boy don die o.”

I went numb. Somewhere inside me, a dam burst, unleashing torrents of
memories that swirled round and round like whirlpools inside my soul.

Once again, I saw you: the severe cross-eyed face, the single vertical marks on each side of your cheeks, the lower lip, a little too big and always hanging loose, that provoked sniggers from the boys in class.

Everything came to me.

“Him kill himself o.” mama added.

I didn’t ask how, and I was grateful mama didn’t volunteer to provide answers to questions best left unasked. What you don’t know can’t haunt you.

But later that night, as I lay under the switched-off electric fan, watching geckos stalk moths across the ceiling, I hoped it was quick and painless, and I hoped that God understood.

When we were boys, they turned your surname Chima to chimpanzee, they
mimicked how you read; face pressed into the book to align your sight
with the letters and numbers. You would sit alone during recess, eating
biscuits and kpuff-kpuff and stealing glances at me. Glances that said,
‘Please be my friend.’

Because I was the boy with the heavy stammer that made even the
teachers giggle. You wanted to identify with the loneliness you knew was
there.

But I laughed at you too. I laughed at you trying to bribe my friendship with paper-wrapped Cabin biscuits and kpuff-kpuff.

But it was a forced laughter, my own bribe to the boys. Something I hoped would make them like me, to show I was one of them.

Dear John, I’m sorry.

If I have a son, I’ll teach him to love people in spite of other people. And I’ll call him John.

I will remember you.

Oghenero.