Love In Silhouette

❇「Chapter 26」❇

-He is not a lover who does not love forever-

Euripides

I fixed my hands unto the frame and began to pull the large wooden structure from behind my lounge chair towards the side of my bed which looked into the veranda.

Once I was done, I gently lifted off the cloth which was covering it and let it drop to the floor. My unfinished painting stared back at me from the canvas.

"I haven't forgotten you sweetie. Mummy's just been busy that's all." I smiled, softly stroking the hard paint stained surface with my index finger. As I did that, the sun rays coming in from the veranda, kissed the diamond on my left finger. Catching my attention, I lifted my hand up in a better position to the light and moved it gently from side to side, of course increasing the excitement between the sun rays and the diamond.

I then lowered my hand and fingered the ring soflty before eventually slipping the hand into my pocket.

My eyes flickered round the room in search of my paint brushes and within a few seconds, they landed on the bookshelf sighting the brushes tucked incospicuously in between some two large books.

Oh! Now I remember, I put them there.

Resolved to resume my painting, I strode to the bookshelf to get the brushes when my eyes caught the words on the spine of the large book right beside them.

As they were in gold print, they glistened in the light...Gai Jin.

I smirked, reminiscing the peculiar fiction tale coined from Japanese history. I couldn't help but wonder what would eventually happen to the pretty French mistress when her sick fiancee found out she was pregnant for the bloody Japanese traitor. That's if she didn't succeed in aborting the foetus before then.

The Japanese soldier however didn't gain my sympathy at all as his uncontrolled lust which was responsible for all the havoc was also about to cost him his life and those of innocent others.

I made up my mind to snuggle with the book in bed this night and quell my desperate curiosity. In the meantime, I had a painting to complete.

I tied the strings of the apron or whatever they called it around my neck and waist then made to begin. In a sudden state of imaginative euphoria, my brushes danced against the canvas in different colours of blue, yellow, red and black, making sure not to smear the already formed image. Standing back to examine my unplanned genius streak about fifteen minutes later, I couldn't believe. I'd created a colourful abstract background which seemed to lift Asher's uncompleted form from the canvas in a 3d effect.

I sat down on my bed and stared at the work of art in awe...

I did this?

I had finally taken in the sight enough to continue so I picked up my size 4 brush, dipped it in the colour palette and began again.

I began outlining his shoulders and deepening the shade of his neck...

❇

A bedraggled dog ran swiftly across the street and on it's trail were a group of three young boys yelling and hurling sticks in it's wake. It rounded the bend into a narrow passageway separating the first two houses on the left side of the dirty street. The children abruptly stopped at the entrance of the passageway, not going in after the dog. Obviouly, going that route would be intruding into someone's house which the fear on their faces could tell they didn't want to do.

However, this group of kids, notorious for their rascally ways wouldn't stop a chase just because of courtesy. There had to be something else...which there was.

In less than a minute, the mangy munt dashed out the same way it came in yelping for it's dear life. This caused the boys to erupt in laughter as they themselves took cover in case what sent the dog packing would come after them too.

That was the home of the grumpy old woman whom everyone called Mama Ejima. Ejima- a word in the Igbo language meant twins and so her name meant mother of twins.

Her twin boys after schooling in Unilag went abroad, one to the United States and the other to Germany each to pursue their careers and start their families but they never came back. This was because they both died along with their wives who never had children.

After the incidents, rumors had it that Mami Ejima was a blood thirsty witch who had locked her daughters- in-laws' wombs then finally killed her sons along with their wives because they left her in Nigeria to go abroad.

Nobody wanted anything to do with her from then on.

The naughty children of the street took to taunting her each time she was seen outside and looked for new ways to be of a nuisance.

Some mothers forbade their children from going anywhere near her house for fear they'd be bewitched while the others whose parents didn't care much went ahead to cause trouble.

However, Mama Ejima quickly made it known that she wasn't to be messed with. She had a fresh bowl of grounded pepper always ready for whenever the naughty children came prancing. More often than not, they tore back out of the narrow passageway screaming with tears running down their stinging eyes or cane marks on their backs.
This repeated itself a few more times before the children knew to steer clear of her house.

Seyi and Dolapo who were watching the scene amusedly from the provisions shop across the street couldn't stop laughing.

"These children and mami Ejima ehn"

※

Author's Note

Good day Silhouetters ☺
Happy New year and month. Before we delve into why I've been a terrible writer and all that, how has the year been so far?

Mine's been quite extraordinary already. So much has happened and is still happening. I would say I'm on a very deliberate journey of self growth and development. God has been good is all I can say.

Now yes; I apologize greatly to everyone 😭

I'm so sorry; I abandoned my faithful silhouetters with a terrible cliffhanger! How much more cruel could anyone get? Even though Love In Silhouette never leaves my mind even for one day, starting to write again would really be something 😌

But anyway, I believe I'll get more used to it each day. Updating might not be as frequent as before yet cause I'm still trying to balance again into this, so please bear with me 😊

Alright then, that'll be all for now. See you in the next chapter 💜

Chinwe_Epistle ♥