Day of Judgement and Ten Other Stories

By Arthur Edgar E. Smith

This publication is a culmination of my attempt at writing which started in 1966 in emulating Daniel Defoes Robinson Crusoe whose story I had grown so greatly fascinated with through English lessons I was having from a friend of my late father. It was then that I started nurturing dreams of writing a similar life-like story in the first person narrative voice. I would almost every day religiously confine myself in my study and write zestfully for hours from morning after breakfast up to night with intermittent breaks. Soon, I was beginning to get lost in the imaginary world I was starting to create.

My first story was in 1972 in response to a call for contributions to a short story competition. It might have been part of the preliminary run-down to our participation in FESTAC in Lagos Nigeria. Ever since then I have been engrossed in writing one thing or another. But at some time I would be mostly preoccupied with reading and editing the scripts of my slowly accumulating story collections. But the dim prospects of being published were a damper to accelerated writing. But I still kept an eye on my work as treasures to be preserved for posterity.
Some of the stories: The Day of Judgment Has Arrived, Bra Spiders Flight on his Friend Bra Cunny Rabbits Success have been adaptations of folktale I have heard, collected and translated from Krio. Requiem for the Presumptuous Mister Courifer has been an adapted version of Adelaide Caseley Hayfords Mister Courife. Richard Gets Lured into a Wide Reading and Literate Culture is an adaptation of the autobiography of a section of black American writer, Richard Wright who in fact passed through Freetown on his way to Ghana in 1954 a year before I was born. A dream of Coming into Great Wealth Turns Sour an adaptation of a fascinating episode in the life of Olaudah Equiano, the first major black African writer to have emerged from the dungeons of slavery to line the literary landscape.The most recent is Writer's Cramp Gripping, or Crippling an ill-fated response to a cue to a writers competition at Writers.com.

The total number of stories included is 12 covering a wide range of themes of love, changing fortunes, materialism, the process of growing up, reflections on ones past, the blatant display of power featuring life-like characters. Some of the selections have been read to great effect at public readings.

The prospects of being published seeming more and more chancy even with the publication of my Folktales from Freetown which was widely reviewed internationally on the BBC, American journals and stocked in many university libraries in the US and in Britain as well as in the Library of Congress, made me decide in 2007 after returning from the U.S.A. on an International Visitors programme to start publishing on the internet rather than keep waiting for an unforeseen chance of publication. This saw many of them published in ezinearticles.com and articlescorner.com, the latter which was in 2009 pulled down. But for the fact that I had had printed copies from the site I would have lost all trace of them as well.

The Day of Judgement could be rightly said to have received the greatest exposure having first been published in LOTUS, a journal of the Afro Asian Writers Association, read throughout the world and translated into Bulgarian and published in a journal of the Bulgarian PEN in 2008.
My decision to start publishing my stories on the web in spite of its hazards and its being un-remunerative was to give visibility to them and my creativity which could otherwise be lost to time and to the reading world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Mar 22, 2012
• ISBN: 9781467889216

Arthur Edgar E. Smith

Arthur Edgar E. Smith was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone, where he grew up and was schooled. His schooling started in the east-end of Freetown at the Holy Trinity School for Boys located then at Kissy Road and Fourah Bay Road. He entered The Prince of Wales School at Kingtom in the West-end of Freetown in 1967. He passed his G.C.E O’ Level exams in 1972 with a distinction in English. He then proceeded to the Albert Academy, just at the tip of the Mount Aureol, leading to Fourah Bay College. He spent two years here preparing for his A level exams. During this period he became exposed to much great literature at the school library. He was already writing regularly and contributing articles and stories to local radio programs. When he was admitted into the Arts faculty, Fourah Bay College, where he met a wider selection of literary personalities, that was to give him greater opportunities of harnessing his talents. He joined literary clubs on campus as well as the national association of writers for which he eventually became Secretary-General. At Fourah Bay College he offered courses in English, Philosophy, Sociology and Political Science. He later secured a post graduate Diploma in Education and an M.A. in African Literature. Since 1977 he has taught English at the Prince of Wales School and Milton Margai College of Education before moving over to Fourah Bay College where he has been lecturing various aspects of English including Literature and Creative Writing for over twelve years. He is a Senior Lecturer and also Editor PEN Sierra Leone. Mr. Smith's writings have appeared in West Africa Magazine, Index on Censorship, Focus on Library and Information Work, EzineArticles.com, articlesland.com, articlesland,com, suite101 amongst many other media. He participated in an international seminar on contemporary American Literature in the U.S. which got him to San Francisco, Washington D.C. and Cincinnati visiting various sites of cultural interest and earned him an Honorary Citizenship of Louisville in 2006. His publications include: Folktales from Freetown, Langston Hughes: Life and Works Celebrating Black Dignity, and 'The Struggle of the Book in Sierra Leone'. The title story 'Day of Judgement' has been translated into Bulgarian. His essays on Literature could be read at ChickenBones: A Journal for literary and artistic african-american themes. He was a delegate to the 73rd International PEN Congress in Dakar, Senegal June 2007. He has served as judge for many literary writing and drama competitions, the latest being the National Essay Competition leading up to the Sierra Leone Conference on Transformation and Development. In October 2008 he delivered a paper as part of the Centennial celebrations of African American writer, Richard Wright’s birth at an International Conference at the University of Beira, Corvilha, Portugal. The new prolonged processing time for U.K visas made him not to participate in the 2009 Cadbury conference as part of the panel on Sierra Leone Literature in the University of Birmingham.

Book preview

Contents

DEDICATION

PREFACE

THE DAY OF JUDGMENT HAS ARRIVED

THE CHANGING FORTUNES OF A

STUDENT IN CRISIS

REQUIEM FOR THE

PRESUMPTUOUS MISTER COURIFER

EQUIANO AND HIS CAPTAIN DREAM OF SUDDENLY BECOMING RICH

RUNNING AGAINST FAILURE

BRA SPIDER’S ENJOYMENT OF BRA CUNNY RABBIT’S FLIGHT OF SUCCESS

BRA KAKROCH (COCKROACH) AND

BRA FOHL (FOWL)

MORRIS’S NEW TRICYCLE

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

RICHARD LURED INTO WIDELY READING AND A LITERARY WORLD

WRITER’S CRAMP GRIPPING, OR CRIPPLING

MR. DEMOCRATICUS BRITTANY JONES’ HARD DAY AT HOME

AUTHOR’S BIO

DEDICATION

To my late parents: Edgar Oluwole Smith and Kezia Adjaye Smith and to all my students at Prince of Wales School, Milton Margai College of Education and Fourah Bay College.

PREFACE

This publication is a culmination of my attempt at writing which started in 1966 in emulating Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe whose story I had grown so greatly fascinated with through English lessons I was having from one Mrs. Wright, a friend of my late father, at her home in Lemon Lane. It was then that I started nurturing dreams of writing a similar life-like story in the first person narrative voice. I would almost every day religiously confine myself in my study and write zestfully for hours from morning after breakfast up to night with intermittent breaks. Soon, I was beginning to get lost in the imaginary world I was starting to create.

My first story was in 1972 in response to a call for contributions to a short story competition. I could not fully remember whether it was not part of the preliminary run-down to our participation in FESTAC in Lagos Nigeria. But I do definitely remember that the call came from the Ministry of Tourism and Culture. Ever since then I have been engrossed in writing one thing or another. But at some time I would be mostly preoccupied with reading and editing the scripts of my slowly accumulating story collections. But the dim prospects of being published were a damper to accelerated writing. But I still kept an eye on my work as treasures to be preserved for posterity. That should not mean however that I have not lost a few, which has been often to me like a fatal loss in the family or the severance of a vital part of me.

Some of the stories: The Day of Judgment Has Arrived, Bra Spider’s Flight on his Friend Bra Cunny Rabbit’s Success have been adaptations of folktales I have heard, collected and translated from Krio Requiem for the Presumptuous Mister Courifer is an adapted version of Adelaide Caseley Hayford’s Mister Courifer. Richard Gets Lured into a Wide Reading and Literate Culture is an adaptation of a section of black American writer, Richard Wright who in fact passed through Freetown on his way to Ghana in 1954 a year before I was brought into this part of the world. A dream of Coming into Great Wealth Turns Sour is an adaptation of a fascinating episode in the life of Olaudah Equiano, the first major black African writer to have emerged from the dungeons of slavery to line the literary landscape. The most recent is Writer’s Cramp Gripping, or Crippling an ill-fated response to a cue to a writer’s competition at Writer’s.com.

The total number of stories included is 12 covering a wide range of themes of love, changing fortunes, materialism, the process of growing up, reflections on one’s past, the blatant display of power featuring life-like characters and developing a writer’s sensibility.

Unfortunately, five stories: Tourist in Town, The Return of Brimah, The Interview, The Return of Kendema and Beneath the Burning Sun could not be traced to be included.

The prospects of being published seeming more and more chancy even with the publication of my Folktales from Freetown which was widely reviewed internationally on the BBC, American journals and stocked in many university libraries in the US and in Britain as well as in the Library of Congress, made me decide in 2007 after returning from the U.S.A. on an International Visitors programme to start publishing on the internet rather than keep waiting for an unforeseen chance of publication. This saw many of them published in ezinearticles.com and articlescorner.com, the latter which was in 2009 pulled down. But for the fact that I had had printed copies from the site I would have lost all trace of them as well.

‘The Day of Judgement" has received the greatest exposure. It had first been published in LOTUS, a journal of the Afro Asian Writers Association, in 1995, read throughout the world as well as translated into Bulgarian and published in a journal of the Bulgarian PEN in 2008.

I decided to start publishing my stories on the web in spite of its hazards and its being un-remunerative to give visibility to them and my creativity which otherwise could be lost to time and to the reading world.

I have also written under commission by a local Adult Education Association, SLADEA, SALONEAN LITERACY HANDBOOK. I also fulfilled the duty of reading to my late father and editing his memoirs that was published before his demise.

Some of the selections here have been read to great effect at public readings. For the past ten years I have had the additional pleasant duty of teaching creative writing to first year university students. My recently added teaching of Creative Expression to Diploma and Certificate students in Early Childhood Care, have been more learning and creativity-boosting opportunities. Being a constant visitor to a growing list of sites for writers amongst which is SMITH MAGAZINE.COM where I have written over one hundred six-word memoirs should be additional nourishment for my creative output, hopefully.

Arthur Edgar E. Smith

Freetown

3oth May 2011

THE DAY OF JUDGMENT HAS ARRIVED

There was once a poor old man living with his children in a small house. So poor was he that he could only manage to care for them after undergoing strenuous work. In spite of their father’s struggle to satisfy them, the children were unappreciative. Even though their father kept ceaselessly sweating days without end on his farm to earn the money to feed and clothe them, they were never satisfied. When given food, the greedy children would always shout for more. Out of fear, the father would give them more. Whenever he did not, they dashed for the pot and helped themselves to much of what he kept for the next day.

As for clothes, they only cared for the most fashionable ones. Whenever he returned with ordinary and cheap ones, the children would call them ‘filthy rags’. They would often grab and throw them away. They would then demand more money from their persevering father to buy the fashionable ones of their own choice.

The father’s health with time broke down and he could not work as hard as before to earn his living. The boys could no longer eat as much as they would like to. They could not get enough even to keep them in good health. No longer were they able to get good clothes to wear. The fanciful clothes of their past desires had now gone far off from their minds.

One day, the brothers were all herded together on a mat, hungry and sad when the youngest of them stood up suddenly and announced, I have an idea.

Come on out with it, idiot! the others implored.

‘We could go to town and get a job," the young chap said triumphantly, grinning as if he had just discovered the cure for aids.

‘Come on now, stupid,’ the eldest said. "Is that the brightest idea you can come up with? Can’t you see that the way this country has become it is the last thing one should hope for?’

‘Well, there is no harm in trying,’ he retorted.

Reviews for Day of Judgement and Ten Other Stories

[hadden_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Arthur Edgar E. Smith has written eleven short stories of life and families in Sierra Leone. Many share the stories of students in school, and the relations between fathers and sons in west African families. A few are derivitive, such as an account of a black minority working man in Memphis, Tennessee, who used his Irish-American supervisor's library card in order to borrow library books from the segregated public library. This incident is taken from an account of Richard Wright's autobiography.Other stories are modern tales from the Krio, using folk characters like "Bra Rabbit" (Brother Rabbit), "Bra Spider" and "Bra Kakroch" (Cockroach), somewhat similar to the tales from the American south of "Brer Rabbit" and his friends.The Day of Judgement recounts the old legend/joke about the man passing by a graveyard after dark, and hearing two thieves dividing up the loot. He thinks it is Satan and St. Peter dividing up the souls, and panics. This is a common enough tale, and is told in many American cultural groups, including Hispanic, Cajun and southern black folktales.This is a nice collection of stories, and would be of interest to people who want to know more about current African writers, Sierra Leone, modern folktales and stories from the Krio literature. Recommended.