The New Night

By Teslimat Is Haq

Who likes being poor, being looked down on, being mortified? She neither likes everyone Folake wants a life better than being a salesgirl in a rowdy supermarket, a bartender in a noisy club, a nerd in a silly class, and a girl in a crazy family.
She had a desire for wealth. She had lust for riches. She had hoped for a light at the back of her dark tunnel.
She had wanted a greener pasture in her waterlogged garden. She has long for a better tomorrow.
However, when we wish for a better life, can we really survive a worst problem? When we wish for a hotter rod, can we go through a colder pain?
Or are we planning to rob the sacred house of life ?
Because going for a better quality without having a better quantity can only lead to one thing and just one thing; total disaster.
She never dreams of a future like this. And, here it is, staring at her with every emotion she cannot read.
WILL SHE TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Teslimat Is Haq
• Release date: Apr 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005825386

Teslimat Is Haq

Writing and reading is not just an hobby. I am genuinely passionate about anything creative and interesting.

Book preview

TAKE ME BACK

By: Teslimat Is Haq

Who likes being poor, being looked down on, being mortified? She neither likes everyone Folake wants a life better than being a salesgirl in a rowdy supermarket, a bartender in a noisy club, a nerd in a silly class, and a girl in a crazy family.

She had a desire for wealth. She had lust for riches. She had hoped for a light at the back of her dark tunnel.

She had wanted a greener pasture in her waterlogged garden. She has long for a better tomorrow.

However, when we wish for a better life, can we really survive a worst problem? When we wish for a hotter rod, can we go through a colder pain?

Or  are we planning to rob the sacred house of life                  ?

Because going for a better quality without having a better quantity can only lead to one thing and just one thing; total disaster.

She never dreams of a future like this. And, here it is, staring at her with every emotion she cannot read.

                                            WILL SHE TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT?

                                                   1

She stretched her hand out and rummaged around for the buzzing alarm. She stomped her hand sleepily hard on its buzzer before throwing it under her one-sided bed.

She piled  her coverlets up over her aching head to bar herself from the irritating noise resounding from the lousy clock alarm and go back to relieving her headache with her nightmare.

It is four o’ clock in the chilly cold morning of the city; the reverberation and the high temperature of the harsh and arduous engines operating around the district would not let it be peaceful or cold any longer.

It will be just as hot as last night was. The engines would roar back to life in half an hour and people would return to their daily lives, with their stern face, their stiff body and their fast pace.

The moon slinked its fleeting radiance through the broken pane of her room reviving the night from the bubbly darkness that claims it with no remorse.

Yes, last night was not only hot but also dark. The sky was very dark. She feared it would rain and the first rain has always been known for being dusty and dirty.

She hissed at the reality of where she lived. Other cities are not as noisy or as busy but Lagos earned his own name with these.

She tossed swiftly and went back to her dream, the place for her to find rest and sanity.

The usual cold-water trickle through her blanket sank deep into her clothing and filtered down her skin.

Folake, it is high time you drag that lazy body of yours off the bed. You sleepy head, everyone in this house is awake… her aunt kept going with her nagging that is also usual.

Her aunt and roommate who wake her up at most a minute after four.

That one minute is an act of pure generosity.

When she says everyone it is not like the whole household is awake. The people that would be awake early in this chilly morning are; her grandmother who sleeps mainly in the noon.

 Mummy Ayo who sleeps at ten and her mother who would have eaten some painkiller to relieve her aching body, and some sleeping pills to help her sleep immediately the sun goes down.

This is definitely not the type of life destined for her. She despises this life of hustling lifestyle. She wants the life many other teens live with their parents, not always wealthy but often happy. However, she did not have a father as those teens do

Her father was but a drunken _ was because he might as well have been dead.

He managed to get himself sacked when she was seven and stole her mother’s wages to buy his drinks.

She doesn't know what goes wrong with her father then _her father was a hard worker who could do all and every for his family that was who she knew her father to be in the earlier years_ and she also doesn't know now; no one heard from him for all these long years.

Dammy has once gone in search of him, guess it did not turn out well. He had literally forbidden anyone from speaking of him. Not even her over daring aunt.

She wonders what he had found out but she could only keep her curiosity to herself. Dammy was never good with any negative emotion especially not anger. He would bring the sky down if that were the only thing that can get his points across.

Anytime he returned home angry it was hell upon the whole house. No one dared to talk or question him, everyone just let the storm pass without getting hurt. Not that Dammy ever went physical!

Perhaps he could still remember as vividly as she does how their case with their father became sour and far worse.

When he was still in secondary school and a prefect of the school, he had fought almost all other prefect and male seniors for bullying or beating female juniors.

Those scenes of struggles must have come to him in flashes and those flashes are the most painful.

Everytime a male and a female go into struggling against each other she could only see her mother curling into the corner not from fear but to protect them.

Every other day she heard those chattering women, it remind her of how her father would speak in high pitch to prove his supremacy, her mother was much stronger then that sometimes she wonders some more time that if the uncalled separation never happen would her mother still be the rosy strong and caring woman she knew.

Every time she wants to go into negotiating she remembers her mother negotiating the future of the family with her father, negotiating how food is far better than a bottle of beer and many more.

He never listens to any of those. All that he cared about is the next drink. He had said very often that he is no addict; he only wanted a drink and a good laugh. He does really get that just that he did not think the side effects through.

A drink and a good laugh has caused him his family, their childhood and their innocence especially Dammy’s God knows what he had been through in those                   garage, those experiences must have made him the man he is now.

He must have had to unlearn  tons and tons of things to be the man he is today and unlearning is far much tougher than learning itself.

She knows all about unlearning with all the craziness that goes on in the bar especially at       night. Last night was a lot like those nights with crazy parties.

Not all night were like that; it had mostly been people like her father those that needed a drink and a good laugh on Monday and Wednesday.

Tuesdays are for the dancer not that everyone owns the dancing floor. Employed dancers came on stage to dance to a live band. The dancer has always been a contrast against each other and it fit just right.

Thursday; last night was a Thursday  the cultured night with crazy and trouble.