Wagner Ekundayo by Omoruyi Uwuigiaren

A cockerel sounded it was dawn as tragedy walked the bare chest of the street and wrote frustration on the face of the earth. The land that spread before me like an old balance sheet under the little nose of a shrewd accountant was covered with men who were as dark as the midnight, broken and shattered, like savages in defenseless post waiting for providence to take her esteemed seat in the scheme of things and humble the bizarre tale that is more hellish than the enterprise of a sorcerer.

They were reduced by the cruel hands of an unjust fate, and had nothing better to do than gazing at our mutual friend, the sun—a hot yellow ball that fed the earth as if there was no morrow. I saw tears gathered in their eyes and were not better than a woman in travail in a cold night. It would have been better they never had a dose of his goodwill, for his goodwill was like a grave, lurking in the pool of loneliness, which was the meal for men of little means and those under the spell of confusion.

One of them whose head is like a poorly decorated coffin wore a frown as if he mistakenly hit his thumb with the anvil. The old little man among them who seemed to be robust due to years of inactivity gave himself much supplication like an army of enlightened pastors in a sanctuary praying fervently as if they were next to God.

To say the least, confusion strolled in and stood like a pillar of salt before the wounded congregation. The vital part of me which was dead and buried on the wings of the ugly day walked into silence few nights after he made a short work of a brown pig on a dunghill in the talking forest. Such was the tale of Wagner Ekundayo.