RATTLES OF THE NIGHT

"You're crazy" male voice shrieked
"You're mad," female voice yelled.
The noise race has begun again. They won't let me rest. They'll delude me from thinking clearly with their unreasonable noise quest.

"Stupid shameless thing" female voice
"Mind your sharpened tongue woman” male voiced.
When for peace sake will these two ever put a stop to their night in, night out shouting, ranting, raking and wrestling? Often they rife and never make any amendment. Can't this just be erased wholly from their daily dealings? Always it's the feminine voice at the height of the masculine’s. The chattering tonight seems like a contest between a known calm male's voice and a raspy female's voice. Perhaps, that ferocious wife at the next door is ready un-redeemable to sort some unwitting variance out with her head-locked husband tonight.

"Can't you be reasonable for once?" male voiced.
"My sense of reasoning is beclouded with insecurity young man!" female voiced.
Tonight is tonight in this civilian barrack called: Olumota compound, one of the most outrageously constructed and well maintained buildings in Morakoko slum. Ghetto will make mockery of the unhealthy and long cleaned environment as a description. Yet, Olumota compound, which was built by trio- carpenters, now old men, in their youthful days, remains the heart of the community. Not on the ground that the building has experienced repaint in the last two scores it's solely because of its weird varied- character tenants. Carpentry was what brought the trio down to EKO-Akete, from their various villages. But old age has a major set-back on the trio-friends; it stripped off their dignity as they can't catch-up with their youthful days.

This noise…this noise! Can't I have some peaceful rest after the long hectic hours of the day? The sun splashed across the west on the wide landscape of the earth, scorched like the blazing of goldsmith's sort of. This noise that noise, stupid and irritating noise, must sprang from certain corner of my quarters at every night fall. I am tired; buried amongst un-healthy appetite for this lots! Despite proper placement of my grievance on this ordeal noisy case, what about my priority: the capacity to move at will from the fictitious vicinity to factional environ? The unbearable must be beard because money is essential factor to be considered. I'm left with no choice at all. At will must I endure the unpleasing riotous odd of the nights at the moment. All the same, in this mad house must I continue my satisfactory but wrecking existence as a scribbler until fortune falls on my creative path way. O, what a day will it be! That day, that I'll be called upon onto an elegantly customized platform to receive a huge sum of money in exchange for my midnights candle burnings, ink splashing on excess exercise – books as my creativity exploration tools.

Truly, how it all started tonight I didn't keep track; neither words from my thirsty throat can vividly paint the picture nor erect structure of the scenario in motion. Nobody dare sought mad-dog's attention for fun. The certain thing about the on-going ugly scenario is that the unhappy married couples, who frequently search for some sort of euphoria amidst rowdiness, are at it again.

Months back, in one of my counseling conversations with the short, dark sparkling pale haired, mother of two enchanting kids, who is often the protagonist though, she revealed to me: "it took both of us ten years of wild romance and thorough examination before we called it a sealed deal" she giggled afterwords.

"Really?" I responded rather too immediate with an under-tone of surprise.
"Yes, my eminent young bachelor", her face aglow, and she amuse herself each time she discusses her relationship but not without some expression of jealousy for her husband. "You have to take your leisure time to explore ladies world," she turn the chicken laps in her frying-pan, "but do not exploit, it kills you know?"

"Yes, but you know I am not an exploiter," I replied from my corner of the kitchen. This house we leaved in is so built or rather partitioned in that two rooms have just an entrance with a small pass-way which eventually becomes the kitchen. And in preparation for breakfast on weekends, we stay shoulder to shoulder, while we find solace in some womanly chat.
"Young man, it's a mind issue, not printed on forehead, you know," she smiled "I trust you, but mind you, you mustn't rush into for better for worst's world," she stressed.

"Even when my fiance is ready for the rite and ritual," I asked ignorantly
"That's it, that's the point I’m driving at" she said with all sense of purpose and turned away from what she's frying on the fire. "You see, my young bachelor, the seemingly Godly world required wisdom not knowledge neither passion nor emotion…. You have to be careful!" hurriedly she turned the chicken on the fire.
"Whilst knowledge is the mother of wisdom, I am an ardent student in the school of love," with mood of triumph, I replied.

"Don't be fooled Bolade, those dos and don't of love and marriage posited in those pamphlets and at times in books can't help! She sighed and raised her head upwards whilst I stood with rapt attention facing her, hence our eyes contacted. But u couldn't fathom the sense in her sincere statement "flaws do you mean?" I ask non-nonchalantly, minding my business in the kitchen.

"Iya Ayokunmi, you see, one thing I think is missing here is the virtue and the reputation of the writers of those books. Most of them are marriage councilors and psychologists who have worked and examined series of marriage institutional ills…" She wouldn't allow me to tactically arrange my thoughts logically before cutting in rudely. "Enough of that, young man!" She said rather in a harsh tone. "I know you read those authors a lot, yet they can't solve the slightest synchronized issue in the marriage institutional world! Day by day, they learn from cases brought to them by their clientele. They're never perfect." She excused me at the top of her husband’s voice. Things are happening, can you imagine the husband calling his wife with her maiden name even after two kids. This is entirely Un-African. Our culture, our tradition, norms and moral are speedy fading out. This is just the twenty-first century…. O Africa, reclaim your glory and pride!

"Okay" I manage to utter with disbelieve inscribed boldly on my widely popped out eyes. I concurred with her hypothesis, wholly, although such statement can't be accepted as a theory due to the fact that it's yet to be tested. Regrettably, late 20th and 21st century’s ladies got trapped mostly on the research field. Marriage is of two realms: the seen and the unseen, while the larger percentage of the new age ladies preferred the "seen realm," which harbour: pleasure, material, wealth, partying, marry-making and comfort. And the other realm, the unseen, which its watch-words are contentment and endurance they happily detested. What a paradox of priority. O, what an adverbial clause of time!

Perhaps she's right with her posited ideology, perhaps, she's wrong, yet fate sure will take its steady bearing in the scheme of human's endeavors on earth and other realms.

Well, in my irrational opinion, since I can't let myself out to face the noise, I think the evil root of tonight's commotion of noise is “sensed-seduction”, the step-mother of adultery.
"She's too small for you Shellie, leave her alone!" the wife exclaimed with some seemed marijuana sieved voice.
"Woman, what on earth is your problem?" he furiously asked. "And I thought your brain is cleaned from blood stain…?
"If being a psychiatric patient will give the expected effect, my dear adulterous husband, I think I am, and the cure is - let the poor lady be!" She yelled with some rasp clapping.
"O, do… don't tell me your insanity tilt towards Ronke," he felt disappointed in his wife barely from his tone.

"You know already? I guest as much. Tell me, who else could it be if not that ugly husband hijacker, Ronke of a thing?"
The husband wanted to say something but his voice betrayed him. Stroke seems to engulf him at the mention of the lady's name. But Ronke is a popular name in this household. If my brain won't desert me now, that lady used to be a frequent visitor here some years back, even before the arrival of this rascal wife of my neighbour. As a bachelor, I once made move towards her, but brother Shyllie would not let my trap catch a sumptuous meat like her in his forest. He told me the lady is his friend's fiancée but had a serious problem with mathematics and account; that’s the reason why she comes around every evening to be able to catch-up with her schoolmates. And I retrieved into my shell like a snail because brother Shyllie is not like that, he understands.

"She's just a friend, Deola, you know she's my friend's fiancée, how could I possibly do that to my only childhood friend," he proclaimed calmly amidst confusion and disbelieve.

"What use is that history in this discuss of insecurity? Marriage insecurity I mean my dear husband… the sole path to tranquility in this room and entire Olumota compound tonight, is by letting go of that thing!.

"O Deola, why bent on soiling my glossy brocade, can't you allow peace to reign for posterity sake!"
It's a pity that what the husband seek now had long slipped away from their relationship right from there glorified courtship days. And since both of them think less of it as the basis of discord in their lives, the tied must remain the same forever.

The furious argument goes on for couple of minutes until in a twist of time keys and notes in accompaniment of the body sounds that produce rhythmic cacophonous voice, swapped with an unpleasant meaning.

"You must kill me tonight," her voice trailed off, speaking aggressively amongst sobbing dotted her expression.
This two-man drama, it's becoming interesting minute after minute. The protagonist's voice connotes agitation. From her antecedent, I'm almost sure she must have by now grasped her husband's trousers firmly by the thigh.

"And you'll die, nobody will after you demon called wife, if that your untutored tongue is not cautioned this instance!"

Enough! Enough of this madness and unsolicited noise in this compound! If you must know, your rattles of the night hinders my personal ordeal. Truthfully, you know I have no other soothing job, at the moment than making known to the public what happened in market places, palaces, farm fronts, sea shores and relevant functions around the hamlets.

Well, as a modern day town-crier, with words I must paint situations and in statements I must explain events. Gone are those days, town-criers, palace bards, court jesters and poets were the carriers of information's with words unwritten, but me, I have to etch words in a unique style. My stories and articles must be ready just before dawn everyday for my editor to proof read and approve for publication prior going to press in the morning. It's obvious that I won't be able to scribe a single sentence, talk-less of a paragraph, courtesy this noisy atmosphere! Can't you people maintain some degree of silence? O, pity it is that this repulsion conceived within the four-walls of my tattered room can't be felt outside. I can only do nothing to avert the reoccurring noisy crisis either.

Unto your consciousness I called: readers and reviewers of this piece learn now from the scenario not to bite regrettable fingers in years yet unknown. Tonight, it's as certain as death, a five line poem I can't write; neither can I capture one of the many events I covered today without the modern town-crier's midgets.

All right, since eruption of this erratic noise has distant my muse, this performance, a fiction out of faction, in fairness: "Societal, ill" shall occupy my inside family column tomorrow. God...hmmm…goodnight.

© Ayanda Abeke 2007
Rumour Net works,
Lagos, Nigeria.