A wiseman's tales

[A wiseman's tales @InkAndMyth]

Albert was such a weird motherf*cker.
He once shot a classmate dead on the outskirts of campus, and then sat on the corpse to watch the sunrise.

No one ever figured out if it was a ritual, revenge, or just boredom.
But that’s not even the wild part. 🧵

[A wiseman's tales @InkAndMyth]

He called everyone they knew. Nobody had answers for him. She hadn't told anyone she was leaving because she was done telling people things that went nowhere.
She texted me everything a week later. She was done pretending to be at peace while dying inside. I understood.

#TheEnd

[A wiseman's tales @InkAndMyth]

Sade and Emeka fought about everything in the first two years of dating. Not big things at first. She asked him once, calmly, why he kept coming home at midnight when he said he'd be back by eight. He told her she was monitoring him.

[A wiseman's tales @InkAndMyth]

No be everybody wey quiet get peace. Some people just don tire to explain themselves.

[A wiseman's tales @InkAndMyth]

He came home three Sundays ago to a half-empty flat and a note that was not a letter. It was a list. Every incident, every conversation she had let die, every thing she had stopped explaining. Dated. Specific. Two years of it. Four pages in all.

He almost ran mad.

[A wiseman's tales @InkAndMyth]

No be everybody wey quiet get peace. Some people just don tire to explain themselves.

[A wiseman's tales @InkAndMyth]

No be everybody wey quiet get peace. Some people just don tire to explain themselves.

[A wiseman's tales @InkAndMyth]

He got to that uncle last. Typed and deleted for a while before he finally just called and explained everything.

The job that hadn't worked out, the months of managing alone, the two weeks.

Our uncle didn't mention October. Neither did anyone else. They sorted him out.

[A wiseman's tales @InkAndMyth]

My cousin Frank had a whole personality built around not needing anyone. The "I can-do-life-on-my-own" kind of guy. When our uncle offered him a job connection back in October 2017, Frank laughed - actually laughed - and said he had "bigger things in the pipeline."

[A wiseman's tales @InkAndMyth]

Pride no too hard to swallow when rent don near.

[A wiseman's tales @InkAndMyth]

That's when the voice note dropped in the family WhatsApp: warm, laughing, asking after everyone and how we needed to plan something soon.

Nobody had heard from him in four months.

Then he went one-on-one. Message by message, person by person, working through the group list.

[A wiseman's tales @InkAndMyth]

Pride no too hard to swallow when rent don near.

[A wiseman's tales @InkAndMyth]

Pride no too hard to swallow when rent don near.

[A wiseman's tales @InkAndMyth]

Everything happens for a reason.

And sometimes the reason is: you made a terrible decision.

[A wiseman's tales @InkAndMyth]

I don’t run because I love it.
I run because my body insists on aging even when I’m not ready.

[A wiseman's tales @InkAndMyth]

zinnnnnnnnhhhhhh

She sat up.
Reached for the pillow again.

I wept softly.

That was the day I bought a mosquito net.

[A wiseman's tales @InkAndMyth]

My wife is a mosquito hunter.

I don’t mean that as a joke or a metaphor.
For her, it’s a lifestyle.

She cannot - in fact, will not - sleep until every last mosquito in the room is dead.

Whack.
Whack.

Then…peace. 🧵

[A wiseman's tales @InkAndMyth]

In response, she pointed at the white wall.
Four mosquito corpses lined up like trophies, the blood smears proving she’d killed the vampires that had feasted on us.

“Now you can sleep,” she said, like a general after battle.

She turned off the light.
I shut my eyes.

Then…