Whoa! Can you believe we are in the last three months of the year?  This year has been zooming fast sha.  Chai!

Thank you to everyone who has supported me so far with comments on this blog and offline.  I truly appreciate it!  If you enjoyed reading The Piano Book, could you kindly review it and/or rate it on Smashwords?  Thanks in advance.  It will only be a few minutes and does not have to be detailed.  One sentence is enough 🙂

I don’t know about you, but one of my memories of primary school was learning my times table. I won’t disclose how many strokes of the cane I ‘chopped’ (as if I remember), but I assure you I can recite my times table.  Up to 12 x 12 sha.  After that, we will need either a calculator or at least pencil and paper.  Maybe several erasers sef.   But, before learning your times table, you have to learn how to count from 1 – 10, at least, right? I am, of course, assuming you were not asleep in class the day the teacher taught this lesson.  I am also assuming you were not busy using rubber bands to fire rolled up bits of paper at fellow classmates.  Lord knows,  I was a victim of this despicable act many times.  I can’t remember returning the favor though.  How convenient, right?

So, where am I going with this?

Well, The Piano Book was E-Book Number 1.  After 1 comes … 2!  If you said 3, please step forward and come and collect three hot strokes of the cane.  Don’t even start with the ‘I thought they were prime numbers’ bit.  I am not buying it!

E-Book Number 2, another short story, is out.  It is called Nosa’s Wedding.  Like the first one, it is available for download only on Smashwords.  And it is FREE.

Synopsis:  A young Nigerian woman prepares for her white wedding to her boyfriend of 3 years. Their relationship has outlived unusual trials. However, what happens on the day of the wedding will determine the future of this couple.

Here is a short sample for your reading pleasure:

Sample of Nosa’s Wedding

The hair dresser slid the last silver pin into Nosa’s hair.  Then she began to adjust the curls and stray strands of hair on the head of the bride.  Nosa yawned.  How much longer was this going to take?  Bisi, the hair dresser, had been prepping Nosa’s hair for more than two hours now.  Nosa had been looking anxiously at the clock the whole time, wondering over and over again, just how long it would be before she would be done.  For until Bisi was done, Nosa could not see the finished work.  Such was their agreement when Nosa had selected Bisi to be the official hairstylist for the D-day.  Nosa tapped her feet impatiently.

“Auntie, I have finished,” Bisi announced triumphantly, simultaneously spinning the chair around to face the mirror.

Nosa stared at her reflection in the mirror.  She almost did not recognize herself, with the makeover Bisi had accomplished.  Her hair was swept to the right, with large curls dominating the right side of her head.  Some of them fell forward on that side of her face too, held in place by tiny bobbin pins carefully hidden away in her hair by Bisi’s skillful hands.  Four decorative silver pins were placed strategically on the left side of her hair to provide visual balance.  She looked stunning.

“Ohhh! Bisi, you out-did yourself!  In fact, I will have to pay you extra for doing such a fantastic job!” Nosa chirped happily, admiring herself in the mirror.

Bisi just nodded and smiled in response.  She had been doing this – styling brides for their weddings – for three years.  If there was anything she had learnt, it was never to take any promises made by the bride, seriously, on the day of her wedding.  Sticking to the contract price and terms was the best thing to do, and even that had its challenges.  Often times, brides would receive services and abscond without paying Bisi’s balance.  Those were some of the fall-outs of doing business involving highly emotional events like weddings.  But, she would not have it any other way.

“Thank God you like it, Auntie.  What about your makeup?”

Nosa turned to Mercy, her best friend and maid of honor.  Mercy was also the only member of the bridal train, at Nosa’s insistence.  “Oya, Mercy come and prettify me,” she said snapping her fingers.  Mercy obeyed, and as she was applying Nosa’s makeup, she joked about how ‘prettify’ was another word that Nosa had made up.  Nosa made her stop what she was doing and asked her to fetch her old dictionary, which was gathering dust with a stack of books in a corner of her bedroom.  After retrieving it, she confirmed, to Mercy’s surprise, that ‘prettify’ was actually a word that existed in the English language.  Mercy hissed, mumbled something about Nosa being a show-off, and continued with her makeup application.  Nosa chuckled and allowed her eyes to wander around the room.

Her eyes settled on the picture of a man in his early thirties taped to the mirror.  All over the room, in fact, lay pictures of Nosa and this man, transforming the room into a shrine of sorts.  But this particular picture, the one where Osaze stood in a relaxed pose with his hands in jeans pockets, wearing a white muscled shirt, was the one she treasured the most.  It was the picture he had given to her on the day they met.  And every time she looked at it, she re-played that scene in her mind.

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Read the rest of the story on Smashwords.  Don’t forget to review and/or rate it if you enjoyed it.

Cheers!