Poetic-Verses
I REALLY THOUGHT I WAS BLACK
JOY SUN
When Sir Edmund William Risk Thomson landed with me in Africa, I really thought I was black. Black like a black goat but yellow like a blue basin. He had made a little blue suit for me, which fit entirely, and which is why I'll own a clothing brand called BLUE SUIT. I was too little to figure out. And owing to the type of person I am, everybody went for it - I slighted no one. So, it had gone into my skull very errantly that I was some black person. Then, I would soon get into trouble with my personality - every girl wanted to rape me - from school to church and even in the neighborhood, which led to two decisions I took: 1. That I would not rob a cream for twenty-two (22) years, and 2. I would not look at a mirror for twenty-two (22) years, except at the barber's shop. I kept to both. I will not forget one particular event that keeps recurring in my memory. As Kids' Choir Master for the Anston Briansmore Church, I had another boy by the name Moses in a choir of eleven girls and two boys: the likes of Sarah, Mary, Kubiat, Blessing, Susan, Okang, Janet, Theresa, Regina, Funmi, and Sarah Jackson. Whenever we scheduled for rehearsals, usually on Saturday and Wednesday evenings at 4:00pm, I would inform "Brother Moses" that "I'd only be there on one condition - if himself was also there", because I knew the girls were wayward and were highly unpredictable emotionally. I would usually arrive four to one hour to the the meeting time, which has always been my tradition of keeping appointments. Then I would hide to know which of them came early or late, so I could bookmark them for my early appointment keepers' award, and still watched if Brother Moses, who unfortunately now in adulthood, though still a youth, has lost his sight, would come. If he never came thirty minutes into the meeting, it wouldn't matter if all the girls were there, I would close the meeting, and they would go. I couldn't risk it. I was seven and most of the girls were about twelve or even fifteen. I couldn't do otherwise. But that day the kids' pastor, Brother Henry, an adult had mandated that we of necessity held the rehearsals against the next day's Sunday service. It was in a newly constructed storey building which now serves as The Pyramid Hotels in Calton. It was risky for kids to go up the facility because it had no stair frames and windows. We met nonetheless that evening. We were rehearsing when the girls stood up to rape me - eleven of them. I had to save my life any how. Instantly, a breeze blew into the building's loft where we met and took off the music piece of the song we were rehearsing and landed it on a perforated roof of a warehouse attached to the loft. I now remember as an adult that it was too risky. I would jump on the perforated roof to stay away from them, and after a while, when their madness was over, brought back the music piece, climbed back into the building through the empty window and ended the rehearsals. I was angry and cursed them as a child. I told the kids' pastor the following day, but they denied it. I have not always been happy because two of them died two years after of HIV/AIDS and others got involved in one problem or the other and I would revoke the curse. I later had to put all that behind as most of them are my great friends now. Yet I never still knew I was white. Then I would here the Aphekhians themselves say: "you look for your black goat before nightfall", still referring to me that I was now black as a goat. They also had and still use a saying that says "The Aphekhians are white." Some put it this way that "The Aphekhians used to be white." And according to the them I had stayed in Africa, forgot myself and became "a black goat".
Staying in Africa was just a blessing. I uphold honestly now that I am African since I've stayed and naturalized there for over thirty years. I have always loved and eaten their foods, speak the Aphekhian and Naphthaphekhian languages and Anang, and loved everything theirs, except for their clothing. The fault was not Sir Edmund Risk's. Infact, I love that man forever. May be God wanted it that way. To save the Africans.
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I REALLY THOUGHT I WAS BLACK
I REALLY THOUGHT I WAS BLACK
