The Making Of Orgiastic Cyprian

Episode II
The Making Of Orgiastic Cyprian is an episodic fiction by Oppong Clifford Benjamin which focuses on educating its readers on the sacredness of sex and how the pleasurable act can be a divine form of prayer between a creature and his creator. The story centres on a mysterious sect of young women between the ages of seventeen and thirty called The Ancient Aphrodisiac Cult (The ACC). The cult is strictly invented out of the creativity of the writer. However, some settings in the story are real.
We hope you enjoy this episode as well as the others to come.

Hymn No. 69
Who Will Plough My Vulva by the goddess Inanna.
My vulva, the horn
The Boat of Heaven,
Is full of eagerness like the young moon.
My untilled land lies fallow.
As for me, Inanna,
Who will plow my vulva?
Who will plow my high field?
Who will plow my wet ground?’

“Stop!
Stop it!
In the name of The Mother, stop!”
Miss Juan yelled. She felt the absence of the soul of the hymn. She pushed her gaze into the yellow morning sun which pussyfoot its grandeur through the concrete windows ahead of her. She quickly remembered how this particular hymn made men use their tongues to search for divinity in the vulva of glorified prostitutes in the temple and how the men blurt out feeling purified, holy and relieved of their sins in the early days. She had read about the Atonement of Sins through the art of licking the vulva too as a chapter in Linda Londart Longman’s book ‘Blue Ritual of the Sex Cult’, and wanted to return traditions and ancient usages to their rightful places in the ACC during her sovereignty as Most Perfect Chiliad.

“Our purpose here would be fruitless as it has been in the past two or so decades if we continue this languorous approach towards our sacred art.” Miss Juan cried out loud, her voice shook terribly when it hit the four walls of the sexy temple. She descended the ancient pedestal which since time immemorial stood in the east of the large hall. She directed the attention of the qadeshes assembled to certain characters impressed into the front surface of the pedestal, SIVDSPHIV.

“It’s an abbreviation. Who knows the meaning?”
Still pointing to the letters, Miss Juan asked the qadeshes while she scanned her wild eyes through the assemblage for an answer.
There were whisperings among the naked ladies, their bare breast stood horizontally upright and succulent as a result of the oil of Ishtar which they had daubed into their skins. It was a tradition among the ACC members to insert the middle finger into a lithic vagina full of oil and smear over the body concentrating on the breast’s pap before entry into the temple for any ceremony. In the old days, cow milk was used instead of the oil. The milk was a symbol of fertility. But this and many other traditions of the ACC had been relaxed either to the generational gap or the laziness of the qadeshes as Miss Juan would like to think.

After few minutes of speaking softly without the vibration of vocal cord, Louiselle knelt on her left knee, erected the right in the form a square and gave a court bow – a submissive request for permission to speak to the Most Perfect Chiliad. Louiselle was barely six months old in the cult but had shown intellectual penetration into the mysteries and secret arts of sex. She was Miss Juan’s best friend in the sisterhood. Sometimes she asked too many odd questions that narks Miss Juan; Three months after Louiselle’s initiation, she was set for her sanctification ceremony whereby the rituals required her to seduce ten men and engage five in a divine sexual intercourse. On that day, Louiselle almost lost her life after the fourth man among the five selected for sex was done with her, but the ceremony thus far would have been considered invalid if she gave up. Miss Juan was the Most Wise Lady as at the time, and the ritual allowed the Most Wise to aid a candidate in a ceremony.
Miss Juan, on that day, moved in calculated erotic steps to the centre of the circle of fire where the fifth man stood over Louiselle’s body ready to insert his rod. Miss Juan positioned her head against the black and hairy chest of the Nigerian man. The man was from a rich royal Yoruba family. It was a popular rumour among the qadeshes that Yoruba men especially their Princes had the biggest of penises and stayed in sex much longer than any man on earth. Miss Juan picked a fibril of hair on the man’s chest with her teeth; she pulled it slowly till it extirpated. She whispered softly into the man’s ears “pains begat pleasure” and knelt down before him, still fixed her gaze deep into the man’s eyes and she swallowed the 13 inches long dick in her mouth and gently held the head in between her teeth, delightfully hurting the man. “Slap me” she instructed Louiselle. “Why?” Angrily Miss Juan retorted “just slap me, I am not here for your stupid questions. Slap me very hard on the face and butts”. And when Louiselle did, Miss Juan finished the Yoruba man in five minutes in an aggressive doggie style, while Louiselle caressed Miss Juan’s G-spot with her tongue. The heavy black man groaned like a lost ghost behind the butts of Miss Juan. He carefully withdrew his dick from her juicy vagina and sprayed his semen all over the butts of Miss Juan who was passionately transferred the thermal energy of her body to Louiselle in a titillating tongue-to-tongue kiss.

“Si Invenerit Vir Dei Secreta Pubentes Herbae In Vaginam”
“And what is its English translation?” Miss Juan asked Louiselle, climbed the footstall again and sat majestically in the east from whence she presided over all meetings of the cult. On her wooden pedestal was a book which contained sacred writings, a stony miniature of an opened vagina receiving penetration from an erected penis (logo of the ACC) and an ancient gold plated metallic staff which was presented as a gift to Hamamat (the first Most Perfect Chiliad) by an Egyptian King after his apotheosis. It was well known among mystics that most men with solomonic lineage visited the temple of Ishtar to be transformed into gods the better to enable them rule their people with a degree of supernatural superiority.

Louiselle drew back her lips and revealed her teeth in a totally innocent grimace. She had a faint idea about what the Latin words meant in English, but she knew they had something to do with the paragon of men to gods.
“errm! I pray you to forgive my ignorance, Most Perfect Chiliad,” 

“Si Invenerit Vir Dei Secreta Pubentes Herbae In Vaginam
Man shall be God if he found the secrets in a juicy vagina” Miss Juan said aloud, her voice sounded harsh like an insult to the ignorance of the qadeshes.

“Yes, I knew it had something to do with apotheosis”

“Will you shut it?” Louiselle reflexively covered her mouth with her palm and felt sheepish. But she was not too much affected emotionally because it was not the first time Miss Juan had been abrasive with her.

Miss Juan explicated further “The vagina possesses the natural ability to create man in the image of God via sex” She paused and swallowed saliva to lubricate his dry throat and continued “It necessarily follows that we, women, are makers of gods. Thus superior to a God by virtue of the vagina we possess. We are complex heavenly entities descended on earth to multiply gods to cover the face of earth like the sands of the shores” There was cute silence in the hall. Miss Juan raised the gold plated staff, the symbol of her authority, in the air and slammed it against the flat surface of her pedestal three sequential times to forcibly attract the attention of the gathering.

“Louiselle has proposed a special candidate for initiation into our sacred cult. The girl carries the name of the Great Mother, Hamamat and strangely, she hails from the same town our Mother derived her birth and infant nature-Bolgatanga in a west African country called Ghana” she addressed the qadeshes and later warned them “It could be the Great Mother reincarnated so I want her ceremonies of invitation and initiation perfectly conducted in spirit. And to achieve this, every one of you must start seeing herself as a superior entity to a god. Tonight is the invitation ceremony.”

 

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THE MAKING OF ORGIASTIC CYPRIAN.

The Making Of Orgiastic Cyprian is an episodic fiction by Oppong Clifford Benjamin which focuses on educating its readers on the sacredness of sex and how the pleasurable act can be a divine form of prayer between a creature and his creator. The story centres on a mysterious sect of young women between the ages of seventeen and thirty called The Ancient Aphrodisiac Cult (The ACC). The cult is strictly invented out of the creativity of the writer. However, some settings in the story are real.

We hope you enjoy this episode as much as the episodes to come.

Episode I.

Remembering how timid she was on the first day she came into the temple of Ishtar for her initiation, Miss Juan Onifat smiled and held the very tip of the giant penis which welcomed her and every visitor to the extremely dangerous, yet ineluctably romantic designs of the interior. She heaved a heavy relief, and it echoed in the somewhat sempiternal gallery of the temple of sex and she looked down at her shadow which was telecasted on the walls by the sun, the sun was at its meridian. She couldn't believe she was the Grand Architect of the Qadeshes and by virtue of the recent ceremony she was the sacred custodian of the recherché temple and all its traditions. It had happened too fast, she thought. She was a little above three years in the Ancient Aphrodisiac Cult (The ACC), and just in the morning of that day, she had been installed the Most Perfect Chiliad, an enviable position which took other ladies, between the ages of seventeen and thirty, ten or more years of hard labour in sexual affairs with hundred strange men from all the seven selected corners of the world.

"Congratulations, Most Perfect Chiliad, Grand Architect of the Qadeshes, The Sacred Custodian of the temple of Ishtar and all its traditions" a half dressed blond lady went down on her left knee and perfectly erected her right leg to form a square with the left, and gave a court bow in salutation to Miss Juan. In response to the cordial felicitation, Miss Juan smiled and carefully lifted her right hand off the statue of penis and placed it on her well shaved vagina, she in-fixed the middle finger into her organ for a short while and removed it, and placed the hand on the left shoulder of the lady who upon rising to her full length, took a short pace with her left foot towards her superior, bringing the right heel to the hollow of the left to form a square, she then lapped the wet middle finger of Miss Juan. The blond lady licked the finger like it was the best thing that had ever entered her mouth; a sacred licking with saliva leaking off the lips, very passionate.

The Qadeshes (members of the cult) have a religious belief in amorously passing their tongue about the always wet organ of their Most Perfect Chiliad and sucking the sweet scented liquid off her middle finger. It was a hallowed mean of communication between them and God. And She who did it passionately saw the face of God, or so it was bruited.

Stories were told of a sexy black qadesh who once visited the Heavens and had an idyllic sexual encounter with a celestial body believed by the qadeshes to be God. The rumours had it that the black lady, Hamamat, when she was only a girl of twelve years, was visited in her dream on a certain mid-night while she slept on a small mat, in a muddy hut at a cute arenaceous village of Bolgatanga, Ghana. She saw in her dream a middle finger of a white lady. Hamamat could not appreciate the face of her guest but she clearly recounted the sacred element; a 7.44 inches long middle finger which had the image of an opened vagina receiving penetration from a perfectly erected penis tattooed across the length of the finger, starting from the proximal to the distal phalanxes. It was recorded in the chapter 16 of the book Blue Rituals of The Sex Cult by Linda Londart Longman, a Most Perfect Chiliad of the order who reigned from 1656 to 1701 that, the white lady rudely ordered Hamamat to lick her tattooed middle finger like how a sexually hungry woman suck the hell out of a lustful penis, which Hamamat did after what seemed to be a struggle in the dream. And when she did, Linda Longman in her book described the process as nonesuch, which in modern theological philosophy is synonymous with apotheosis- the process of transforming a man into a god. Linda said in the Blue Rituals of the Sex Cult that, Hamamat after many hours of massaging the finger with her tongue, the mysterious entity who appeared in her dream vanished into nothingness for out of nothingness she had appeared, but Hamamat woke up the next day in the ancient city of Cyprus, precisely in the temple of Ishtar with no cloths to shield her nakedness from the full sight of hundred men who had their hard members aimed at her sorry self. Such, Longman wrote in her book, was the orphic means by which we (qadeshes) are all invited to a participation of the ancient mysteries and sacred secrets of sex.

“Cyprian Louiselle, may God strengthen thy waist to fuck your way to eternal glory”

“So Mote It Be” the blond lady whispered into air. It was the sect's peculiar response to a prayer.

Miss Juan blessed the blond lady, Louiselle. Louiselle made for the south side gate of the temple and just at the threshold of the exit, Miss Juan called her name aloud, prompting her to keep the traditional form of exiting; sitting on an erected penis carved out of batholiths rock and positioned at each of the four exits of the temple.

“Ah Huh! Before you leave, please remind me of the name of the African girl you mentioned to me this morning”

“Hamamat, Most Perfect Chiliad”

“Hamamat!” Miss Juan exclaimed out of surprise. She read the Blue Ritual when she was the Most Wise Lady of the cult. The Blue Ritual was only accessible by the Most Wise Lady. The duty of the Most Wise Lady in the ACC was to write the proceedings of the Ancient Aphrodisiac Cult in a chronological records so the history of the cult doesn’t get lost in antiquity like many sects of the then known world. During her office as Most Wise Lady, Miss Juan seized the opportunity to read extensively on their ancient art, the mysteries and history of having sex with strange men in the temple and the one that caught her interest the most was the mysterious invitation.

“Where precisely is she from?” Her eyes were widely opened and staring at Louiselle at the far end of the gallery.

“West Africa, Ghana. In a small sandy city called Bolgatanga.”

There was earsplitting silence for quite a while in the space between them.

“Are you okay, Most Perfect Chiliad?”

“Get me her picture, I will prepare for her invitation”

Watch this space for episode II on Monday, 19-12-2016.

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WE ATE ALL THE WORDS IN IBADAN.

A Report on WRR Literary Festival by Oppong Clifford Benjamin

Introduction.
The first time I saw writing unite men was on the evening of 2nd December, 2016. I quietly watched a group of committed young men from all over Nigeria cook their words for the ensuing morning. It was a night of rehearsals for the biggest literary festival in the ancient city of Ibadan- The WRR Annual Literary Festival. As if the organizers knew there would be some ravenous vampires in attendance, they rightfully nicknamed the event ‘Feast of Words’ and strategically themed it ‘Words in a Season of Change’. The theme sought to open the minds of writers and poets about the power of their words and their importance in our busy and dynamic world.
After what seemed like a long night in slow motion, we were gradually ushered into 3rd December by the hour hand. The morning came with the aroma of the feast. Kukogho Iruesiri Samson, the CEO of Words Rhymes and Rhythm, who single handedly built Africa’s largest hub of contemporary poets, was all over to make sure the venue was ready and befitting a feast. Actually, I must praise the decorators of the event grounds-the institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan- for job well done. Some selected books from the WRR publishing house were neatly arranged on shelves at the entrance which prepared the mind of anybody entering the venue for a daylong celebration of the finest of African literature.
Attendance.
The attendance was beyond the expectations of the organizers. The overflow was twice the number of people who were seated in the hall. It was a crowd of poets, writers, lovers of words and the media. There were also in attendance cameramen who squatted, prostrated just to capture every passing moment and freeze every memory in a picture.

Open Mic Session.
The event started with a freestyle session which was so professionally hosted by Bliss Oyindhamolher Akinyemi. Poets made us laugh, cry and provoke our thoughts with the charms in their words. My favourite was a poem on the national story on MMM in recent Nigeria. The poet was really funny yet stayed focused on his message.
The Main Event.
The main feast actually began with a motivational speech by Mr. Kukogho himself. He inspired everyone with the story of how WRR came to be the largest poetry sharing platform on the African continent and also how it grew from a mere Facebook page to a big publishing house and a college. He gave us more to believe in the saying 'never give up'.
His inspiring speech was followed by a few others before a male MC called me to deliver the lecture of the day. I was tasked to prepare a lecture around the theme. My paper was titled WRITERS AND NOETIC SCIENCES- the power of the writer's intentions. The only magic I did with my lecture was creating a lasting impression on their minds; actually making them realize that by words alone writers can influence the pattern of thought of their readership and by sciences, collective intentions generate a force that really have effect on the physical world. So as writers they possessed more than a pen or a keypad. I made them understand that they were demons and angels at the same time, if not God himself.
Sadly for me, I had to leave Ibadan right after my session for a meeting in Lagos. I wished I stayed for the evening session which I was well informed it was a smiling night of dance and more words to feast on, a night of African cultural setting as they went from being under the roof to sitting on mats under the sky, a dark night of colourful traditional dance.

Conclusion
In all, it was worth travelling from Accra to Ibadan. Thank you WRR family for having me, thank you Sir Kukogho Iruesiri Samson, thank you, James Ademuyiwa and you all gallant soldiers. I salute!

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My Lover turns into a Witch on Sundays.

By Oppong Clifford Benjamin 

I was as sure as faith and dance

as darkness and its absence 

and as heaven and humans- 

I had no doubt that God was here

And that God was there too;

In sins, He was here and 

in the holiest of holies, He was there.

It was a dark room under a dark rainy sky

with the stars hidden behind frowning clouds

The air carried everything including our doubts

on its carelessly chaotic cold paths to nowhere

It was the sound of percussion instrument playing

Playing soft hymns to the atmosphere unseen

On the floor, seated we were:

Legs crossed. Right on left leg

right palm in left.

A black candle burned its wax away 

to illuminate our dark life someways 

Kiky had mastered her craft.

She was in a black cassock

She looked ahead of my head

And closed her eyes again softly.

She didn't want to breath

She didn't want to call my name

I watched her dance to the heavens;

Head bent to the feet,

Her hips curved around the dark,

Hands thrown to the near west

Heartbeats in accordance with every bit

of nature. It was with the rains on the roof.

I watched her turn into air and 

back to a shadow on the wall

I watched her move back and forth

between the present world and trance

She danced her glory off,

She divined our future

And I looked on with anxious surprise.

And my lover finally became everything

I couldn't have been, 

everything I had only dreamt of;

The room walls 

The moment

The air

The candle

The dark

And God 

And Kiky was God

And God was Kiky

And God was us.

She opened her eyes abruptly and

spoke to the silence and it broke

As above so below, she said and smiled.

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Sunny Side Street.

 

The Sun can be sweet on the sunnyside street

Telecasting shadows of uncommon scenes ;

of boys who smoke the hell out of the street

of blind beggars who see the luck at sunrise

of fashionable girls with no cloths on

of barbershops where no hair is seen

Everything can be sweet on the sunnyside street

The day lives longer than 24 on the sunnyside street

We kiss our fortunes goodbye and sit for rude sights;

of girls who walk the side street in groups of three

to boys in faded blue jeans who could afford a lunch

of blond ladies who pray the sun dies off at six

to take whatever the grim fate of the day brings

they love the nights, its light and how the body bites

Of cops drawing strategies to improperly extort monies

from poor foreigners who have no identity aside pleading

Of robots that always smile green but no cars seen

cos we meet at every corner on the sunyside street

The night is never quiet on the sunnyside street

Bad DJs play your favourite songs in the ghettos

You nod and tap only your right foot on the tired earth

while your left is motionless because it's cushioning the ass

of a fine bladdered lady of the night whose name matters not

Thick guys knock you hard in the face and drag you on the floor;

they make you bleed

make you cry

make you think

make you curse life

make you taste what it is to be here

no ice is promised on the cream, they say

It's some gangsta shit, that too they say

And you wonder when your visa will be due

to leave because you know you will die soon

And the night grows into the morning and the day lives on

And you wake up in bed a proud a survivor

With the nameless lady by your side

to welcome you to just another version of the day.

It is always sweet on the sunnyside street

Robot: A visual signal to control the flow of traffic at intersections. Synonymous to Traffic light.

Oppong Clifford Benjamin

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THE VIRGIN MOTHER

'The Virgin Mother by Oppong Clifford Benjamin ' is a vibrating short story about a small students cult on Tescoland; the campus of Ghana Secondary Technical School (GSTS). Of which, members were even not aware of their membership in this mystical school. The deity therein was a drawing on the wall of the dark room, called the dungeon, in which they rehearsed every night when all were asleep; a half nude woman with wings appended to her back.

The Virgin Mother is summoned by dancing to the rhyme of percussion to exhaustion and only then would she appear. She came in different forms - a ray of light from the heavens to earth, a tiny smoke from earth to heaven, the sound of heavy down pour of rain and so on.

I dare say, the innocent cult was called TERROR SQUAD (TS).

Read excerpt of the thrilling short story:

..................... On the night of a certain day, it was past 1am in the late African winter weather. Tescoland was snoring, the evergreen field laid calmly in its oval shaped campus, the structures stood the heights doing nothing but staring at nothing and enjoying the tranquillity of quiescent atmosphere of the night, and the sea as usual, comported itself beneath the adorning stars in the dark sky which canopied everything including the dungeon, and therein we stood – three boys, students actually - playing the acid* we used in our previous performance at Mfantsiman Girls secondary school at Saltpond, it was of percussion rhythm and our audience couldn’t just stop screaming throughout the drama session, they were scared yet they didn’t want the show to end, they loved it, truth be told.

We wool-gathered and thought, we sought ideas from The Virgin Mother on the wall, from the God behind the skies, from the leaves of the tree which grew behind the dungeon, its branches had pussyfooted into the room through the broken windows, we were sweating, in reality we wanted to do something different for our next performance in St. Johns boys School. We wanted to break tradition.

That was a rivalry school to ours. The stories were told of the boisterous war between the only two boys schools in western Ghana over who was the desirable official gents to the only all-girls school in the region; Archbishop Porter Girls Secondary School.

From the news of the days, GSTS had carved an image of academic excellence over the years and still were fine-tuning this image in modern days, our school almost always was among the top ranks of the A class schools. And as most girls were attracted to guys with high intellectual faculty, so did we won the game when the dice were cast by the girls themselves.

But sincerely speaking, the Saints had the official recognition, as both Porter girls and Johns Boys were catholic schools; they easily found love in the communion of their faiths. Moreover the boys in the green shirts represented everything we were not; they were more fashionable, voguish, and rich and had a spot on entertainment.

It was apparent that the show to which we were preparing for was a big one and as big shows attract big audiences, we were compelled by source of motivation to give off our best. We contemplated on the numerous terror squad dramas performed by our predecessors, they ranged from; the priest and the farmer and the monster story to the poor boy in the jute bag and the zombies– in the composition of the former, an unsuspecting farmer discovered rather to his dismay a corpse which had been indecently interred just beneath the top soil of the native earth of his farm, the unpleasant scene came to sight, after he had rested his back in a recumbing posture against the trunk of a tree, and was decompressing his worn out self from a tired labour. And when he was alleviated, decided to resume his industry, to assist his rising, caught hold of a sprig of acacia which grew just by his right hand side, which, to his surprise, came easily out of the ground. The alarmed farmer being cognitive of the recent disturbance of the immediate earth, examined the soil and saw the remains of his own brother fast decaying by the actions of termites and weevils.

He, therefore, bucketed along to the village in deep lamentation to disclose the afflicting intelligence to the only catholic priest in town, who, he found at the sanctum sanctorum of the cathedral. He hastened to the holiest of holy without cleansing himself. The priest upon seeing him, shouted at him to retire for he was dirty. Nobody entered the Holiest of holy, neither the high priest, nor him, but once in a year, to pray for the propitiation of the sins of the people.

The farmer retiring to the main floor of the church emitted long loud wailing asking the priest to condescend to receive from him the smiting words on his tongue. His cries penetrated the immediate presence and travelled deep inside the heart of the priest.

Upon their return to the farm, they met an apoplectic monster oozing with extortionate anger, ................................

Kindly watch this space for the publication of 'The Virgin Mother'. The book comes with ten additional interesting short stories by the same writer. Thank you for your patience.

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In The Battle against Stroke

On the 7th day of February, 2015, exactly a year today, it came and took very much away from me - my speech, part of my brain, the muscles, my personality, my reasoning ability, my superb retention- but it didn’t kill me; I rather fought harder and instead, it made me stronger. The stroke taught me some vital lessons in life which I wouldn’t have practised even if I met them in my books.

It was very usual of a South African morning sky to have the sun actively at labour, and the least said about the effects of its rays on human skins and leather the better. It was half past eight in Cape Town, the administrative city of the country, and the city was already up with the refulgency of the sun, bustling and hustling with the cries of conductors of commercial buses traveling on the beautiful and black asphaltic roads. They were either moving to or from Durban to Bellvile and vice versa. And for some minutes long, I kept my gaze at the to and fro movement, from the windows of my room. I watched the pedestrians too. They were either walking or waiting to catch a bus to carry them to anywhere. I was thinking about nothing in particular, my head was comfortably rested at the intersection of my crossed hands on the panels of the glass windows. But not before I could retire to bed for a second time sleep, did Phina, my host, knocked at my door; she had come to ask if I cared to visit the Tyger valley Mall, which She said was the biggest in the country. "Yes please", I responded perfectly well and with much delight in my voice. It was my third day in the country, and I was still curious about everything within.

While in the bathroom, I looked at myself in the mirror that hanged just above the sink; it wasn’t a reflection of me I saw. It was of another man, whom we only shared resemblances, but not in his distorted mouth; the upper lips had shifted towards right and the lower to the left, and his reddened eye balls looked like one who had just stopped crying over a hurtful loss. I tried to understand that he was as normal as I was, but it was only then, that I realized something was going the wrong way somewhere. Something I couldn’t just fathom, it was strange to me and it appeared that the man in the mirror was more frightened than I was.
I felt total exhaustion after I managed to move my right hand to bath all of my body, which, of course, included my right leg which was refusing to stand properly. What is happening to me? I asked myself, but I knew I had not even the slightest clue on the answer. I still managed to re-enter my room to dress up for the mall, but I was weak and so I bedded. No sooner had I rested than Phina called my attention to the time and also advised that the sun could be terrible in the afternoon so we made it now.
Phina was driving, and I was seated just beside her, and she would, sporadically, converse with me. When she asked me to teach her my local language, I grinned without opening my mouth. Then another, she asked me how we said ‘good morning’ in my local dialect and I dared to speak, and the words just rushed all up at once in my head, each wanting to come out of the contorted mouth, confused as to what to say, I kept quiet. She asked why I was quiet, and I answered; 'ablebla', that was when I realized I couldn’t speak. But ignorant Phina laughed and asked if that was how we said ‘good morning’ in our local dialect, to which I nodded in the affirmation to save myself from further questions. I wondered what was wrong with me, my right hand wouldn’t do as the brain orders, and same with my right leg, and my speech wouldn’t come and I felt very sorry for myself.

When we reached the mall, Phina had a call from her son; she was to pick some items from him at an uncommon ground, so she left me at the car park to window shop while awaiting on her return. I came out of the car very carefully yet unbalanced in my steps and so she asked me whether everything was okay with me, and again, I nodded in response that all was well.
I dragged my feet to the mall; I could only see its magnificence in the white people around, for second I asked myself where the black folks are? I could see items on display but my brain couldn’t communicate with my eyes therefore everything I saw remained in the eyes, and not further to the brain.
Unconsciously, I found myself sitting in a restaurant and a black guy walked up to me with the menu, he welcomed me and asked if I would need the menu. In a deliberate attempt to answer him, I accidentally threw up the saliva I had all the while accumulated in my mouth at him but rather to my surprise, the guy saw that something was wrong with me and so was calm. I tried apologizing and the words wouldn’t just come out of my mouth properly, I kept on throwing my hands in the air, gesturing the words but I made no sense to even myself let alone the waiter. He told not to bother at all, and opened the menu, I was pointing to a particular dish but my right hand wouldn’t obey any orders from the brain or it was the brain who wouldn’t communicate rightly. The waiter then said he would serve me a nice meal. I threw my eyes wildly across the food court and I saw the waiter positioned at a corner and keeping a worried gaze on me.
He realized I found it difficult eating the food. No hand to pick them from the white plate and no mouth to chew. I kept on struggling with the feeding and ended up with the food in my nose and all over the place. One of the customers seated with a lady next to me, said to the girl friend; 'How can ocean basket allow mad men to come here just because they have the money'. The waiter rushed to me, and asked me if I needed assistance in anything, but I insisted I was okay with my left hand. But the waiter was smart to realize I wasn’t okay.
When I was exiting the mall to the car park, looking around, I found out that the waiter was following me. My right leg was eventually paralyzed, I fell to the floor at the park and suddenly I wept. I was crying because I realized how abruptly but gradually I was transmogrifying into a day old baby, who couldn’t think, walk, touch and worse of all feed. But babies don’t go to shopping malls by themselves. I knew I was still a man.
The waiter came to me and begged me to talk to him; he asked me what he could do for me and I wanted to tell him how I was feeling but each time I opened my mouth, the brain wouldn’t bring out even a word, and that made me cry the more such that the waiter too cried. We sat there in the middle of the car park, and then my brain came back all of a sudden, I remembered that I was with my phone; I gave it to him to call Phina to come for me.
He did and said that Phina was just somewhere around the corner and that she was already on her way to the mall. When Phina saw me on the floor with the waiter, she began to weep. She had a soft heart. Phina was above sixty years. I was hauled to Tyger Valley hospital, which I later learned was the biggest and well equipped teaching hospital in Africa and the third in the world. Indeed a first class hospital it was. I was admitted in the intensive care unit and had about seven doctors around me the whole night.
Just after three days, I could walk but far away from perfect, but I had not restored my speech. I was assigned to a speech therapist, a physiotherapist, a team of cardiovascular doctors and a team of neurological doctors. And above all, a powerful praying team, which included Phina and Noleen. So after a week in the hospital, the doctors felt I was fit to go home and discharged me. The rest of your functions will recover over time, the leader of the cardiovascular team told me.
After some time in Cape town, I was flown back home to Accra, Ghana.
 
THE WAHALA OF A RECOVERING STROKE PATIENT

Right from kotoka international airport to my current location, I have constantly faced humiliation in one way or the other.
I remember sitting in a taxi with two university girls in Kumasi, they engaged me in a conversation in English about the recklessness of some taxi drivers on the road, when I tried speaking, the words just rushed up in my head and I stammered over them, choosing them one after the other. One of the girls, looked at me, said “You could speak twi” while the other hid her face in the wind to laugh out. I looked at them and only smiled and shook my head.

Another was when I was opening a bank account in Accra, the lady started the conversation in English and when I was responding, I made a mess out of myself; I kept saying ‘eeerrrhhmmmm’, and then she asked me what language I was fluent in, I managed to respond out of shame, I said I spoke Chinese.

One day, I was just walking by the street in my neighbourhood and I later found myself in a trotro (commercial van) without knowing where I was going, the mate (conductor) asked me for my money until I realized it was an accident, and I told him I had no money on me and he was so furious insulting me, I tried explaining but the words came only half way, so the driver angrily dumped me at spanner junction and I walked to Accra mall, went into the wash room and wept my sorrow off. I easily forget, this stroke took away much from me.

In a meeting in Tamale, I recall the secretary asking me to sign the attendance book, and when I did, he looked at me, and told me to buy my first copy book to start writing again. We both laughed. But mine was the kind of laughter which comes from a sad heart. The stroke made my right hand, my writing hand, weak such that it couldn’t hold pen firmly.

While I was in an aircraft to Liberia, I wrote a poem in the clouds, I proof read the poem severally, with each time picking many grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and a whole lot. Each time I read the poem and saw some errors I wouldn’t have made if not the stroke, I would cry. I sent the piece to a friend upon arriving and he asked whether I wrote it, having known me for long, he saw in the poem that all was not well. He called and asked “Cliff, you don’t write like this, I know you. Tell the writer to do a little more of grammar and spellings before starting to write” then I laughed. This time it was a genuine laughter.
And the worse of it was when I am reading, I skip some of the words, which I later see upon re-reading the piece. I would laugh as I read the paragraph again.

But in all these and more, I have never stopped believing in myself; never stopped writing, never stopped reading, never stopped learning a piece by heart to exercise the brain, I have never stopped talking. These days, I have learned to laugh the more rather than cry over my inabilities. And the results are mind blowing. I have also learned not to talk at all when I was angry and my speech now is perfect when I'm much relaxed and speak slowly. That way, I give the brain enough room to process the thoughts slowly but sure.
And God has always, always got my back, that is why I am even able to type this piece in about an hour.
God is healing me, I believe I will be perfectly alright in three years to come, I have learned from a ted video.

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