The Thing About Your Neck is a collection of short stories by the author. The stories are greatly Pan-African and reveal the truths many of us struggle with. Each of these stories is carefully crafted and is real. This is not faux, so you can pity Blacks or White, or any in-between. It is the reality that many facts have been recrafted over the years to hide some parts of our true stories. Anyway, sit back as you not only enjoy this read but take valuable lessons from it.
CELL ONE
A handsome boy, Nnamabia. He was her brother and they lived on the Campus of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Their father was a professor. And just like all the other professor’s children, Nnamabia was overpampered. These sons were known for perpetrating robberies in the staffs’ compounds on the campus. Everyone knew. Those were the days when the boys watched Sesame Street, read Enid Blyton, and ate cornflakes for breakfast. The thieving sons were the ones who loved to show off in their parent’s cars in the evening.
Nnamabia was the youngest, probably why he didn’t think of stealing elsewhere than his own house. His parents did little to discourage him from this behavior. Nnamabia finally got arrested along with some cultists, although he claimed he was not one of them. Still, there was no remorse on his part. The only thing that changed him in prison was witnessing an old man being mistreated by the police for not producing his son who was a robber, and who he had not seen in years.
IMITATION
Nkem, a Nigerian living in the US, had always wanted to have her husband with her. He is an acclaimed big man, one of the richest businessmen in Nigeria. He had married her in Lagos, after which they moved to Philadelphia. But he went back to Lagos, claiming he needed to be there to get more contracts and the contracts kept coming, so he almost never visited.
Nkem, who was fancying the idea that she was married to a big man, moved to America and owned a house. But years of loneliness with her children, who always had to talk with a father on phone, except for two months in summer and three weeks at Christmas. Nkem also becomes suspicious as Ijeamaka, tells her that her husband’s girlfriend had moved into her matrimonial home at Lagos. She finally gets the courage to tell her husband sternly that she and the kids were moving back to Nigeria with him.
A PRIVATE EXPERIENCE
Chika & her sister, Nnedi, were caught in the midst of violence during their visit to their aunty. An Igbo Christian driver drove his vehicle over a Holy Quran and got yanked from the vehicle, and the Hausa Muslims beheaded him, took his head to the market, and told everyone to avenge the Holy Quran.
The people cowered for their lives as they ran in separate directions, which was when she separated from her sister, Nnedi. She runs with a Hausa Muslim woman into an abandoned store. She couldn’t find Nnedi anywhere after that. In fact, they never found Nnedi and regretted their visit to Kano. She gets to experience, first-hand, the riot and sees that it is nothing as described in the news.
GHOSTS
The Biafran war sure left with its dark memories which most people would rather not remember. Ikenna Okoro had been thought dead because everyone says so and Prof. James Nwoye saw him entering the gates of the University when everyone was running away from the shelling.
Prof. and his family flew to the US after they couldn’t bear it anymore. They eventually came back to meet their house in rubbles. Things were definitely not the same, so they went back. Prof. lost his wife, Ebere recently, but their most beloved daughter, Zik, had been taken by the war. All these stories were hard to revisit, but Ikenna had met an old friend, Prof. Nwoye, and it reminded them of the past. Ikenna flew to Sweden when everyone thought he was dead. He had lost his wife and children too and never remarried.
ON MONDAY OF LAST WEEK
Kamara had moved to the US to meet Tobechi, her husband, whom she had married after NYSC. They had been lovers right from campus. After their marriage, Tobechi left illegally along with some church missionaries to the US but planned to stay back and fend enough to bring his wife with him to the US. It was until after six good years before she could join him in Philadelphia.
She was happy to see her husband but noticed the strangeness in him, he would try to talk more nasally, and they had lost whatever sparks that flew between them before. She tried to get pregnant, perhaps that would give her a fruit to love.
Kamara got a babysitting job at the house of a biracial couple, with their mixed kid, Josh. She, at least found solace as she cared for this kid, who was clearly been over cared for by his father.
JUMPING MONKEY HILL
Ujunwa, who is an enthusiastic and brilliant writer who was chosen along with other African writers by the British Council, for a writer’s conference. The name of the resort, where they lodged and which served sick food, was the Jumping Monkey Hill. Each participant would write and listen to each other’s stories for scrutiny. They were going to produce a possible publication in the Oratory. Edward, a white British, coordinated the event.
Ujunwa’s story is remarkable. She walked out of many jobs to keep her dignity, so she decided to make the story out of her experience. But Edwards disregards this story as unreal. He said the same thing as the Senegalese who wrote about homosexuality.
THE THING AROUND YOUR NECK
Akunna is taken to the US by her uncle, claiming she had won the American Lottery, only to get there and be used as an object to satisfy his sexual pleasures. It turns out, he was not really her uncle. He was a brother of her father's sister’s husband, not related by blood. She objected. He drove her away, and she found herself in Connecticut. She had to make ends meet and worked as a waitress. Now, she could afford to send crisp money to her parents in Nigeria.
She meets this white guy, who was supposed to be in school but decided to take a break to see the world. He was white and strange, yet she fell in love with him or at least offered her body to him. Even when he said she was cold. The guy took her to see his parents and his mother told her that she was the first girlfriend he would introduce to them in a long time.
Others would act abnormally when they saw them together. Akunna never wrote back home, she never had anything to write home about. Finally, she wrote home and got written back. That was when her mother told her that her father had died, five months ago. She felt guilty about the whole thing, and she was going to return home to see her family in Nigeria but was leaving without the guy.
THE AMERICAN EMBASSY
It happened during the Sani Abacha regime in Nigeria, a journalist who had taken to the cause of writing the truth. The government was against this and sent men to maim him. His son died in the process and left his wife broken both physically and emotionally. He escaped before it happened. His wife sought a better life outside Nigeria but gave up when the interviewer at the American Embassy was asking for proof that her life was in danger. How could she dig out the dead body of her son just so she could be accepted as on seeking asylum in the US?
THE SHIVERING
On hearing the news of the death of Nigeria’s first lady death and the plane crash, all on the same day. She worries that her Ex-boyfriend, Udenna, who was supposed to be on the flight. In this event, she got close to Chinedu, a neighbor living in the same house in Princeton, where she schooled. It turns out that Udenna missed the flight and is alive. She kept talking on and on about how she had woven her life’s plans around him. She made Chinedu her listening ear, as she would not miss one sentence without putting Udenna’s name in it.
It turns out that Chinedu had issues too. It was late before she knew. He was gay and had been betrayed by his boyfriend, Abidemi in Nigeria. In fact, Chinedu is not a Princeton student and is hoping to stay for some time before being deported back home.
THE ARRANGERS OF MARRIAGE
Chinansa Agatha marries a promising Nigerian Doctor who lived in the US, or so she thought. Dave was his name which she knew later, was not yet a doctor, and had not even gotten his papers. He kept going on and on about how she had to conform to the US lifestyle, to the extent that she has to use her English name only, Agatha. He would buy her an American Cookbook just so the neighbors would not hear the smell of the sumptuous foreign food which she does. It turns out, Dave had married an American Woman to trick his way into getting his papers, before divorcing her. Shocking as it was, Chinansa was tricked, but she had to find a way in America.
TOMORROW IS TOO FAR
Her brother was her grandmama’s pride. She so longed to be loved too and revered by this woman. Nonso was a child, the child because he was her grandmama’s son’s son. Dozie, who was an older grandson was not that. Grandmama taught him everything, from climbing trees to eating well. Nonso was always allowed to sip the coconut water first.
One day, she planned to trick Nonso into hurting himself, anything which could at least let her have some love too. Besides, she was a better climber than him. Nonso climbed to the top of the tree when she told him there was a snake, the echi eteka! Nonso fell and died.
THE HEADSTRONG HISTORIAN
Nwambga would live with the memories of her husband, Obierika. He was strong and firm, but they had several miscarriages before Anikwenwa came. A few years later, Obierika died leaving Nwamgba to the mistreating of his lazy cousins. Their son Anikwenwa would learn from the white missionaries and defend all the properties Obierika left, from the greedy hands of Obierika’s cousins.
Anikwenwa, sure, learned from the Missionaries, but he came to see his origin and tradition as heathen and sinful. He became a Catechist, but that could not deter his only daughter, Afamefuna from being so strong for her heritage.
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