Spine of steel

I was busy with the preparation of food for dinner, chopping vegetables, onions, et al when Karl walked briskly into the kitchen where I was, held me from behind by ringing his arms around my waist, grinding his bulge against my thighs and giving me a peck behind my earlobe as I swiftly turned to look at him, wondering if he was high. His hair tousled beautifully in a bed mess, he retreated from me and asked if I liked it,

"What? Karl? Are you alright? Ofcourse not I didn't like that, you sure you okay?"


I fired rapidly at him, he beamed with smiles and said he did that because he wanted to see my reaction as Hamz had told him I kissed a guy and it was the most awkward and uncomfortable experience he's  ever had, I bowed my head in mock dejection, uttering under my breath, "That punk of a guy", then replied

 "How was it an awkward experience for him? He kissed no guy"

Karl smiled and said Hamz felt tortured seeing me pucker up to the dude and hasn't been able to get over the image in his head and I just laughed, reminding him Hamz is a kid and would get over it eventually, going further to explain how it was a case of a game gone utterly wrong and me being me, a cerebral and highly intellectual variety of the human specie (don't roll your eyes) have processed the uncomfortable incident and let it out of my head and gotten over it and they should all do same.

Whilst having dinner, Mom grudgingly announced we won't be killing any ram in the coming Eid-kabir celebrations due to lack of funds and we totally understood and silently chowed down our meal. Few days to sallah and a few of our muslim neighbors had already bought rams which they had teetered to poles in front of their homes, bleating unendingly, I wasn't jealous, rather I felt quite relieved knowing we would at least get some cut of meat during sallah. Also, i wasn't expecting to sew a new flowing native attire for the festive period but three days to the D-day, Mom surprised us all by getting yards and yards of clothing material which we quickly took to a tailor who took our body measurement and got to work, promising to deliver our clothes on the eve of sallah day. Mom then called me for us to brainstorm on what to buy and cook on sallah day and also to deliberate on whether we need to give out cooked food to our christian neighbors- in the face of the recession the country is currently in-  as it's customary to do.

While we were haggling back and forth, she suddenly remembered her mom and declared instantly she was going to travel to our hometown to spend the sallah celebration with her as she doesn't want her to be lonely on that day, more so as it was a tradition of her late sister, Aunt Tania to spend the festive period with her, the more reason Mom felt the need to take off from where Tania left things, so she went to the market and bought tins of milk and other tea beverages as well as other food stuff to take home to her mom and also bought food stuff which we would cook at home. Mom then called her mom informing her of her intending trip and she seemed quite excited that her daughter would be coming home to spend the period with her. Mom then called her sisters Nina and Hubaida to inform them of her travel plans only for them to call up their mom in an apparent ploy of family politics and got her to change her mind, asking her to come to abuja instead and they succeeded.

A day to sallah, as Mom was preparing to travel, her mom called her up, asking her not to bother coming as she would do the coming, apparently, Mom was so pissed but swallowed it and said it was fine. There was so many things wrong with their mom coming, first off is the sisters all living in less than perfect homes which wasn't ideal to bring their mom to, secondly, the times are tough, bringing the poor old lady would be much more expensive than Mom going to meet her as she gets pretty hungry all the time, a sign of her advanced age which means cooking more often and upon getting set to leave, they would need to buy twice the amount of goodies and foodstuff they would normally buy if Mom was to just visit her in our hometown, so Mom decided she would take a back seat and watch how they (her sisters) would spin a magic on this to make it all work.

On sallah day, Karl surprised us all by volunteering to help slaughter the rams for almost all our muslim neighbors who bought rams. As I have a phobia for blood, I couldn't stand the sight and ran inside whilst a shirtless Karl took a sharp knife and after calling the name of God went on to slaughter five rams that day whilst Hamz and QT joined in to help cut and clean up the animals with the rest of the men in the neighborhood while everyone praised Karl for having a spine of steel even though it amused all to see  an almost white american man slaughtering animals on a muslim festival day. Mom felt proud of him but I couldn't care as I was holed up in my room, not wanting to see a living animal's life snuffed out with a knife.

True to my words, we got sent chunks of raw meat which I cut up and marinated then cooked, sending its delicious smelling aroma all over the place and after frying, dished out meat to everyone while specially dishing out the neck area of the slaughtered rams to Karl as it's tradition for whoever slaughters a ram to get the chunky, fleshy neck area added with a big glass of chilled orange juice to boot, Karl kicked back, hungrily chewing at the deliciously fried meat with his lips noisily sipping at the orange juice in a manner reminiscent of greek warriors and gladiators of old!

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