All publications of Tobias Ogalla . Lagos , Nigeria

"Burning Flames"

He woke up that morning,

Wishing he hadn't wake up,

To the same predicaments,

Of unemployment,

And family responsibilities,

Hanging on his neck,

Even when he graduated from one of the best universities,

With a first class certificate 4years ago.

It was a beautiful morning,

And he could see the azure sky,

Through his windows,

Shining so bright,

With the usual shout of Veronica,

His neighbour,

Calling her daughter to help her out in cooking,

Since they had customers,

Waiting in their small bar,

Decorated with bamboos,

And the palm trees that surrounded it like a nimbus.

And so he took his bath,

Wore his normal blue shirt,

His neck tie,

Black trousers,

His shoes well polished,

And so he hit his boot on the road,

Hoping for the day to shine its lucks on him,

And end his suffering,

Since he has finally been invited for an interview,

By one of the biggest company in the city.

It was already evening,

When he got a congratulation text in his phone,

As he was waiting for a bus in the queue,

On his way back from the interview,

It was boldly written,

You passed the interview.

He jumped up with happiness,

Forgetting he was amidst the crowd,

He could see all his problems coming to an end.

Few minutes later,

A bus arrived,

And so he tried to make his way in,

With the pushing and shouting by the crowd.

As they all ran helter-skelter towards the bus,

He noticed a sharp touch in his pocket,

And so he grabbed his pocket,

And took a grip of a hand,

Trying to steal his phone in his right pocket,

He turned around,

And saw the thief,

His eyes were so red,

That you could barely see his eye balls.

Before he could alarm the crowd,

The thief himself shouted,

Thief! thief!!

Punching him right in the face,

With his fist that he struggled to breath.

The crowd joined the beating,

Not allowing him utter a word,

He tried pleading that he wasn't the thief,

But the beating was much,

With uncountable hands hitting his nose,

His mouth and eyes with anything they could grab.

As they had beaten him to the point of death,

A voice shouted,

Let's burn him alive so others would learn,

And so the crowd chorused,

Yes!

His clothes were all stained with blood,

That you could barely tell its colours.

They brought car tyres and hung on him,

Pouring fuels on him.

His voice slowly went down,

As he got tired of pleading,

This time he knew he had lost the fight.

They lighted him up,

And so he burned in the flames.

He could see his dreams burning,

He could see his sufferings,

And wasted years in school all in flames,

He could hear the voice of mama in the flames,

When she told him,

My son, you will make us proud one day,

He could see the thief with that smirk on his face,

Holding the stolen phone in his hand.

He could remember,

When he wished in the morning,

That his suffering could end,

But he never knew,

It could end in burning flames.

And so he smiled,

With tears in his eyes,

As he took his last breathe,

His suffering has ended.

©Tobias Ogalla

#Stop_jungle_justice!

"The Seven Headed Beast"

She opened her eyes,

And found herself in a different world,

This world is like an empty space,

Without the law of gravity,

Filled with darkness and cold,

With two moons and a golden star,

Shining so bright,

And almost outshined the lays of her eyes,

This world seemed incongruous to her,

It was never anything like the world she lived,

And only her soul as a body,

Because in this different world only your soul lives,

Leaving your earthly body behind,

So how beautiful or ugly your soul, is how beautiful or ugly you will look,

Because your body takes the essence of your soul for its existence in this different world.

She saw so many ugly souls and a few beautiful ones wandering,

And different arrows pointing and directing them to an open door each with a narrow passage.

So many looked like a human dragon,

Some like a hulk,

And few beautiful like a god and goddesses,

And the rest an unknown beast,

And so she saw a reflection of her own soul,

And she was a seven headed beast with fourteen horns on the head and seven tails.

She screamed scratching her new monster body,

With her voice echoing and saying,

This is not my body,

Where is my beautiful ody,

With all the Kardashian hips and boobs,

With all the perfect nose, cute eyes and sexy pink lips,

Where is my Brazilian hairs that falls perfectly to my waist even without my trying.

Why am I trekking?

Where is my Ferrari,

And my golden castle?

I need my iphones to call my parents or my billionaire boyfriend to come with his private jet and take me away from this strange world.

Where is my best friend I spend extravagantly with and go to the most expensive hotel with...

She left all these things behind in the earthly world,

And in this other world she only came with her monstrous soul body which was a reflection of her evil deeds.

She wished it was all a dream,

But it wasn't,

She was dead,

And in another reality.

As she was still screaming and pondering,

A door in her direction opened,

With an arrow pointing towards this door,

And she walked through this door even without her control or power to resist.

As she walked through the door,

She saw herself falling into a bottomless pit of fire,

And her monstrous soul was destroyed.

Her beautiful sexy body couldn't save her,

Not even her billionaire boyfriend, car or parents could save her.

The only thing that could have saved her was a beautiful soul.

So what kind of a body will your soul reflect after this earthly life?

Do you have all the wealth in the world and all the beautiful things but a hideous soul speckled with your evil deeds?

In this other world where only your soul can be seen, how would it look like? And which door will open for you, a door that leads to paradise or a door that leads to bottomless pit of hell...

©Tobias Ogalla

DUNCEDOM I

"Beast offshore"

(Poem by T. Ogalla)

'Tis hard to say,

Greater desire for power,

Can make the moral man Hellhound.

The pure fallen,

The wise dunce,

The good weeping.

Seekers hope shattered in field of thorns,

Guardians squandering hard values.

Guarded Merely escaping duncery,

Gripped by predators,

Bloodsucking beasts.

To be unchained in kinds,

Or in sweat.

What is the use of a hoe,

Without a farmers hand?

A world without godhand?

Father wallow in penury,

Mother cry in darkness,

All hope is lost,

Value is lost.

These beasts smirk,

To scorn to moor,

On the lost value.

Evil to prosper,

The good silent,

Utter, to be called to board.

On a hand-full of papers,

Arrested to rest pen.

Penalty of godhand at hand,

Haven unsafe,

Beasts offshore.

If I don't learn to shut my mouth,

I'll soon go-to hell Together with Okigbo's Town-crier.

"My High School Crush"

(Prose Non-fiction)

Tobias Ogalla...

I had Goosebumps each time I saw her walking like an angel. I wanted to say hi but my heart was racing like American 'Fast & Furious'. I had what it takes but lacked the courage it wields. One wonderful morning, I made up my mind that I would say hi if I ever see her. That was the first time I ever ironed my school uniform, I bought new pair of stockings and my shoes well-polished. I looked like young Achebe but the only difference was my tall sticky unabashed neck and my nose that points towards east. My friend was astonished when he saw how I looked like a professor waiting for some skill acquisition actions and smiled like Mr Bean. "Tobias, are you sure you're okay?" my friend Stanley asked. "What? Do I look like am not okay?" I replied trying to look loyal and honest like my military uncle taught me when being interrogated. But he knew something was not normal with me that morning. "This dude needs to visit some nuthouse", I guess he said in his mind with his reply mmmm. After some interrogatory section, I just realized we had walked miles closer to where I normally see her, but i didn't see her that day. I frowned in disappointment, and I had to give my friend a smirk so that he won't realize how conflicted my mind was. That was the most boring day in class and a second looked like an hour; I became a dumb student in my smart attire. I was wallowing in sadness till school dismissed for the day, then I had to run helter-skelter out of the school gate going straight home because I was already looking haggard. But my heart exploded like Boko Haram’s untimely bomb when I saw her walking towards my direction, gazing at me and smiling. It seems, time stopped for a while, with this Chris D’burgh’s Lady in red playing in my floppy ears and my head redressed her in a wedding gown as she walked down the aisle with me. Wait a minute! It seems she wasn’t smiling at me neither was she looking at me but at her friend behind me. The well decorated hall in my head started disappearing and I couldn’t cling on to any. First the music stopped, I was about to shout at the DJ and insult his generations when he also disappeared. I was still confused on how everything was disappearing until my extraterrestrial white suit disappeared too making my school uniform visible again. Then I realized that was an illusion and were all happening in my head, but it was a little bit late because the crowd was already staring at me like people who saw the talking tom reality show. Yes, she was among the crowd the last time I checked. And the most painful thing was that the ground refused to open for me that day so I could just hop in and cover my shame. This cast shadows of disappointment appeared on her ruddy just when I realized my mouth was open and hung pendulously all those time. She left with her friend laughing at me and I have to leave with my clumsy self in embarrassment. I thought I had lost her forever after embarrassing myself in front of her, but then one good evening as I was coming back with my friend from school, I saw her smiling again, i said to myself ‘Tobias, don’t embarrass yourself again’. I looked away and continued my walk until Stanley nudged me and whispered, it’s like she is smiling at you. I turned left and right to see if there was someone she was smiling at but I couldn’t see any. This time she was really smiling at me, she walked towards me and called me ‘’the Joker’’, that was a compliment after all when I smiled back like I have made it in life. Well, that was how we became friends and because of her, I never missed school and always neat and punctual. I became a bright student and was always called out as the best student. I finished school and never saw her again but then I never stopped looking neat, decent and my shoe well-polished even without my school uniform.