Fiction: Kola in the Morning.

'Kola, don't ask me why or how; you just don't go there', Maiya swiftly carried her pot of egusi soup from the passage back into her hollow face me I face you room. She was the only person - being in her early 20's- who Kola could dialogue with after moving into the neighborhood some few months earlier. With his huge frame and handsome face, he walked towards the entrance of the house, stroking his well trimmed beards, while a brushing stick happily went back and forth in his mouth. Kola wondered why even his closest pal in the neighborhood couldn't also explain why people feared talking about the uncompleted building which was adjacent to his rented room.

'Just maybe.. maybe, I should figure out what is in this old uncompleted house today!' he soliloquy. With his usual determined mind forming lines of seriousness on his fine face, he dragged his foot - wrapped in bathroom sleepers - towards the tall mythical uncompleted building on a sunny and shining morning.

All he wanted was to see the entirety of the house and possibly destroy the nests of those horrible birds which were making life miserable for him at night.

As he matched towards the building like a military personnel, Kola reminisced the nights when birds with the most horrible voices screamed from the building directly into his dreams.
He sometimes thought rapture had occurred due to the enormous ballistic tones made by the intimidating creatures. He remembered how he insisted on taking a room which had its wooden window facing such a location like the two halves of the human lips.

Village people were at work.

There were times he kept up compulsory vigils at night because it could feel like 'awon aye' were passing, as birds flapped their wings constantly, scarily, and making obscene noises.

If something is special about this yeye uncompleted house, I want to know today.

Kola you can do it!

This morning, I will break this jinx and remove those stupid nests of these birds!

Those were his resolution as he jogged down the little bush path separating his roughly cemented rented room and the uncompleted building. The building was a bungalow already laid with roofing sheets. A fine dormer windows structure stood aloft.

'The person wey get this house fit don die; and him family fit dey bewitch each other on top ownership', a still voice from one corner of his heart whispered as he stood at a proximal distance to the bushy entrance while he rolled his long sleeve shirt steadily, ready for action. The popular 'it is well with my soul' song steadily popped up in Kola's mouth, as the morning sun flashed through his eyes. A bumpy cutlass from his landlord's store stuck in awe to his hands.

He steadily cleared the bushes at the entrance of the old uncompleted house, whistling gently to entertain himself. The small children from the neighborhood gathered in twos as they watched Kola doing the unusual. Each step he took towards the bushy entrance of the house brought up silent but scary thoughts; he was already prepared to dispel them all with the meager psalms which were well versed to his cerebrum.

Complex network of cobwebs spread across the untidy and bushy living room as Kola stepped into the house, while removing them with the edge of the cutlass. No one since he arrived into the neighborhood had taken such bold step. He gazed around the corners of the living room hoping to find the hideouts of the troublesome birds. Kola walked gently towards the other rooms while brushing the weeds and dirt at his feet away.

'whoo-are you', a strange voice descended on his small ears like hurricane...

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