Ten minutes past four
I woke up in a fateful morning,
After a long night of sleep
Then I adjusted my vision to read the rusty clock
Hung onto my broken wall:
It was ten minutes past four…
In surprise
I gave a second look at the hour
Then peeped outside through my window;
It was still sunrise
I realized I hadn’t replaced my batteries:
The rivers of current_ coaxing the three hands for every schedule_
Stood still
The very moment my batteries died
Meanwhile
There was a strict ban on movement in the streets:
My town was sandwiched in a big paddy of war
There was no shop to buy batteries from
To worsen matters
‘Twas my only clock
The war has lasted for three years now
It has made the mild desert a furnace:
Bonfires spread all over the place
And heat trapped by human carcasses.
All the property I had was consumed…
I am left with one only...
Me
The fighting had calmed down yesterday
War scenes evanescent with time’s transit.
But it broke out again in a forceful manner
So that events which I deemed tragic
Mounted at one time without ceasing…
This is not true in reality; time is fluid.
I was observant enough…
Having sighted the moving clouds
With silver linen
And recognized that time as a topic…
Deserved a deep reflection
The hallmark of reality is motion:
A distinction in every particle lies in how it moves...
In every living thing,
In which a discrete vein is embedded,
A definite quantum of time resides…
Blood rushes through each vein
At different speeds
Like logic literally flowing through
A free space...
The reason is obvious here;
The DNA fingerprint in every tissue varies…
Every living thing, dwelling on a range of awareness,
Has an objective to attain _
Be it noble or elusive_
This transport system model…
Serves as a vehicle
Through which the mindset
Resolves how fast one runs
And how long it will take
To get to wherever
One wants to go
Is your vein clogged with cholesterol?
In any case if any man decides
To mount on the brakes,
Or to break the vessel
Cutting out flow of Qui in the process…
Time will still move on
It waits for no one
His moment in the tracks of reality simply slips away
His reservoir of logic dries up, so much that
If nothing is done…
There will be no reason left again
To find his bearing in the sun
People say there is time for everything
I say: two hearts beat not the same way…
I hold firmly: there is time in everything;
The heart is still beating
And the script of logic is still running
For perpetual
I had lost touch of what was going on.
I looked outside…
And heard my African brother scream
“Even though the fighting is over…
Africa is far behind.
It would take forever to overtake the west…”
His name is “Otuoge” meaning “one moment”…
He was limping toward my window,
With the scars of war
I replied:
Your noise will never scale the four walls of your own mind
In reality every man has a time portal of his own…
…The moment of Africa’s transformation…
Lies in the hands of Africans themselves;
The journey of forever begins with one day…
He brought in some batteries
Which I used to replace the discharged ones on my clock
I hung it to the wall again, after three years…
The exercise meant a lot to me:
It was precisely the time the war began;
It was exactly the time the war ended.
Also, it was coincidental that
I needed not to readjust the clock...
It was as if the clock began to run
As soon as the arbitrary clock opened fire...
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