11/06/2020 ~ Queeneth and Sire's love story.
Have you ever heard, of a dreamer girl?
Living in a world, so far away?
~ Dreamer Girl By Asa.
I'm sure everyone who read the first six chapters of this novel must have been wondering how I was so fast with my updates right? How I was super sonically able to release one chapter almost everyday not so? Like I've got the fastest fingers for a super power right?
Well I am surprised too because if you were an avid follower of my previous stories, you would know for sure that it takes me a few days or even a week to update a chapter in my story. Well it's because I've got school to deal with. I am an art student at my high school and I have got literature and history text books to tackle with so I only get to update my stories during the weekends, hence the unprecedented delay.
Now for sure you would think that it is because of the world wide pandemic in existence that's the reason why I have been able to update so richly since we are all on lockdown and there's nothing occupying anyone has been engaged in?
Of course. It's okay to assume that, because I would have done the same as well but as the saying goes, "you never know, until you are told" hits really hard because it was true. In fact I did wish it was the pandemic that enhanced my productivity to the level it was currently in. I wish I updated my story this fast because I was bored and had nothing else to do.
All my life ever since I made this big decision in to become a writer, I have been on the constant edge of the cliff and I have been running a race with no motivation; it has been a thorny part all through for me and I hated how I had to sneak to do the things I loved doing. I could not understand why I did not have the freewill to write as much and as delightfully as I could.
It was tough for me and the existence of the pandemic even made it worse. I was a human being with a peculiarity that did not give me the privilege to do just anything like other human beings could do. I could not wear heels like every other sleek lady could, I could not participate in athletic activities of any kind, I could not run errands or trek to places of long distance and I could not even kneel or jump or do anything funny with my legs at all. I could not do too much chores at home too which was pretty amazing though.
I wasn't crippled, but I had a rare disease named Blount's disease. I did not hate my life for what it was. I was only focused on being happy despite the condition I was in. I was bent on being confident and doing the things I loved to do and I wanted people to know me for it.
I had decided to become a writer after a major surgery I had while I was India. I had a small book where I drew a lot of characters and would formulate so many stories for each character. I drew them on my sick bed when I was not receiving any injections or having to undergo any medical procedures.
My drawings as at that time were ugly since I was only just twelve years old, but I loved to form a lot of characters. All I knew that time was that I loved to draw a lot and I did not care how ugly my drawings looked.
I came back to Nigeria after three weeks of my stay at India. My dad accompanied me to India and stayed all through with me for my surgery and beyond. When I came back to Nigeria, I could not go to school for a while because my legs were bound in a cast and I sat on a wheelchair for three months because I could not move on my own. Bones do take time to heal so I had to heal a little before I could go back to school.
I missed my aunt's wedding simply because I had to stay at home but I did not mind. My dad told me that I would become a great person in life because I was courageous and I did not let my problem bother me. I never saw it as a problem though. It was just one of those things that happened or maybe because I was just a pre teenager, I did not really feel the effect of things.
While I stayed at home, I made a lot of drawings and still loved to formulate my characters. I made paintings on cardboard with bluntly colored pencils for my church community and wrote messages beneath them. I drew a pictorial image of Hell Fire once and wrote beneath "hell is real" those drawings were cute despite how child like and unreal they looked.
My pastors were so happy with me that they came over to my house once just to commend me for the things I did. I loved my life and I missed my friends at school. My dad had gone to my school once to extend my greetings to my classmates and told them about a guy I had a crush on the class whereas it was not true.
It was really funny and I wondered how my dad could lie against me simply because I mentioned the guy's name to him once.
Please don't take my daddy's side now because I know what you're thinking!
Months later, I was finally able to go to school regardless of the fact that I was still using a wheelchair and a cast. I had good and supportive friends. I could not relate to anyone mocking me at school because of my legs because I never had to deal with that. I had good people all around me. My life was good in its best possible way and I did well at school.
When I got to JSS3, my external exams arrived and I had to read hard so I could do well in my exams and move on to my senior class. This was the time of my life when I had fully started to write and had realized that I could become a writer after all. Then I started little by little. I would leisurely draw the characters of my story at the back page of my examination question booklet once I was done answering my examination questions and was waiting for the invigilator to announce that the time lapse was over. I used it to while away time but I was in love with my characters.
The love I had for these particular characters surpassed the love I had for the characters I had been formulating over the years. I had a special liking for these particular characters and I just realized that I was willing to be insanely dedicated into building the lives of these characters.
These characters are the Williams family; Yemisi, David, Alexander, Demi, Cassandra and Ebunoluwa.
Yes, the characters I write about now and the characters y'all read about. It all started from me just drawing slim, unreal figures of each of them at the back of my examination question paper and then writing little little stories about them, news updates on my higher education note at school, and then moving on to writing actual stories of them individually in a long, hard cover notebook till I then stumbled on an app called Wattpad.
Crazy right? I know. I myself, never thought I would come this far with these characters.
So clearly, I found my purpose and what gave me life. Writing and drawing were two things I was very passionate about, little wonder why I described Demi as an artist and a fashion designer in Our side of the dice book 5; The Job Like's Affliction. I tried to put some nuggets of my life into Demi as a character because I imagine myself being a top notch fashion illustrator and artist.
These two things kept me sane and happy - drawing and writing. I did a lot of public speaking at church too and would recite chapters and chapters of different books of the Bible endlessly at my yearly church zonal competitions. I shone like a bright light. I was truly peculiar. I did what I could do despite my shortcomings. If I could not make up for one aspect of my life because of the situation of my legs, I made sure the other aspects I could make up for were not deficient. So I always did my best.
I was happy in own way despite the fact that I could not do much social interactions and hanging out with friends. But as I grew and as it got closer to the part of my life where I had to choose the career path I wanted to take at the university I was to apply for, my life became a wreck.
I never thought that it would be a problem but it was.
I wanted to become a writer and an artist, so I wanted to study creative arts or literature at school but my hopes came crashing down when my mother came to my school once and suddenly spoke to me about her and my dad's desires for me to study law.
I hated law. I never saw myself doing it. I mean what was I looking for in a voluminous and nerve wrecking course as that?? I did not even have the dexterity for it in my own opinion. I could not understand why my parents would want me to do what I was utterly not capable of!
I was not good at arguing and I did not deem myself smart enough to study a course like Law, neither did I like to talk much despite the fact that I did a lot of public speaking. I mean, I only did public speaking because it was something I found exciting to do but I never expected my parents to take it seriously.
"You're good at speaking and you are good with memorizing. You memorized chapters of the Bible and recited them numerously at the church podium. So what makes you think you would not be able to memorize sections of the constitution? Being a lawyer would be the best for you." My dad said to me one night as he threw the grains of fish feed into the pond.
The catfishes came in a warfare of hunger, as the water splashed violently, depicting their hustle to feed on the grains dispatched into the water.
I wondered why I could not just study what I wanted when my parents knew clearly that I loved to draw a lot. I mean, they saw me draw a couple of times, I drew for my church. Yes, my drawings were far from impressive but I did it consistently. Didn't that ring a bell in their heads?
Why couldn't I just go for what I wanted? What truly made me happy?
I told him about my writing as well and how I had found a new passion in the activity hoping that he would at least let me study literature and become a writer so I can do something I was passionate about but he warned me to stop doing those things already as it would only be advisable for me to start reading ahead for the course they were going to make me study.
It made me so sad. I had a laptop which I got as a possession from my school since my parents paid for the gadget amidst my school fees payment so I only had access to it during the weekend since I had to stay focused on my studies during weekdays. This was how I was able to update my previous stories for about two years. I always wrote my story plan during free period classes at school so it made my writing faster during the weekends as I did not have to start thinking of how to write my story.
My parents expected that I was only to use my laptop for academic purposes and since I did well at school, they did not see the need to monitor or keep an eye on me to know if I was my using my laptop for school work or not because they assumed I was doing so. So during those times, I got to update for five hours on Saturday's and two hours on Sunday's because I had to go to church.
This was how I managed to update all of those stories you all have an access to read now and I just kind of kept it a secret. Only my younger sister knew about it but she did not care much about my story and whether I wrote it or not. I did not know why I kept it as a secret either because as at that time, I could have chosen to even tell my parents about it since I was unaware of their future plans for me but maybe because I saw it as a safe haven, I did not want everyone to know about what made me happy for some reason. I was just skeptical.
But now, I had no access to the laptop whatsoever since my dad was now aware of the fact that I used it to write on Wattpad. He seized it and demanded that I read ahead for the course I was going to study since he had already bought a few textbooks for me to start reading.
Then coronavirus happened hence all activities were suspended. I could not go to school nor take any external examinations that I was supposed to take to apply for Law. Yet, I still did not have an access to my laptop, and my phone had recently just been damaged, and unfortunately for me, my dad insisted that he would not repair it until he was convinced that I was now interested in studying law and he did not want me writing on Wattpad using my cellphone since the tendency to do that was very much possible.
So how am I updating this current story? You would ask.
I had this amazing male friend named Sire. His dad was a physiotherapist who lived not too far away and through the years, I had been visiting his place constantly for physiotherapy every fortnight. Since I could not go to the general orthopedic hospital like I used to with my mother, my mother had decided to book a permanent physiotherapy session around the vicinity which was much more easier for me. She did that just so she could ensure that my legs were still under proper care and the health of my legs does not get worse due to a reckless abandonment of it.
I had to watch my weight always since weight gain was the major trigger for my legs and it was pretty easy for me to gain weight regardless of the fact that I was not much of a foodie but I barely went out of my house neither could I do any exercise so that was something I had to tackle with because those things as well could lead to a weight gain.
My mother used to drop me at the physiotherapist's years ago until she got busy with her trading and then she made Sire, the physiotherapist's son swear that he would take care of me and prove himself trustworthy.
So during the weekends, Sire came for me in his car and dropped me at his house for my medical check up until we became friends through that process. On some weekends, he would drive me to somewhere far away, and would make me do some exercise with my legs which I found way more therapeutic than his father's physiotherapy sessions in fact. I had a lot of fun while I was with him and I always looked forward to the weekend when I had my appointment.
I told him about my story and what was going on with my life and how my dad had stopped me from writing completely. He offered to help. He had a laptop at home. So usually during the week, I would write the outline for the chapters I wanted to update on my notepad and would type them on Wattpad while Sire drove round town.
First, I'd take a short therapy session with his father so the money my mum paid for the sessions don't go to waste and once I was done, Sire would offer to drive me back home and his father never objected to that of course because he believed Sire would drive me home truly.
But that was when the adventure always began. He'd drive around while I spent time in the backseat of his car, updating my story on his laptop from the notepad where I jotted things earlier during the week. Even when he had nowhere else to drive to, he kept driving around or would at times just park his car somewhere until I told him I was done updating for the day then he would drive me home and luckily enough for us, we always made it home in good time.
That was how I was able to manage updating this story. I had to sneak my way through. But for how long was that going to last? What if my parents found out? When the pandemic evacuates from the earth and it's time for me to go to school, would I ever get the chance to write a story ever in my life?
Never again. It made me really sad. What do I do? I had no idea. All I knew for now was that I just wanted to keep writing.
One evening, as I was updating the sixth chapter of this novel, Sire said something. He normally would never say a word whenever I was writing my story on his laptop so I could concentrate properly. But what he had said, made a lot of sense.
"Queeneth" he called me. My first name is Ojuolape but I told Sire that my second name was Queeneth since he had a huge difficulty pronouncing my real name the first day I told him. I didn't like telling any one that my name was Queeneth. I preferred people calling me by my first name even though it was hard to pronounce but I did not know what made me tell him my second name that day but now, he's practically the only one who was allowed to call me that as it sounded like music to my ears whenever I heard him call me that.
"Yeah?" I said looking up at him.
"Don't you think it would be nice to try and make your dad see authentic reasons why you should be a writer instead of a lawyer? I don't think you can just keep writing because a time would come when you would no longer be able to do so. I feel you need to do something drastic instead since there's time for you to do that now."
"But how can I possibly convince him now? He has made up his mind." I answered, sighing.
"I think I know of something you can do." He answered, looking out the bridge outside, the sun was setting now and the breeze felt very warming all of a sudden.
My heart raced with a newly found hope and my eyes widened in reaction to his reply.
Oh my dear, Sire!! What can I possibly do without you?!.....