BEHIND THE PURPLE CLOUDS

I narrated this personal experience around May last year to Charlie Boy when I was at his residence in Gwarimpa, Abuja. He is writing a book, and wants to adapt my story. So y’all will be the first to have an insight of what his book will read like.

About this story, when I considered writing it for Kito Diaries, I didn’t know where to start, why I wanted to write it, to relive the past. But I believe that the more I familiarize the past with my present, the less hold it has over me.

My name is not Law, and I am twenty-one years of age. I grew up, knowing full well that I have always had a thing for guys, but I didn’t understand the feeling. I grew up in a strict Catholic home, and after my primary education, I was sent to a Catholic missionary ‘boys only’ school, one with very stern, high standards. When I was in my JSS1, on a Monday morning, six SS2 students were expelled on the account that they were involved in homosexual acts. At this time, I was so righteous I even assisted the school chaplain, as a spy, to nab the defaulting students. I thought homosexual acts were immoral and abnormal. I was naïve. I didn’t know any better.

INTERSECTION

Writer’s Note: This story is a mixture of reality, fiction and a bit of an active imagination. Translation: Some things did happen, some I wish had happened, and the rest is as a result of too much coffee and Red Bull.

PROLOGUE

We Lived. We Loved. We Conquered. In the end, We Parted…

JULY 2010

His day began like any other normal day. He arrived in Nigeria via Lagos on Friday evening, and he had a connecting flight to Abuja the next evening. So he had Sunday to relax.

He would have preferred to take another airline to get into Abuja directly, saving him the trouble of using a connecting flight. But being the Vice President for an airline in Canada had its perks, and the fleet flies Toronto to Lagos three times weekly. Plus the airport in Abuja was closed for four days prior to that day, for runway maintenance to reopen on Saturday. So either way he would have landed in Lagos.

He had back-to-back meet and greets within the city center with various government officials, as well as other men and women in the aviation business as himself. They were looking to increase service to six times weekly across Nigeria; two flights to Abuja which would be introduced in the first quarter of 2011, while Lagos would be increased to four flights.