Mama picked her black shoe from the floor with the kind of speed that prevents a human being’s reflexes from engaging in advantageous supersonic movements, and swung it with her left hand in a perfect arc towards Bassey (her cunning and irritatingly headstrong son) while still holding, with her right hand, his small feeble hand that connected to a vibrating shoulder which in turn connected to a stubbornly stiff neck that ensured the spectacular big head it supported, squarely fixated Bassey’s large terrified eyes on the quickly descending mass of woman shoe that was indeed intended to inflict some kind of pain that Bassey remembered in a sharp dreamy sort of way, a pain reminiscent of the type a serious victim of malaria feels when he thinks of the times in the not-so-distant past when he was hale and hearty; Bassey understood that kind of anguish and as the black shoe came down by the quickly passing millisecond, his mind strangely urged him to look away from the menacing shoe and examine his wicked mother’s face that age had wrinkled without any form of pity, that suffering had contorted to a slightly beautiful version of the facial features of monkeys, that anger had cursed with a creative mask of ghoulish frowns, so much that when the shoe finally touched down on his roughly shaven head decorated with razor blade wounds, all he could see was a high resolution image of his evil mother’s face surrounded by a galaxy of brightly coloured stars twirling around in a sea of darkness which, in this already confusing and intoxicating orgy of pain, was more than willing to allow this bright galaxy grow bigger and bigger and bigger–indeed, he began to see many people that looked like Thor ferociously hitting the walls of the galaxy with their heavy hammer, causing his mouth to scream things his mind could not have developed even in times of utmost concentration, not to talk of a time such as this when his mind was engrossed with averting the unrelenting clash of shoe and skull that had set up a hilarious but pitiful scenario: Bassey had given up trying to use his feeble hands to save his king-sized stabilizer-shaped head from permanent damage, opting instead (in the midst of the unbelievable and constant dosage of agony his head was receiving) to stretch forth his left hand (as he and his mother whirled round and round in fast dramatic circles in the compound) towards the constantly attacking shoe, in the hope that just as Moses (a man of God greatly feared by the forces of nature) stretched forth his hand towards the red sea, he too would perform what would surely be a wondrous miracle because he knew that no child alive had ever attempted to intercept Mama’s famous black shoe when it was engaged in the active service of beating a child, even more so at a time such as this when it had been assigned the passionate task of beating, in the dead of the quiet and very bright night, a male child that did not yet know what wet dreams where but who was already wise enough–but sadly foolish to be caught pants drawn out–to know that a certain kind of delicious pleasure was to be found under the small pink pants of his female cousins who were sleeping on the same bed with him in the children’s room.
Oct 202012
Ha! Chemo, is this an entry for a long-sentence competition or something? If it is, then it’s forgivable. But even then, it makes the narrative too clumsy for me.
Don’t really understand the phrase “caught pants drawn out”…was he caught with his pants down, or was his pants pulled out by an erection…?
@Shadiat: hehehe…it is not a competition o, but an experiment. By ‘pants drawn out’, I mean he was caught when he had already pulled up the pants, ready to draw them down his cousin’s legs.
Thanks for reading and commenting shadiat. Your opinion is much appreciated.
An agonizing sentence for. It was like watching someone perform contortions, painful. The structure is also confused. You started with the mother pov, switched to the son, ended with omniscient. Too much for one sentence no matter how long.
@Myne: When I read your comment at first I wasn’t sure I agreed with you cos I believe I used the Third person omniscient throughout, but on closer examination, I now understand what you mean.
Thanks for reading and for your insightful comment. Much appreciated.
Too many “dramatic” words made it tedious to read.sometimes simplicity makes a write up beautiful
@febby: I see what you mean. I do see what you mean and I really appreciate your opinion. Thanks for reading and commenting.
My first reaction: ‘just 1 sentence?!’
Then I checked the title and it hit home, it was literal. Suffered through it, you see the full stop is a really cool punctuation in English and other languages. Otherwise, the kain confusion we’d get…
‘a male child that did not yet know what wet dreams where but who was already wise enough’ I think the WHERE here shoulda been WERE, feel me?
@daireenonline: hmmm…so I still make such mistakes? hehehe…wonders shall never end. This ‘where’ and ‘were’ interchange ehn. Thanks for the correction man.
Honestly. The full stop is a wonderful invention. Wrote this to see how this style fares. And from the comments, I see that long sentences like this are generally agonizing…just like the beating Bassey received.
guess they have said it all, but i think it’s still funny though! do better next time!
@Ville: Thanks for that!
The full stop suddenly became cooler.
Brillant idea, @chemokopi
Thanks @sleeickstories. You are far too kind!
After reading I could connect. While reading though, I literally suffered through a headache brought on by such a long writing without any paragraphs and very long sentences at a time and very many imagery poured in at once, through two POVs. Was too much asking us to read this one. I have read better works from you…
Thanks for reading and providing this really useful feedback @adaobiokwy. Much appreciated.
Really funny Chem
@ifiokobong: Thanks Melody. You are too kind
interesting. liked the concept behind it. definitely a long agonizing sentence.
@laavidaalocaa: Thanks man…glad you liked the concept.
See, guy, it was a wonderful effort. A few more tries and you will get it right. I am definitely going to try the style out soon. It is interesting.
Encouraging words @kaycee, thanks for that. It would be interesting to see you use this style.
It was really agonizing, but there doesn’t appear to be anything more to it.
@supremo: Don’t quite get “but there doesn’t appear to be anything more to it.” Care to elaborate? Thanks for reading and commenting bro.