Hi guys,
Happy New Month to you all and here's wishing you all the very best this month.
This is an awesome six-part series by Oladimeji Ojo (@iStalkWriters).
This is part 3 of 6 here on my blog.
TO START AT THE BEGINNING GO TO STORY 1/6
HERE
TO GO TO THE PREVIOUS STORY, CLICK
HERE
DEAR DIARY
13/02/2014
Dear Diary,
Today I took a life. I grabbed the essence of another being
and drank it out of him, slowly, in long draughts savoring the taste, the heat,
the gradual decline in his heart rate until I heard it issue a few feeble
thumps and limp the rest of the way to his demise. He was young, this human, young and in his
prime. He can't be much older than I look. Much older than I was when I stopped
ageing.
It felt just the same as the first time I took a life. The
hunger was real, consuming, it was all I could think of. You can't understand it, nobody can. A bull
might. I've heard that when you wave a red cloth in front of a bull, the color
drives it into a wild rage. I've seen it happen, out in Ecuador before I
returned home, the bull was prodded and worked into a state long before the red
cloth was brought into the arena. I think maybe that was the reason for its
anger, but what do I know of bulls?
-
Adeola Orilade III
05/01/1913
Dear Diary,
It is a year, today, since I left home. I remember the day I
left, the tears in my mother's eyes, the way I unabashedly wailed my anguish. I
begged my father to let me stay in Yoruba land at least. I could have lived in
Ibadan or Abeokuta even. Tradition required that the crown prince not live in
the Kingdom but did I have to be sent across the oceans, riding on Yemoja's
back to another man's home where the color of my skin was viewed as a
deformity?
I hate tradition. They say I cannot return until the king
goes home, I will never again look upon my father's face. I wonder if he will
die before my mother. I miss my mother.
I hate tradition.
- Adeola Orilade III
12/6/1923
Dear Diary,
My father is dying. I will return home soon, but to what? A
kingdom of peasants and farmers? I who have traveled the world and studied the
works of Marx and Nietzsche to spend my days on a wooden throne settling
backyard quarrels. But it is tradition. I am the first son. I am the heir. I
wish to see my mother.
-
Adeola Orilade III
12/7/1923
Dear Diary,
My father is dead. I must return home. I confess the thought
feels me with some joy but it is hard to be joyful in such dire circumstances.
I set out on this road trip in the hopes that I would fill myself with memories
of Europe, that when I am forced to hold court in the uncivilized kingdom of my
ancestors I shall have something to fuel my daydreams, this trip is a
nightmare.
First there was the storm, once we crossed into
Transylvania, our horses had keeled over.
Why in God's name I agreed to participate in such folly I know not but
Mathew and Mark, brothers, my best friends and future Lords of Worcester had
assured me that it was more fun than a motor vehicle. Utter nonsense.
Now I'm stuck in a dark gloomy castle, Mathew and Mark
promptly fell ill one after the other after the storm chased us to this
unlikely refuge. The lady here is kind at least, widowed I believe, and the
food is hot. It is a bit insulting that she doesn't deign to dine with us but
she might know who Mathew and Mark were, she would have no idea that I am a
prince (strike through) a King. Yes. King of my own lands.
I like how it sounds.
- King
Adeola Orilade III
13/07/1923
Dear Diary,
I am not a King. I'm a murderer. I killed Mathew. And Mark. Mark. He saw me coming. He saw my eyes. My face. I
didn't slow down. I was thirsty. She made me do it. She made me this.
-
Adeola Orilade III
13/07/1923
Dear Diary,
The night my life changed forever I had gone to bed early.
When she came I was pleased, she had chosen me over the causcasian men. I
didn't let her speak, I took her against the wall showing her with each thrust
the strength, the virility of my lands. I am African.
She bit me mid scream. I did not understand it. Till the
weakness started. Somehow I knew she was drinking, not my blood but my life but
I didn't pull back or struggle. I am African, I was a King. I was bred to face
death in battle. Even if the war was one of passion I was prepared to go to the
gods standing. So I kept thrusting till I pushed inside her the seeds of new
life, then she let go.
When I woke up, I was like this, like her. Hungry for the
blood of man. I had fed on my friends
first. They had been in my room at the time, both in tears thinking me dead.
She says I must not do so, I must not kill. She doesn't
kill, it is the rule. To drink and only weaken but never kill. She had drunk of
the little Lords before she came to drink of me. Had I slowed, had I stopped,
had I relented, I would have fallen ill like they did and lived out the rest of
my life oblivious.
I am dead now. But I was never this alive.
-
Adeola Orilade III
14/04/2003
Dear Diary,
I want to die. I have lived a lifetime. No more. I want it
to end. Trapped by my own existence in a
world of eternal darkness, I wish to meet the sun and perish.
-
Adeola Orilade III
12/07/2003
Dear Diary,
It didn't work.
80 years to the day. I am older than my father was when he
went to meet the ancestors, yet I look no different from the young King who
ruled his people for a decade then disappeared leaving no heir. Thankfully my
father had other sons, the King of my Kingdom is on his death bed and I look
like his son.
When I met the sun in the hopes that I would perish I
burned. The flames tore my flesh from my bones but night came and my body put
itself back together. I tried a stake next, then salt, then holy water, nothing
works. I am condemned.
-
Adeola Orilade III
25/12/2013
Dear Diary,
Merry Christmas.
Another decade.
I am still here.
31/01/2014
Dear Diary,
Today I moved back to Lagos. I was crated and shipped, like
all the other times. I had grown tired of Abuja and its depravity, food was too
easy to find, the women willing to hand you themselves at the snap of a finger.
I want a little more of a challenge. The false modesty of Lagos.
I miss my house in Ikoyi. Large as it is, it reminds me of
my mother.
-
Adeola Orilade III
14/02/2014
Dear Diary,
He's gone. The boy is gone. They came for him early this
morning. But they don't know, they don't know he's not dead. I killed him but I
saved him, I gave him a life, the best I could do.
I got carried away by my thirst but I could save him so I
did. But now he's gone, who will instruct him, who will guide him as my lady
guided me. Who will tell him to avoid the sun and salt. That attempting to eat
is futile, that he can leap buildings and sleep in the earth. Who will show him
to exercise control over his thirst? To drink without killing. He needs a
master. He needs me.
I have let a vampire loose upon Lagos. I must find him.
- Master
Adeola Orilade III
14/02/2014
Dear Diary,
I have found death.
I have found escape. Yemoja has chosen to bless me. To come
into my life and offer me her throat, her life, her existence. I tasted it,
ignorant at first, but now I know. I know. Salt. Her blood is salty. It will
kill me. It has to.
The young one will survive. He will learn or he will starve.
He is welcome to my property, my riches, I must leave him a note. But I must go
now, I must die.
She is waiting for me.
-
Adeola Orilade III
TO GO TO THE NEXT STORY, CLICK
HERE
