NOISY CRICKETS

 
Sometimes we just lay and as much as we try to find favor in sleep’s sight, she not only eludes us but cause us to roll from one side of the bed to the other. Don’t know what part turns her on most before she finally gives in but for me, I just try to drift into sweet thoughts of days before.
Tonight is no exception but however, she (I mean sleep) tends not to be horny no matter how pleasing my techniques seem to have improved. Whilst I dance to the music from my cover clothe and the not so appealing songs of crickets and nocturnal birds from outside my window here in Ezeagu, for no just course I begin to wonder why the hell she has decided to remain dry. As if the fact that sleep_ the wife with whom I must sleep every night has decided to estrange me is not enough, the incessant sounds gushing forth crickets like vomiting clouds on a rainy day suddenly becomes a cause of concern. Putting my ears to unrest as I restlessly try to fathom why in the pit of hell’s horned beast I can’t find peace.
That’s how irritating we too can be when in our depth of ignorance, we choose to be like crickets at night. Acting like gutters that have no control over the amount of run-off-water that pass through when pregnant clouds put to birth_ letting lose all kinds of dirt through our gate of a mouth the way the social media allows for all content these days. Lacking in the ability to hold our own like when dams are filled to the brim, when steels become saturated with heat or better still, like eyes can’t control teardrops at the sight of sliced onions.
Wander not far for that which my mind and the pen in my hands have decided to discuss is not far off. It is the mouth and the amount of vomit and sputum we emit daily that has brought about the reality of this piece. Wonderfully made the mouth is. It is made up of lips on the outside, thirty-two heavy guards otherwise the strongest bones in the entirety of human anatomy, protecting yet another mass of muscle with the ability to move in all directions one thousand and one times in a minute_ the tongue. All these have been carefully juxtaposed for what purpose? Eat, drink or speak? Let’s say the trio.
However, that which bothers me though we at some point have abused all three functions is the later function of speaking_ an arsenal in itself. Terrible enough is its unwholesome ability to trap the entire body in situations that retard the most ingenious minds. A morpheme, word, phrase or simple sentence is good enough to put china and Madagascar at loggerheads. Yes! and what baffles me most about it is that our emotions are easily irked and stirred by the little negativities it spurts.
My people say “Oghede-okpa oryelle”__no one banana tree stands alone. It is said and indeed a scriptural evidence posits that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. But however, you’d agree with me that the more consciously sane people are taken aback at how their direct opposites (speech wise) spill words like wildfire on dry grasses on a hot hamattan afternoon. Sometimes I dare say that the way some people talk, if we were to say such way, style and indeed the quality of words are borne off the abundance of the heart, ominous doom is imminent because a heart harboring such thoughts aside it function of pumping blood is in deep shit.
Away from that. Not all people spill like loosed taps. Man learns all the time but noteworthy is the fact that those who learn the hard way usually don’t live to tell the story most times. It will also suffice to say that no matter how badly I’ve painted the abuse of man’s speaking ability, the better usage saves not just your life but time which if properly managed transcends into money for the more beautiful things of life.
God in His Infinite Wisdom did not just give man a big brain, two ears and one single mouth. The wisdom behind this is that we Listen More, Think Deeply and say not just half the quantity of everything we hear and think of, but more so, say the intended in the best way possible.
People don’t listen to spillers and negative talkers for beneficial purposes. In fact, talking too much is more irritating than the cries of babies in church. It makes people find ways to stay away from you in ways that are detrimental to you. Have you ever been awoken by the sounds of a cricket and with so much anger, takes a broom snatches life’s breath off such cricket for causing you to lose your sleep? Sometimes I even make do with my feet to crush and squash such enemies of peaceful sleep. That’s exactly how you turn off people when you abuse God’s gift of speaking.
Don’t be a noisy cricket.
__Prince Jeremiah Kadiri