Writing Sample

Because of my location, this is bound to be "Old Kingdom" work. Nevertheless, here's a writing sample of mine:
----------------------------------------------------------------
Shango in Atlantis



There were giants in the earth in those days. Akhenaton, the father of Greece, had successfully waged his coup de tat. It was a master piece. We should have known, watching from the stars, how it would end. But it was too tempting to remain in the dark. The first piece moved was, as expected, the King’s God-daughter. No cries of “checkmate” no spontaneous laughter. Just a gallop. The Knight had done something and no one knew what.

“What is he doing?”
“He says he is about to massacre the Principality.”

Athon-aiye or “Athons” as it was called had solved the riddle. If the Israel could find a home while Rah-Mozes chased infidels down the Nile, escaping in the middle of the darkness, headed towards the lady who brought a bucket of honey and the promise of milk, then so could the Citadel. Her name, if we should be accurate, was Naftare, the goddess of Excellence in Scholarship.

“How much can you get from a cow?”
“Leather, weaponry, meat, even a chieftaincy title.”
“Chief Oba-Shongo, it is good to see you sir.”
“General…”
“He says general with a j…”

It was clear to all those who knew that the New Oba-Oba was the no-nonsense type. He smiled incessantly, even while his enemies were transmogrified by the presence of a sword in their bellies. He did this so that no one would misunderstand. This was serious business.
The Urhobo traced their lineage in order to determine how they would find their Father, the commoner known as Imhotep. Imhotep was a commoner because he never became bored enough to insert sheep semen in his family line like subsequent Pharaohs—including but not limited to the one who sold his only daughter into prostitution to furnish her skyscraper. She asked for it, he said, as though a father has the prerogative to not say “no” when the request is inordinate.

“Sobo and Sohwo.”
“Zobo and Zokho”
“Zouba and Zokhoto”
“Zou-Zou”

Aminattu of Zazzau was revered for her insight. She knew every fleet by the time she was seven. When she was eleven she had become, and this is no joke, the Principal Advisor to the Counselor of War. He would sit, late into the night as the moon painted the sky blood-red and listen to her hypothesize.

“Move the fleet off the coast of China to the coast of China” she said, “…and your days shall be plenty.”
“My days are already plenty,” I responded, not irritated but piqued. Why should she suggest that war was the only state of nationhood? If it is true that the less civilized were amongst us, then they were also around us. Might we murder them justly if, and this was the notion, they could not solve the riddle as my daughter had by the time she was eleven?

The birth of the Vietcong gave no one pause for thought. Hidden Dragon Crouching Tiger was the original. The Matrix was a sound byte. Neo was not the one. And Big Trouble was afoot in little China.


“Oba-Shongo is a bush man…”
“His grandfather was from Yemen…”

Ancient Oyo and Songhai were ready for battle. One against the other. Who knew the prophesy knew that Oyo would eventually rise again, just as in the days before Athon-aiye became the Principality of Herodotus, a man who scholarshipped Ga’ez and the Apostle Solon in the ways of resistance. It was the way in which Otolorin, swordsman of Oduduwa, could be resurrected “…if needs be” as Siezr the Younger had said.

“The Sieze…”
“Watch how he does it…”
“There can only be one motion now…”
“This is why it’s called Roam…”

True to his word he annexed the entire world for three hundred years and was known as Jah-Heru-Methu-Islam-Alekum because he did so with a smile and a wink. I, I just smiled incessantly as we plundered the stomach of the man who did not understand that Jibril was not one to be toyed with. Gah-Gah-Biri-al Suleiman, who knew how to divide a circle into seven parts before he was six was a tyrant, to be sure, and this is why we insert his name in the Book of Life—for he was not a Sage, Scholar, Prophet or King. He was the son of a city called Ggodd, a land buried deep in the core of the urth, spewing forth masses of men and women who, when they came to their senses, began to question that Ggodd existed.

“Where are we now?”
“We are on top of seven hills.”
“Juju…”
“Himself.”

The Arubala had been laid to rest and the people were now restless. What was I to do?

“Need I kill you immediately?”
“I’m not in the mood today, darling.”
“Yemoja you have not aroused my lust in six weeks.”
“You are impotent and wretched.”
“Your sagging breasts remind me of my childhood.”
“Your next visitor will be impaled.”
“Guards! Send the next visitor to the guestroom. I will visit him alone!”
“Do I arouse you now?”
“I need a drop of blood.”
“Wine!”
“Your Excellency, the bats are not yet ripe.”

Abimelek was sitting strangely. He was a reflection of me, they said, but his eyes wondered so. They say he had knighted the American. If this was true… if this was true…

“Oba Adefunmi wishes to know why you have said this thing.”
“He thought about saying no to my request for his land.”
“He wishes to faint.”
“Lay him to sleep with his hands on his chest.”
“X!”