Teen Lit Journal

  Art Submission by Adriana Rocha

The Mask —Oyeleye Mahmoodah Lagos is  the land of everything that breathes. There is this unsaid law here that poison and food sell alike. It is the place for  voodooist , wo rkaholics, drunkards ,  captors , robbers and every other kind of human being you can name. It’s no t a  nation, housing people of different nationalities and ethnicity.  Nor is it  Vatican  City , with traditionalists, Muslims, Christians, Buddhist, Jews, Hindus, atheist, monotheists scattered all over.  Do  not  get surprised if you see a Mongolian or Caucasian on your  street, for this is   one of what jazzes in our space. I was born and bred in Lagos, but the fact therein is that I am of mixed nationality. I  am not j ust  Dora Sean,  that six t een years old British-Nigerian girl next door. I am an elder sister to a fraternal set of twins and my school’s social prefect. I am not in the least bit brilliant, but from my nails start the advertisement of the fashion-in-vogue.  This sometimes attracts comeuppances

  Maiden Meet —Babatunde Ishola   ( written under the Influence of  Idowest's   “Who” )   I dowu   Buraimoh  knew the end would come for him.  But he never thought It’d be as   quick  as this. He  sat  in between the two  hooded   men sitting beside him in the Lexus,  palms sweaty,  his   heart skipping  beats rapidly as he remembered gory tales told about those who messed with  Alaga's ọjà .   The latest he heard was about a certain middleman who corroborated with dealers to supply fake coke to one of  Alaga's   most trusted customers, who in turn  wasted  the boy who delivered it.   Alaga’ s   favourite  delivery boy.   Alaga  sniffed  the middleman out, got hold of him, and as the story went, sprinkled  chilli  on his  eyeballs as his famous pliers crushed  the   offenders’ testicles . It was too horrific to imagine. Such was the fate that awaited him that night, too.       Idowu  was not the son of a pauper. His father, as he once heard, was the sole head of the Motorcy