Ilongo Fritz

The Lost Heritage

By Ilongo Fritz Ngale

Doctor Langa sat scanning the latest results of the laboratory tests he had asked to be done by Pa Ngebodi, the sixty five year old man sitting expectantly infront of his small table, at the local health center of Bolinga. The old man looked unkempt, with an unshaven chin, pockmarked with a week’s old pepper and salt beard. Even as Pa Njebodi nervously chewed on his lips, the doctor was regularly hit by copious blasts of the days old raw gin stench that his client irradiated. After a thorough examination of the papers before him, the doctor looked up at long last, and in a professional voice said: “Pa, I thought I told you some six months ago to stop drinking “afofo” the local raw gin?”

Beauty and the Beast

by Ilongo Fritz Ngale

At 1am on a very wet july morning, Pa Gana was the last client to leave the boisterous “Tonton bar” in the red light district of “Quartier Malabar.” Staggering drunkenly, he miraculously zigzagged his way through the overflowing drainage conduits, splashing indifferently across mud puddles. At the beginning of Nkane Street, women of all ages, shapes and sizes huddled under shabby umbrellas, waylaying the late passerby: “Darling share my bed. It is very cold outside.” “I can make you really happy.” “I have a warm bath waiting.” “Don’t you remember me?” Under his stinking breath, Pa Gana was saying: “Get lost. I want only Adidja. Can’t you leave me alone?” The withering looks the ladies gave him in the dark could have frozen a river, but the old man was past caring.

Mind Control Saga

By Ilongo Fritz Ngale

During the last day of his campaign as Mayor of the Ebola Rural Council, Efite Ngolo scheduled a meeting with recalcitrant party militants of Camp II who had vowed to vote for the opposition, following their vehement accusations that he had done nothing for the municipality during his first term in office. Addressing himself to Tonga, head of his compaign team, Efite was saying: “If we do not win in Camp II my political career is finished.” “Take it easy lord Mayor. We are still on course. It takes very little to bring the rabble to its knees.” “Why don’t we send bags of rice and cheap red wine to them before the meeting day proper?” Suggested the anxious Ngolo Efite. “No, no my lord Mayor. This time around we have to go beyond simple stomach filling. We have to step up the pressure from a new angle.” “Tell me about that. You know I will do anything to run for this second term.” “We have to carry out mind control on those rebels.” “How is that?” “Through hypnotism.”

Asuagbor The Death Monger

By Fritz Ngale Ilongo

On friday evening Mrs Asuagbor was saying to her husband: “I was thinking that we should pay a visit to your brother’s wife who has just put to bed twins at the Catholic Mission Clinic.” “Forget about that. Since mother and children are doing fine, they neither need our financial assistance nor our presence. Going there will be a waste of time. You are forgetting that we have to attend four wake keep ceremonies today. Boy O boy, how happy I am to attend so many funerals.”