Speaking

 • PARROT 

 WRITTEN BY ISAAC ODUGBEMI

SPEAKING

While checking my phone, I had an eye-mind interaction with a print and on it is the word “speaking”. The word speaking had no special meaning to me before now than that of which is one of the skills in language acquisition, aside that, we speak to undress the thoughts of our heart. A man is known through his words.

The first personality that ever spoke first is the creator of the universe. He said, “Let there be light and there was light.” He spoke light into darkness. He mended the broken earth by His words. Consider how the world would look like if the dogs, cats, fowls and the others can make expressions articulately. There will be no doubt that the moment you enter a forest territory to hunt for squirrels all other animals will shout you out of the place. Oral expression makes more impact because it often replayed in the mind of the listeners. I know an elderly man that so much loves to hunt for bush meat known in the Yoruba dialect as ekete. This animal is a big rat with a long tail, grey skin and funny walking steps. I had caught a glimpse of them sometimes in the night; they walk with their heads bowing to the ground below their body level. The bush meats are believed to be more nutritious than the chickens and meats we cook in our pots on market days.

All that God created during the exodus of His creation within the six days before resting was beyond physical beauty until recently that man unravels his gift of craftsmanship to put finishing touches to part of that natural habitat to become an artificial edifice for his own comfort anyway. On the Christmas day when families consume more of living creatures than ever to accompany the memory of the memorable season it offers, and then the chicken you bought at the market to accompany the rice and the pounded yam as they travel down the oesophagus decides to beg for its life as you place knife on its neck.

“Please Madame, abeg, don’t kill me, have compassion on me for I am three weeks pregnant of an innocent baby. This is my first conception this year. I and the father agreed to name him after him if it is a male chick” OR

“Madame, that man that sold me to you, stole me from my owner’s backyard last night. if you love yourself release me and let me go home because my true owner is a babalawo. He curses those who steal and eat his hen”

The word speaking can be broken down into two syllables, spea-king. It denotes in my view that speaking is done by kings. Therefore, speaking differs from talking. Talking is an act, speaking is royalty. And it must be done with the right attitude. Dear reader let your communication be always seasoned with salt, lifting up others and not breaking others. Speak to make others happy and not sad.

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