THE SENTENCE
When I was in JSS1, our teacher asked us a question about Topic Sentence and while my classmates hesitated, I answered because I knew. It was my first time hearing the term yet it was one of those things you know before you are told. I looked around with contentment because it wasn’t my teacher that told my classmates about Topic Sentence. It was me. Perhaps today, years later, they have forgotten that moment. But I have not. Because since then, I began to notice that topic sentences were everywhere in our lives. One single sentence carrying all the information you need to know. One single sentence capable of changing your life forever.
In literature, sentences are influential. They are the
content, after all. But the most important part of the content is the topic
sentence. That one line that says it all. It can be the first line preparing
you for what’s coming. Or the last line, where the writer, evidently a dramatic
one, prefers that the end stays with you for a very long time. The best ones
are the ones that tell you the end at the beginning. So clever, so cunning. Even when knowing the end, there is the need to know the rest. Like Jesse
Andrews did in Me, Earl and the Dying
girl. In the very title he gave it all away. And yet, guess how many times I watched the movie adaptation?
They say do not judge a book by its cover. I judge a
book by the very first line. Everything I need to know is in that line. Because
books speak and the first thing you say to someone matters. I remember the
first thing I heard you say. You weren’t even talking to me. But everything I
needed to know was in that sentence. Waving red flags that should have sent me
running. Unfortunately I like red.
Amazing what a sentence can do. A string of words can change
the lives of many. I am pregnant. A
sentence that makes a father, a mother, grand-parents. Just one sentence, carrying
so much responsibility, making you more than you already are. One sentence and
your life will never be the same again.
“Be the change you
want to see in the world.” If you know nothing about this hero at least you
know this sentence that came from him.1
What would Love, our dear friend, do without sentences? The
sentences of love. Do you remember the first time she said hello and you just knew?
When he said I love you and your
heart expanded? It wasn’t just a sentence was it? Forever was proposed, to be
shared. Forever was accepted. No
greater declaration of love, than I do.
So simple, yet so profound. What would love do without the lines in poems and
the endings of love letters? Really what would love do without a sentence? I promise that I’ll love you for the rest
of my life.2
We love our favorite movies because of a sentence. You can
deny it but you like the movies you like because of that one line that takes you back to the first time you heard it.
“You’re a wizard Harry.”
“I will find you, and I will kill you.”
“No, I am your father.”
“Hasta la vista baby.”
“I volunteer!”
“This is Sparta!”
“I have had it with these mother -kin’ snakes
on this mother -kin’ plane.”
“As you can see, I am not dead.”
And that smile on your face as you recall, that’s how
powerful sentences are.
In one of the largest religions of the world, there is a testimony which when said with truth, turns one into a believer. Brings God into your life. Do you still look at sentences the same?
If sentences have this much significance, to make a father,
a marriage, a believer, then do you not think that they can be a thing of
destruction? You have to be careful with your sentences. If the one who says the
words may forget them, can you say the same about the one who receives them? Just as they
brought you together with someone, they can separate you. Words are our modern
day swords. To defend. To kill. To sentence. To free. It is said that words are
just air and they are not written on us. But if they could be, how many of us
would be covered with scars?
Did you know all this, before you said that sentence? The
sentence that ruined it all? Was each word
specified to violently impale me? My guess is that you did not care enough to
think. You did not weigh your words before throwing them my way. And you did
not look back to see how they pinned me down. For 16yrs I have studied
sentences but it still came as a shock that the same person who gave my heart a
resting place was able to take it all away, with just one sentence.
2. Niall Horan, Black and White.
3. If you don't know any quote from the list... I don't know how to help you. That is some good TV right there. In order of appearance, Harry Potter 2001. Taken (2008), Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back. (1980), The Terminator (1984), The Hunger Games (2012), 300 (2006), Snakes on a plane (2006), Black panther (2018).
Simple and concise, apt deduction and it's true we never forget words or statements that mean so much to us, it could be negative or positive, it weighs more if it comes from people we look up to or care about. And like you eloquently mentioned words thrown in the air can never be taken back, sometimes it takes years to amend a damage caused by careless words. There is one line/statement I will never forget, I had just finished my waec and was at home a while my Late dad's lawyer saw that I was getting comfy with staying at home so he advised he said "Tunji, go to school even it's a polytechnic just make sure you go to school" that statement alone changed my focus and I became determined never for once was I focusing more on my inheritance than education since that day and I am grateful for that. Thank you for sharing this with us. Godspeed
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