“Eeeeeee”, “eeeoooeeeooo”,
“weeeoooeee”, “whoop, whoop, whoop”, “wooo, wooo, wooo” ‘Ebube, can you hear
the wailing of the siren from afar?’
‘Yes Odinaka’, Ebube replied in a
sulky tone, as they were seated on mounds that were on a farmland, which was
close to a tiny pathway that steered into their compound that was barricaded
with rafters.
‘Chai! So it’s true that mama has
finally died? Chineke! This life is just a mysterious drama that everyone just
has to play his or her own minuscule script which was squeezed into these black
thin lines that are on the faces of our palms called akaraka. I just wonder the secret behind death. The plans that I
have for her and her dreams just whisked away into the air and soonest, her
story and history will be forgotten. What an unfair world. Why must people
die?’
‘My brother, I don’t know oh! Ask
God.’ Ebube shook his head and responded, as he was deeply in an agonising mood
and rain of tears flowed down from his eyes to the ground.
‘Just imagine mama lying inside
that wood called coffin and decaying their few days later, in the belly of the
mother earth that can never get tired of eating dead bodies like a chunk of
meat. If truth is to be told, I really wonder why men were created, since after
this whole stress and drudgery, all will just lie down helplessly in a box one
day and the lowest creatures ever, the akikas
will feast on their bodies. I’m just confused with this set up called life and
the ordeal surrounding it. I can’t even figure out how papa will feel, sitting
down close to the dead body of his wife inside that ambulance. You know papa
too well that anything that has to do with mama bothers him very much, let
alone this unending demarcation that nature and destiny have finally brought in
between them. I just pray that he will be strong enough to get over this pain
and learn how to live with them.’
‘I pray so oh!’ Ebube hushed
quietly.
‘Ebube! I can see the ambulance
now, look, look, it’s a white one. Ah! My lovely mother is gone’, Odinaka
bawled, as the white ambulance that conveyed the dead body of his mother rolled
in between their village bush pathway and clogged in front of their small two
rooms apartment, which his father Nwokenife built with the last money he got as
pay-off, from the Oloko company where he worked as a carpenter, at CMS, in
Lagos State, during the 1990’s. But he later resigned due to strabismus.
Onaa, onaa n’udo, onaa ebe osiri bia na uwa…! The Alum
village women, who were already seated under a canopy that was made from bamboo
sticks and palm leaves chanted the burial song gently, as they watched the
coffin of their member, Nwanyi Oma as it was been brought out from the white
ambulance by some Alum youths, who had converged at Nwokenife’s house very
early in the morning to dig the grave where her remains would sleep and rest
for eternity. Immediately, an outburst of cry ensued from all the angles where
the villagers, family and friends sat under their respective bamboo canopies as
her coffin was laid on two wooden long bench which were kept parallel to one
another in the centre of the crowd.
‘Father! Father!’ Ebube who was
fifteen years old yelled, as he sighted his father, who was been held gently,
as he alighted from the ambulance and was led quietly into their house by his
two friends Mbanefo and Ejiofor. As the boy ran closer to him, he tossed his
hands round his father’s thighs, held it and wept bitterly.
‘Father, so it’s true?’ Ebube
whose heart had been gulfed by sorrow enquired of his father, as his arm were
still girdled on his thighs, very tight.
‘Ebube my son it’s okay, God
knows the best,’ Nwokenife managed to mutter these words from his shaky mouth,
as he tried to let loose the boy’s arm that twisted round his thighs like an agbu, which was knotted round the stem
of a palm tree.
‘It’s okay my son,’ Mbanefo told
the young man, bent down and assisted Nwokenife to forcefully unwrap the boy’s
arm. He pulled him to his side and they all sauntered straight into Nwokenife’s
parlour where so many people clustered around like bees and were weeping.
‘Please Nwokenife, just sit down
here biko’, Ejiofor pleaded with him
and pulled closer a long bench, which was empty very close to the window and
they all sat down on it and viewed through the window space in order to have a
sight of everything that was happening outside.
‘Nwokenife my good friend, please
stop crying like a woman and be strong. If you continue this way, it won’t be a
good idea. Think about this; who is going to console your two sons if you
choose to weep like a child?’ Just look at what you are doing in the presence
of Ebube, your son,’ Ejiofor squeezed out these words from his mouth, as his
eyes were wet and reddish.
‘Ejiofor my good friend, aru emee! I can’t still believe that my
wife is gone. Nwanyi Oma my lovely wife. If crying for her loss will make the
whole villagers to classify me as a weak man, so be it, because I don’t care.
Do you mean that my precious possession has disappeared just like that?
Mbanefo, the most horrible part of this nightmare is that she was never ill; I
mean nothing was wrong with her. She woke me up in the middle of the night six
days ago and started screaming; her head! Her head! And that was it. Before I
could run to Nwachi’s house to plead with him to convey us to our community
hospital at Oji, she was already gone. We thought it was a joke so we insisted
and drove her down to the hospital but Dr Obidigbo confirmed to us on our
arrival that she had given up the ghost. Uwa!’
Nwokenife shook his head, folded his arm and kept them in between his legs and
tears surged from his eyes, through his cheek and pasa, it landed on the
ground.
At exactly 10:00am, Rev Osondu
who was the parish priest at the Holy Trinity Anglican Church Alum village
arrived in the deceased compound. Other church members, friends and families
had already settled down under their respective bamboo canopies earlier and
were patiently waiting for his arrival so that he could initiate the opening
ceremony of the final burial rites of Nwanyi Oma, which would be given to her
as a Christian woman.
Osondu’s arrival ushered in a
kind of calmness in the atmosphere of Nwokenife’s compound, as those individual
who wanted to cry and express their emotions had taken their time earlier to
pour out as many tears as they wished, since Nwanyi Oma’s dead body arrived at
about forty-five minutes ago. Shouting and crying was also part of the rites of
a dead person in most African communities. Both the evil people and the good
ones would always observe this rights and some individuals could even go to the
extent of pulping themselves on the dust of the earth and inflicting injuries
on their bodies.
Rev. Osondu who parked his
motorcycle under an ugiri tree that
was in front of Nwokenife’s compound on his arrival, strode straight towards
the bamboo canopy where his church members were seated. He sat on a short bench
that was in front, close to a wooden table that was covered with a white piece
of cloth, and a bible and a hymn book were placed on it. Osondu bent down as he
was seated, said a little prayer silently within some seconds and afterwards,
he stood up and the burial mass began.
‘Shall we all stand on our feet’,
he urged the congregation and some people stood up, while some others ignored
him and fixed their buttocks very tight on their wooden bench. He led them in
an opening prayer, after which he called out few hymns and it was chanted by
the church members and other villagers that came with their ekpere n’abu.
While the burial mass was going
on, so many women from Alum village that came for the burial were not paying
attention to the mass, but rather, they gathered themselves and were seated
under an orange tree that was few meters away from the canopy where the church
people were. These women were busy discussing about this mysterious and
untimely death of Nwanyi Oma. Some of the women were of the opinion that her
death was not natural, that it must have been orchestrated by some evil people
or forces. Some others narrated how premature death of young men and women had
savaged their village, leaving no clue of those responsible for this evil act
in the recent time. They pointed out how good Nwanyi Oma was and they wondered
how someone on this earth would think of pointing a finger at her, let alone
deleting her from the face of the earth. Adanne, a woman from Umuneri village,
who was a very close friend of Nwanyi Oma told them that a similar incident
happened in their neighbourhood a fortnight ago. In fact, they confessed that
the rate at which people were dying in their villages in this recent time had
become so anomalous and very excruciating. They wished and prayed that the law
of karma would prevail someday in their land.
-Emeka Ubesie
Visit the blog next weekend to
read Chapter two of Silent Tears.
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