From the Philosopher… #__INHUMANE__Episode_2 {Contd. from the last episode… If you hadn’t read Episode1, do so first and add up with this} Ikechukwu shivered all through the night like a tripper. His bladder gradually started accumulating urea, as though some of the rain droplets journeyed its way for a conference yonder. The urge to urinate increasingly pressed on him all through the night; and thoughts whether to urinate on the passageway continuously taunt him. Conversely, Ikechukwu knew it was a nuisance to attempt easing himself right there in the passageway, so he endured it. What a dilemma? He only placed his two hands cupped over his organ, as though it inhibits the imminent fountain flow of urine from his bladder. He lay on the bench sleepless, because of the prickly impulse from his bladder and also the heat sucked from his skin by the wet cloths he wore. He picked up a rag underneath the bench and covered his legs with it. Dizzily, he shuttered his eyes, and straightforward his mind went to his village. The axiom that life is not fair is in no doubt akin to Ikechukwu. He can attest that living in this planet is being subject to uncertainties of reality. He remembered the faces of the persons he once knew as his parents- Mr. Okigbo and Mrs. Martha Okigbo. Such lovely parents as his, although wretched, shouldn’t be visited by death, at such a time when their children wholly depend on them. He was nearly six when the cold arms of death stole away from him the happiness of family life. On that fateful evening when news came that his father, Mr. Okigbo perished in a fatal road accident. He was picked up from a roadside gutter where a hit-and-run lorry that lost its brake control knocked him into, and he died at the very spot. Aghast, Martha, when she heard what happened to her husband slumped and efforts to resuscitate her failed. It was later revealed that she died with a 4months pregnancy; an omen that cumulated into stories disseminating virally in the village; with untiring waves of several versions hitting the ears. How three lives were lost in a family, in a kind of chain reaction just in three days? From my father, to my hypertensive mother to the unborn baby; two corpses lay within an interlude of just three days; a tragedy that sapped pity from all the quarters of the community. Eventually, Ikechukwu had a twin brother named Ifeanyi. They stayed with Ma Naomi, a paternal aunt who was the proximate at the time of their father’s demise in the village. Being so tender, they didn’t realize the turn of events as sympathizers flock their home to condole them with lots of food and gifts. The experience was awesome and they got more than whatever they desired from any of their visitors, the hospitality while in Ma Naomi’s custody was to them as though they were in the palace; the best experience in their memory so far. Specifically, one thing that wouldn’t just escape their minds is the funeral ceremony of their parents. They were in a high glee and were over pampered with food and drink. Everybody seemed friendly to them. “What is really happening and where are our parents?” They just cannot understand. And as they pried to see their parents from the familiar faces around, they were deceived with different stories. Some would say their parents will soon come; others say they travelled to overseas {Obodo Oyibo} to buy you lots of goodies. The more sincere ones said that God has taken them to heaven. As events of the burial calmed out, the bereaved kinfolks gathered in front of Ma Naomi’s house, precisely a week after the interment of Ikechukwu’s parents to discuss on how to take care of the immediate survivors of the deceased. At the end of the meeting, Ifeanyi, Ikechukwu’s twin brother was taken by Mrs. Margaret; the younger sister of late Mr. Okigbo, to live with her family in Abakpa-Nike, Enugu. While Mazi Okey; the elder brother to late Mr. Okigbo decided taking custody of Ikechukwu. That was how Ikechukwu left home; literally expelled from the Deserts of Eden without committing any offence. His parents were wretched to a fault. They never really found life as a garden; still they made a happy home just like in Eden, perhaps at the desert side of it. His mind rambled to that very sunny Eke day when Mazi Okey took him to where he lives in Enugu; in a gregarious settlement Ugbo-Okonkwo; a remote suburban of a county called New Haven. He flashed thought on how his uncle dressed him on a new white up and down, with a pair of brown sandals- these he’d bought from the township for him which filled him with nostalgia. Mazi Okey appeared so kind and the warm smile that persistently hung on his face was so reassuring that all is well for Ikechukwu. So, both of them bade farewell to the village on that sunny Eke day and boarded a bus to Enugu. Arriving Enugu, Ikechukwu was fascinated at the big buildings with different paintings both old looking and bright ones unlike the houses in his village- Ora-ifite. As the bus moved, he noticed how the streets were busy flowing with smartly dressed pedestrians. The traffic was incredible like those experienced during Christmas periods in the village. And unlike pedestrians in the village that appears too casual, the people on the streets weren’t awkward looking a bit. In excitement, he prattled, pointing to modern houses, story-buildings, cars and tourist structures from the windscreen of the bus; showing them to his uncle one after another. His trip was quite enjoying and he was in nostalgia. Soon after some two hours they reached Ugbo-Okonkwo. As they alighted from the bus, some children in the neighborhood, who saw them coming down from the bus ran towards them to help them with the luggage. Ikechukwu was enthralled seeing kids prancing about Mazi Okey. He clumsily looked around and saw numerous women selling several items on small table shops, and many buyers were also perambulating around the tables. One of the embarrassing features he has to try adapting to is the stern look from the onlookers as though he was the center of attraction. ******************* Ugbo-Okonkwo is a shanty commercial suburban where 70% of her settlers are peasants and petty traders, who make living on table shops and shanties. The rest are taxi/bus drivers, carpenters, shoe makers, tailors, electricians, motor mechanic technicians and lots. ******************* Mazi Okey led his nephew Ikechukwu into his own one room apartment in the company of the kids that ran towards them to assist in carrying the luggage. The kids all thronged his door joyfully. This was their little way of welcoming their neighbors who traveled or had gone to market and returning with luggage. The major aim for this sort of welcome from the kids is to receive gifts from the persons they rendered help or welcomed. So, they patiently waited at Mazi Okey’s door for him to give them a share of what he brought from the village for them. Acquainted with the normal practice of the kids in the neighborhood, that they wouldn’t just go as long as they helped you in with your luggage else you find them something to share; and also as he was not willing to attract more attention from people by the reason of the kids gathered at his doorstep, Mazi Okey quickly offered the kids N20 naira and asked them to go buy biscuits and groundnuts with it. He handed the money to the most elderly among the kids, instructing him to make sure it was fairly shared among them. The kids happily greeted him and dispersed at once deliriously, shouting with great joy. Thereafter, Mazi Okey warmly greeted his neighbors, who enquired about the condition of the people in the village. After exchanging his pleasantries with his neighbors, he then retired into his apartment to rest. Mama Nonso was so happy to receive her husband and his young nephew. She hurriedly took out her kerosene stove to her usual cooking spot at the foot of her window and lit it up, placed her pot on it and started warming the soup to serve them food. She is one of the few women in the compound that obstinately doesn’t make use of the yard’s public kitchen which stood 80meters away from her apartment. Perhaps there are other personal reasons she wouldn’t want to share a kitchen with other co-tenants, so she insisted on cooking directly under her window. Momentarily she was in good spirits. She made them water to bathe and served them food to eat. She looked on Ikechukwu with great pity and welcomed him to her home, promising him that she will be like a good mother to him as long as he nestles rapidly with them. Indeed, it was an expectation for Ikechukwu to nestle down and cling to another opportunity of a new and probably a better life. He was well treated by Mama Nonso, Mazi Okey’s wife, who changed his wardrobe and bought foot wears and toilet materials for him. She also bought one small plastic red ball for him to play with. She started coaching him to enable him integrate into the urban lifestyle. Ikechukwu was on learning almost every day to catch up with the rapid moving train of urbanism. But, Ikechukwu’s problem started from Nonso; the only offspring of Mazi Okey. Nonso was somehow displeased at his first sight on Ikechukwu. He was a bit harsh on his little cousin and despitefully takes him as a stupid fellow. This envenomed concept he had against Ikechukwu created an irreconcilable gap between them. There was virtually nothing Ikechukwu does that appeal favorably to him, even common expressions, he would yell him up without a cause. He instilled constant fear on him and their relationship was nothing better than that between a cat and the mouse. Peradventure, this his ill attitude and arrant hatred on the poor lad could be as a result of his disappointment that the boy is not smart at all, unlike him who is a rogue. No sooner than the passage of two weeks had Mama Nonso’s warm welcome to Ikechukwu expired. She had been infected overtime by her son to nurse mischievous feelings towards the orphan under her care. It all started with constant scolding, then to beating him, sending him to do over-sized tasks and afflicting him with grievous punishment. More painful was her use of food to torture Ikechukwu. She started malnourishing the boy, counter-productive to her claims of taking good care of the boy. First, she purposefully slashed the quantity of food he eats, although Ikechukwu loves eating, he has a burning appetite for food. Gradually, she omitted a meal from the usual 3-square meals. This omission wasn’t necessitated by the lack of adequate food in the house, just her sheer of stingy nature and wickedness. Worst still, she stole away his childhood from him. She prohibited him from having his personal time to do things of his own will; from playing or associating with other kids in the compound. Her home became more like a prison to Ikechukwu; a change that finally wrecked his sail. Well, analytically, all these sudden changes can be traced to the fact that Ikechukwu is nobody and has nobody. What can he do? If not for their support, how would he have fared? That he was from a wretched background; a very timid village boy helped worsened his relationship with his aunt-in-law and with Nonso. When he newly came to their home from the village, he was a blunt novice to almost everything in the house, and he is a dull learner. Everything around him was practically odd, and he reacted so stupidly to urban life to the extent he soon turned a public scorn. Despite this, Mama Nonso ought to have been patient with the boy, knowing fully well it is not uncommon for him to exhibit the way he does. He certainly ought to react bizarrely to queer technological civilized township trends, not until he gets properly acquainted with his environmental changes. ******************** Tears dropped from his eyes on the bench where he lay. Obviously, he is still awake and has not slept. The only things he heard were the combination of the snoring of Mama Nonso and her son from the room, and also the high pitch patters of the cicada and the crickets echoing after one another competitively from locations no one knows. In the midst of his travail a song soon took over his mind, and no sooner than ought he was already humming it out. This was the song his late mother used to singing when bathing them or feeding them while in the village. As he continued humming the song, he felt dizzy and lulled to sleep. Meantime, the rain has stopped and the night grew so dead, still very dark owing to the blackout. To be continued:-
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 07:10:56 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015