Oo ni ku lo no bii efin –

You will not die on the road like smoke

For the people of Mbaise, there is no better way to celebrate the eve of a new year than by chasing the old year away during the twilight of December 31st. For them, the old year does not have to die and be slaughtered with sacrifices of animals in order to make it go away and fizzle into oblivion, it only has to hear the clanging of old pots, the beating of drums and the stamping of feet on dusty, red soil. The noise of shrieking children, the maddening stomping of sweaty adults bloated with heavy sighs for the joys and sadnesses of 365 days toppling into lives on end coupled with the frantic, swirling dance around a bonfire will send undesirable memories of Udara nightmares and the drought that nearly made Iri Ji, the New Yam festival, eventless.

And then, there are the knockouts. No old year can stand them; the bangers, sticks of glory shot into the air, pixie-light sparks screeching from waxed sticks like all the light that could not be sneezed away from the rims of the coals used by the clans to fry chinchin for the entire village during their Erigwara when the entire village gets to eat back from them. The fireworks into the sky in a competitive display of childish ecstasy.

Ichu Afo, that was what they called it, this chasing away of the old year to welcome the new one. The year that was being chased away was 2000 (the creasy edge of a new millennial). The year badly wanted to go not only because the children and teenagers of the town were insistent with their demands, having gone from beating pots and pans to chanting war songs on the road to terrorising the next village with fireworks but because, on its heels, was the planetary metamorphoses, that threatened to neuralyse its very existence.

Aside: It is one thing for people not to want you to exist; it is another thing to be stripped of existence, to be told that you never were.

Something big was coming to earth and even the old year, shrivelled and nearly wilting, did not want to hang around to see what it was. With the dancing and chants and firework-battles, no one noticed anything. No one except for Daddy Holy Spirit. He could as well have missed the momentous event; he was not mad that day, and unlike the rest of the villagers who were running amok around the streets, he was enclosed in a room with death hovering over its wooden ceiling. But thankfully, despite the claustrophobic ambience he was drowned in, Daddy Holy Spirit was a little bit senile around the corners of his earlobes which was stuffed with cotton wool to prevent the pus that constantly thronged his drums from pouring out. Because of these almost mad ears, he could hear the wheezing sound rushing from the West with a force that flared the capricious temper of the Harmattan. He heard the little cracks that tore within the of the sky like a cloudy curtain had been shred to pieces; the way the air itself hissed in annoyance. Or was it fright?

Daddy Holy Spirit couldn’t care less about whatever it was that made the elementals shift uncomfortably because this was the day his god-daughter Udaume was taken away from him.

While mourning, he would say to his best friend Uche- the one that does not eat yam – that gold is given to those who know the value of gold, a child is given to those who know the value of children. And did Mbaise know the value of children? Well, only the Udara tree at the outskirt of the town can say. For the past decade, it has not managed to swallow any child beneath its heavy fallen trunk because the people twisted the ears of their young under the moonlight and fed frightening tales into their erect, gnomish lobes about what the Udara would do to them if they so much as stood under it. Weaving a tapestry of stories into a shield meant to keep moving legs away from an unmoving force in nature, this is how much the villagers value their children…

Excerpt written based on one of my many lovely conversations with Chioma Nwosu.

I have never been good at completing stories but, Inshallah, I will complete this one.