Endless : The Diary Of A Nigerian Orphan - Episode 1

 

When my parents both died a somewhat strange death in the year 2014. I could not forgive the steep hill that championed it. At age seven then, I heard different versions of answers to their death-puzzle. Memories of them were fading and were almost daunted by the scary accounts of acclaimed witnesses. Until my aunt Sally; the youngest of my late mother’s siblings posited that an eerie being seized them away during a hill climbing experience, I never knew that they could die, that the very hill used for peace offering in my village could swallowed them up.
“Deesay”, my aunt Sally had mildly called on that fateful day the news was disclosed that they couldn’t find their corpses, “I don’t believe their deaths was natural. But as you know that we are Christians and don’t engage in these traditional practices, we leave all to God”. 
“God!”, I had mouthed . Of course, at that age of blooming consciousness, I knew who God was and still is. What I didn’t know then was why they would die a strange death. Going on a hill climbing experience was akin to being engaged in a fun-filled kind of excursion. Why would it happen? They were Christians from the lives I had watched them lived and the church I had followed them to - Anglican church. One of the reputable churches with good-spirited members

All episodes of this story can be found here >> https://www.ebonystory.com/story/endless-the-diary-of-a-nigerian-orphan

. I didn’t understand at all and still don’t because till date I feel in me that my parents are very much alive . when I relayed my thought to Usen; my male friend from Benin city. He had only shook his head and comforts me with an answer that I would see them in heaven.
“I believe you, Deesay. It is only that when you say this outside, people would think that your head isn’t correct. They will say that you need ‘help’. which I know ,isn’t so”, Usen had explained with pitiful gestures. Usen is my only male friend that understands me as much as my aunt Sally understands me also. He supports the bitter truth that scientifically, my parents couldn’t have died so suddenly among the vast spreads of mighty hills and the slippery underground tunnels beneath them. We both knew, along with few sensible friends of mine that my parents would have made the mistake of going further in the steep lanes and unmarked bush paths of the supposed ‘sacred’ hills. They could have been rescued after a day or two of going missing. But our clan head saw to it that their weak and near-dying bodies saw to the devilish appeasement of the gods. 
“strange as it may seem. I believed that our clan head is the chief planner behind this unfortunate happenstance” , aunt Sally had wept. On this fateful day, she had marched around town screaming at the top of her voice that she was growing suspicious of our clan head. Her claims were quietly rebuffed as she knocked on each of our chief’s door. In people’s eyes, there were no facts; no supporting points to trail him.
“aunt Sally, let’s go home. Nobody is listening to us, let’s leave it to God, because Dapo and Akpevwe are beginning to say that our head isn’t correct” , I had pulled at her thickly knitted wrapper, circling my tear stained arms around her lower body.
“leave me, Deesay. You don’t understand, they don’t understand. Do you want to tell me that our people have forgotten the role he played during your birth!”, aunt Sally had jerked in fitful rage.
“what about my birth? What role did chief Obende played?” , I looked up at her with swollen and sullen eyes. The eyes that looked back at me were scarier, wearier and more dreadful, because they were stained with specks of blood. Now , as burning questions like fire billowed around me, I wanted to know the tale beside the news of my birth and as well dig the truth that underpines my parents’ death. 

In the south-southern part of Nigeria, there lies a primitive state with the slogan, ‘heartbeat of the nation’. Ever since I could tell my left from right, I am yet to be convinced about the state being the ‘set heart of the country’. Like the heart in each human being; I visualize my state of origin doing the same work . But do they actually do the same work? I asked myself. If I am to explain my view, then this is it : vast majority of the populace major in rubber plantation and extensive farming. That is to say, our natural resources doesn’t even top the shortlisted state that front the nation’s economy. Aside that, I pay attention to the daily news, my headmaster reads out every morning, and I hear him mention that our region; especially the neighboring states, were beginning to train and arm several young men to hoard the ‘gold’ in oil mines. Before, I could understand this statement, it took me extra effort of begging the headmaster for the newspaper review the following days. When he gave it to me, an hour after recess period on that day, he slightly pulled at his spectacles and looking above it, warned me to be different.
“be different Deesay. Those big men uses intelligent children also”, the headmaster had warned. 
“even girls like me, sir?”
“yes, girls even younger than you are”
Then, I knew that he had only succeeded in disabling my interest in knowing more about the dangerous and illegal money-spinning venture. I had read through the article that captioned the news of the latest mask-faced recruits in the creeks and their buried new ammunition beside the oil wells. The statures of the masked faces that were displayed were those of mature and agile people. Definitely, it couldn’t be a woman thing, because women do not have a broad chest and biceps, let alone a girl- someone as young as I am. Before, going into my class, I scanned through the rest of the photographs and what I discovered gave me a superior confidence that it was never and would never be a female thing. Well, I had sighed. I am in school to be educated , to learn about life and not to detest it. To teach my life to spring its comfort and fulfillment and not to be soggy and dampened by the ‘bitter waters’ that could sometimes drop.