Endless : The Diary Of A Nigerian Orphan - Episode 2

 

It is moonlight time, from the wooden chair at the veranda where I sit, I can see from afar, my age mates staging a play and dancing around a stony circle. I am at my maternal grandmother’s house. She is the only surviving grandparent that I have. Though, she is blind and sometimes struggle with un calculated steps, her spirit is strong; very strong to have received such news about her daughter and son in-law and yet, she shows no sign of debilitating health. In her words, ‘life must go on’.
She is the one to tell me the odd stale tale beside the news of my birth . Since my aunt Sally couldn’t bring herself to tell me what my story is, without two streams pouring down her face, blurring the faint images and choking the leftover words that could explain my birth. My grandma is the one, the strong woman that I know.
“Deesay, where are you?”, my grandma called as she grope round her walking stick in the dark. I should have jumped up from the bench and instinctively shout that I am here, but I delayed to watch her tie her drooping wrapper , scrunched up her nose and at once looked down at the floor. Of course, she couldn’t see what was , but I saw it - the unclean plate of ogbono soup. The smell wasn’t too strong because few streaks of the soup lined the plates

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

. But my grandma with a keen sense of smell, got it fast. 
“I must have dropped this here”, she soliloquies as she bent to pick it. I dashed at it quickly, before her long fingers would reach at it.
“grandma, I have picked it”, I smiled as I watched a calm smile circled her face. What she lacked in eyesight is obviously being blessed by her sharp olfactory lobes.
“so you are still around. I thought you must have join your mates at their moonlight games”, grandma said. I observed her before replying; she adjusted the bench properly and blew at dust specks as if she could see them, then tucked in her wrapper, before settling on it. “no, granny. I am waiting to hear the story”.
She smiled again; this time, a calm reassuring smile, one of the smiles she would give me , each time I skipped the several meters to show her my yearly report card. The school sessional report that would always say that I had been promoted to the next class. I remembered vividly, that as the only child of my parents, I was seldom allowed out of their sight, if it wasn’t the business of going to school. My parents would hand me over to my aunt Sally- then , she was still a spinster. Going to granny’s place was like a yearly Christmas vacation. Apart from the special treat ,granny would shower me with. The distance was as far as traveling to the next village. Now, I am here with her like every other day it seems. On aunt Sally’s insistence would I spend the night with granny. In her words, ‘my husband is beginning to prove stubborn to your plight. I should have accommodated you, but you know I need to take things easy’. 
“and you are pregnant, aunt Sally, you need to rest. I will cope with granny”, I had nodded. 
“how did you know? Naughty girl”, aunt Sally had chuckled as she wiped her eyes, the night she brought me to granny.
Who wouldn’t know? Her incessant vomiting at any strong smell of spices, her dwindling gregarious nature- it should be mood swing, I think. Her sluggish steps at rare occasions - (though, its unlike this day that she had marched round town saying that, she suspected our clan chief). Her increased weight is slightly obvious, but above all, her protruding belly that seemed to be hard as knot when my tear stained hand had circled it.
“It because , I love babies”, I had smiled. I knew I had hidden the real truth beside my little knowledge of pregnancy symptoms from her.
“I will try my possible best, so that you can start school again. Somebody somewhere is willing to cater for you, your educational needs especially”, aunt Sally had confided in me.
“really!”
“yes, really”.
Grandma coughed, bringing me back to the presence. “I will be brief as possible , because the story is long and it refreshes old wounds”.
“okay grandma”, I said as soon as I had pulled my chair close.
“that day, it was only few hours after dawn, your mother had travailed in birth and the morning was turning gloomy. I sensed in my spirit that something sinister was about to go on in the spiritual realm. While the nurses and doctor rallied round your mother, for the final support, I turned to God as my only support. I joined hands with my husband as we prayed. Your father later joined us as he should, though he wasn’t converted then. We prayed and commanded the devilish spirit hovering around to disappear and never come back. In strong faith, we invited the Spirit of God to take charge”. Granny paused, muttering some incomprehensible words.
“oh yes. Jehovah does listen to his own”, granny continued, “the sensitivity in me was about the wicked powers turning the day gloomy or God’s intervention prevailing over the situation by the absence of the gloomy weather. To God be the glory, the wicked hands never prevailed. As soon as you were delivered,our clan head with glaring animosity, argued that you are an unusual child”
“am I really an unusual child?”, I asked, peering into grandma’s face to read her expression.
“of course, you are. You are a Blessing. The small dark knot of tangled white flesh behind your earlobe is a proof”, grandma confirmed.
At that instant, I felt my left earlobe and caressed the pea-size knot. It was said to have been there since birth and contains nothing but a fold of pure white flesh with no blood. What I haven’t comprehend is the much acclaimed specialty that I am becoming.
“in years gone by, after your parents’ sad demise, what baffles me is the manner at which our clan head goofs around your father’s possession. He knows fully well that ‘a gun powder doesn’t settle on a leather bag for long’ “, grandma explained.
“what is the meaning of that grandma, does he hate my parents” , I asked meekly.
“not really. He is only after you , but have in mind that he has lost the battle, the devil is finished”, grandma encouraged. “what your parents or I can not do, is what you will do,the heights we couldn’t attain is what you will scale over, you will soar high to his consternation. The strangeness , he claimed to see in you, is the greatness that we applaud in you” .
Grandma went on and on, praying for me, the story time ended with praying time . I am only nine years of age, but the life that I have lived looks fifty years. Now, watching my mates, across the street, the girls playing the game of ‘ten-ten’ and the boys, positioning themselves for a game of ‘stone-piling’. I abhor no resentment as I admire their vigor and strong unrelenting spirit, only that, I am beginning to believe that I am an unusual child with a strange power after all.