REGENERATION

                                      

January 14^th 2012 10:00am

 …Within, the fiery serpent of disease slithered and slid with languid insouciance while emitting sibilant hisses of triumph.  Repulsive scaly, skin glistened and rippled while swimming in the darkness of her body, through blood, over cells and organs. It had broken through the puny defenses activated by the prey’s body. A tiny worm a couple of months ago when it started its destructive expedition, it had fed, devoured, consumed and wolfed down Shanty’s essence as it burrowed through her...

 Silence hangs in the room like an oppressive pall of dark clouds. A hush follows the death knell uttered by the Professor Emeritus of Medicine, “I am sorry but you only have three more months to live”. I am stunned and tears sting my eyelids -like a Portuguese Man-of War-, the drops heavy as lead. The alchemy of pain going on within me crystallized the salty rivers brimming in my eyes into diamonds of distress and prisms of anguish through which the whole world becomes hazy and foggy.

Drowning in the flood of a sorrowful brew of confusion, sobs and weeping, I gasp, “It cannot be”! After the futility of my last trip to India, the professor is my last hope. With his vast experience and degrees, he is the best in the United States; the halo of grey on his head, his quiet dignity and the array of certificates and awards on his wall all testify to this. I look into his eyes, way beyond his horn rimmed specs and all I can behold are pools muddied by hopelessness and despondency. I leave his consulting room numb all over with a voice screaming in my head, “You are going to die”! This time my father’s billions cannot save me.

April 10^th 2012 8:00pm

...She got wasted while the serpent grew and grew into an unimaginable size. The serpent’s venomous poison was now circulating within her core and the last destinations were the lungs and heart.  Another victim was about to bite the dust...

I lay on the hospital bed awaiting the grim reapers sickle. All my flesh is gone. I have become a mass of raggedy bones and would rattle like a toy skeleton if you ever shook me. I do not look into the mirror anymore because the person I visualize these days is a stranger I never knew. Every ounce of energy has been leached out of my body as I await death. My last PCV was rock bottom low. Life has become an embarrassment, I cannot walk anymore and all my natural calls are carried out on my bed. The only song I seem to hear these days is the ping of the life-sustaining machines. For me, the struggle is over, I have stopped fighting.  However, I know I am not ready. I cannot get it out of my mind that all my technicolour dreams have diminished into nothingness with the consistency of a mirage in a desert. Life is just not fair. After graduating with a PHD from Harvard, the whole world awaited me and then this!  I am never going to get married, have kids, and travel the world like I had always envisaged. My whole body is racked with despondency and the unfairness of it all. My life had distilled into a river of tears which recently has gotten desiccated and dried up, a watering hole in the wilderness that the harsh rays of the sun has sucked life out of. Snaky tubes feed vital infusions into me with steely fangs...

April 10^th 2012 8:00pm

…the daggers of its fangs sank into the soft core of her lungs. The toxin bathed and saturated her tissues. …

Layi has come to visit this evening and if I was not in bed, I would have fled for dear life. She totes the bible more than a guerrilla totes an AK 47. It is commonly said that religion has been mixed into her staple cassava meal. Her passion for her religious mania can set the Atlantic ablaze. The only reason I abide her is that she is about the most loving person you would ever meet in this world. However, the last thing I want on this earth is her preaching but I am too tired to protest. Moreover, I have nothing to lose since I have explored every other option. She leaves after finishing her business (the most heartfelt prayer I have ever heard, coupled with pouring some Goya olive oil on my head). Surprisingly, I catch myself saying a heartfelt "amen" to her prayer...

...gliding all the way to the heart, it raised its head, opened its mouth to reveal mean looking fangs with shimmering gems of saliva on them. Drops that reflect malevolence and death...

Suddenly I start wheezing, choking and gasping for breath. The nurse checking my charts promptly attaches an oxygen mask to my face and calls the doctor. I know without being told that the end has come. Everything becomes so surreal. A tunnel appears before me, darker than night and as thick as black congealed pap. All around I hear the frantic fluttering of the wings of a thousand bats. Fear has paralyzed me. I do not want to die!

... As it was about to strike, a flaming sword out of nowhere beheaded it with lightening speed. It writhed and flailed in agony until it disappeared in a puff of smoke…..

In the midst of all the frenetic happenings in my room, the door opens and a man walks in, the most beautiful person I have ever seen. From Him emanates living light (that is the best way I can describe the brilliance that has suffused the room); blades of sunlight that sliced the darkness into tendrils of nothingness. Everything and everybody in the ward become shadows in his luminosity. Instinctively I know He is the one that Layi has always spoken about, the King she had invited to come and heal me, the Son of God. He is invisible to every other person in the room as He draws a chair close and touches me. His touch is the gentlest ever. We have a conversation that makes me know that Layi has always been right while I am the wrong one, deaf as a door post and more blind than a bat. I cannot resist His love and I get up and give Him a hug such that I hear His heart beating out my name.

As I squeeze Him to the last inch of my life, I feel something strange happening. I open my eyes to see He has transformed into a being that has no beauty whatsoever, He has no comeliness that can make me desire Him. I draw back in horror and astonishment without being able to tear my eyes from His visage. I notice that He has gone through excruciating punishment. Someone has whipped him so much that His whole body has ripped flesh hanging down from the ghastly stripes laid by the whip. Ribbons of hanging skin festooned His broken and battered form. The grisly bloody garlands cover Him like Lei on the neck of a Hawaiian visitor. As I gaze, my emotions roil like a mass of agitated eels, through a spectrum of horror, to shock, to astonishment and finally to worship. I kneel down and bow…

He changes back to His original form, carry me to the bed, bless the bread by my bedside and my water and feeds me (funny, the bread suddenly tastes fresh, crusty and sweet, my first solid meal in a while). He then sets up a transfusion for me on a cross shaped infusion stand different from any other I have seen in the hospital...

April 17^th 2012 2pm

I sleep until 12 noon and wake up feeling very different. The oxygen is off, the machines have stopped pinging. The doctors and nurses are looking at me with amazement. The barrage of tests come out negative. I am discharged within a week. As I walk out of the hospital's glass doors into the sunshine, I remember the Sun of Righteousness and the healing on His wings. Layi’s words that day play in my head as I am being driven home……

He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him and by His stripes we were healed…………

© 2013 Ekpo Ezechinyere

ST. VALENTINE, THE PHANTOM OF FEBRUARY 14TH

                                              

If you have been following my blog for a while now, you would know that I do not care diddly squat about Saint Valentine’s Day. It is not that I am constantly in an over sized armoured suit that prevents Cupid's arrow from getting close to my heart. On the contrary, I am an incurable romantic maybe way more than you even are (so do not give me that condescending look). I believe in star-dust filled ambiance and slow motion hugs, a weekend get away with the wife, roses and chocolates. Lately, I have even been thinking of a way to bottle the moon and a couple of stars to give my Amor as a gift, to enlighten her heart when the light of my love for her seems to dim a tad. However, in a world where bombs and bullets are given instead of hugs and kisses, slaps and fisticuffs are distributed instead of goodwill and harmony; to take out one day where we all go wild celebrating something we know zilch about is an elaborate charade.

A lot of madness is going on in the world but let me use my beloved Nigeria as a microcosm of the globe. This is one country where selfishness and greed fester to unimaginable proportions. Most peeps live with the creed of me, myself and I. Decisions are almost never made based on how it will favour the next person but for self-centered pecuniary reasons. Bus drivers knowing they do not have enough fuel to undertake journeys would do so anyway so long as they can collect some cash from the passengers before the vehicle stops on the road. Even if it is in the middle of the bush on a Monday morning, they do not give a hoot. Cross country transport companies would put faulty buses on the road and write on their tickets that fares are not refundable. I do not even want to talk about airlines; their own issues are on another dimension. Health personnel would jolly well know a case is beyond their expertise but would keep patients on the wards to make some quid, when the person is about expiring they would now refer so that it would not be said that the sick individual died in their hospitals. Lagos state government officials (touts with uniforms) would pounce on unwitting drivers like hyenas on wounded lambs and whisk them off to their offices on the pretense of putting down their names as first offenders, then slam N10, 500 fines on them after impounding their cars. These officials plus policemen remove road signs deliberately sometimes to catch “offenders” who will line their pockets with money. In Nigeria, laws are not made to protect but to punish, punishment that would accumulate more dough for the punisher. Petrol station owners would sabotage PHCN efforts to generate power so that the nation would continue being connected to the umbilical cords of the fuel pumps. Charlatans parading as clergy would rip off the undiscerning to get more prophetic offerings. We should be the last people on earth making so much noise about Valentine’s Day!

It occurred to me recently that when people run away from this country in search of a better life outside our shores what they are really running away from is the selfishness, greed and wickedness. Reason being that if our leaders were not consumed by the vices stated above, then Nigeria would be even better than the countries we run to in terms of infrastructure and better standards of human living. The difference between us and these other countries is not in the preponderance of natural resources but it is just that people there, out of love for themselves and others, put things in place to make sure their citizens live comfortably at least to the barest minimum.

Thing about inventions is that they usually make the inventor well off financially but beyond that they make life easier for people. Nigerians love money. In fact, we are probably the greediest people alive which explains most of the evil that abound in this nation (419, ritual killing, embezzlement, corruption, name it), so if money were the greatest motivation behind inventions then Nigerians should be way up on Fortunes’ totem pole. However beyond money, the greatest inspiration behind creativity is love. God loved man so much, that He created an Eden filled with gold and every beautiful thing imagined so that life would not be tedious for Adam. Love fired up God’s creativity. How many inventions to help humanity have come out of Naija?

For most people, Valentine is all about the sex. Deceptive sex by the way, in the sense that these people profess all the love in the world with only one reason behind it (it is common knowledge to dudes that the fastest way to get into a lady’s underwear in this country is by professing love and declaring marriage). They bequeath gifts of flowers only to reap and steal sacred flowers they know they are not entitled to. I am sure this makes the Saint nauseously sick in his grave. For others It is all about the getting, the grabbing. A dude is made to feel like the bees knees so that he can part with some goodies but it is usually a sham. After the acquisition of the latest toy from him, his heart is put on an anvil and smashed with a sledge hammer. The Black widow then walks away whistling, preparing her trap for the next love sucker, 2014’s the poor schmuck. Kudos sis, you sure are a master of this game.

As funny as it might sound, in this climate the muses of St. Valentine do not even thrive. Can you imagine you getting home after your car has been impounded for no just cause to find PHCN at their darkest best and no fuel to run your generator because somebody somewhere is hoarding it for greater profit and you suddenly becoming the most romantic Romeo on earth? Even if Cupid’s projectile were a nuclear weapon, it would most likely not make a dent on your heart. It would take some doing folks to become "Dude Love".

So, please save me all the hullabaloo and shenanigans of the 14^th of February and let us start the real celebration of love today by putting other people first. Let us start loving by treating others the way we want them to treat us. Let us begin to love our neighbours as ourselves. Let us all strive to put the phantom of St. Valentine out of his misery and make him real everyday and not just on one phoney day. This is why it was eternally written not just for today but for ever…..

Let brotherly love continue…..

UJU.....

                                                             

Darkness closed around me claustrophobically like barn walls around stockpiled yams. Thing is, I am even feeling all shrivelled up inside like stored yam. For the first time, the chorus of chirping crickets and croaking frogs refused to give me much needed surcease. Sleep fled my eyes like an elusive antelope flees a bullet from a hunter’s dane gun. Through the broken thatch roof of my home, the stars winked at me inexorably and merrily, unperturbed by my troubled state. Thankfully, the rains have stopped, if not the night would have been more miserable than this. The torrential rush of “Aguiyi” River during the rainy season seems quite placid comparatively to how my insides churned. A roaring churning made worse by the ravaging hunger which a few roasted cocoyams dipped in congealed palm oil could not abate.  The despondent bleating of the lone goat outside surmised my whole situation aptly, I was frustrated, hungry, tired and wretched.

The town criers message two market days ago still rung in my soul like his gong, a painful resonance that refused to be drowned. Ujuebuka (prodigious abundance, expansive wealth), the princess, was going to be given to the winner of a king organised wrestling contest and whoever won was also going to get half the kingdom to boot. The news was like a death blow to me. I LOVE HER!!! I ought to have carried the palm wine for her marital rites before now but since my father was not an Nze and we were dirt poor, the “Eze of Umudo”, her father, would hear none of it. He had been trying to convince her since forever that ours was puppy love and a dejected, poverty ridden person like me was not meant for the palace. He said I was a leper enveloped by the sores of penury, an outcast. Ah! How that rankles! Yet, looking around my hovel, I knew the Eze was not far from the truth. Worse still, she had been barred from seeing me! I missed the sweetness of her voice and her brilliant sheen that made it seem she constantly bathed with “eluaku”, palm kernel oil. I continuously tell her she must have been sculpted out of burnished, black bronze and that she sways when she walks like the reeds along the riverbank when the evening wind blows. Eewww, Ujuebuka, obim, my heart! Hot tears of self pity burnt and scarred my eyelids.

I met “Ajomadu”, the prince of Mmuoku, yesterday and he had laughed me to scorn. He had always so wanted to win my Uju’s hand but she would not even grace his brooding dark presence with a smile. The prince was the best wrestler in the seven clans and also the richest. It is said that it takes two men to carry each yam harvested from his farms. Furthermore he has a mean streak and is quite fetish. Rumour has it that he is backed by “Agbara” the most evil of the earth gods. As I walked past him lost in the forest of my thoughts, he called out to me “beggar lover, you have finally lost eh”. “I cannot wait to lay my hands on you during the competition”. I nearly urinated on myself as fear clawed at my innards like an angry leopard. The last person the evil prince wrestled with is still crippled and I know he detests me because my love preferred me. Fear or not though, I was going to fight for her hand or die trying. For Obim, I would dare the evil forest even if I have to lose my life.

“The seed of the Iroko never looks like the Iroko”, I keep hearing Papa say as he laid, wasted on his death bed. We could not even afford to buy the meagre things needed by the priest for the divination that ought to make him whole. However, he told me before his demise that the secret for a change of our status was for me to meet “Okeosisi” the High Priest who lives where the hills meet the skies in “Eligweuwa” the land where the sun never sets. “It is too late for me now son, your great grandfather told me to go on this quest but I decided to consult the priests of our land instead and found out they were all charlatans with oracles that are full of lies. By the time the truth dawned on me, it was too late and I spent the rest of my days trying to cultivate our cursed earth which was back breaking, fruitless work. “My son, the seed is in you but for you to become an Iroko, you must find Okeosisi” he rasped.

Initially, I thought my father was just talking from the delirium of a fever ravaged mind. However, his sayings stuck to me like water on a rain drenched rat and refused to dry up, long after his demise. Since I had nothing to lose, I took my raffia bag, blunt cutlass and off I went to Eligweuwa.

It was hard going! The journey was tedious and tough. I must have been out of my mind to have believed my father and undertaken this journey. The country I sought was where the skies met the hills, a place where most people never reach. However, as a rule, I do not start what I don’t finish, so I stuck to my mission doggedly.

I finally got there and it was the most beautiful land I had ever seen. The fountains were clean and clear and sprung out of the ground with a lively force. They were filled with all sorts of beautiful fish even the ones I had never seen in River Aguiyi. There was honey, fruits and game everywhere. If not for Uju, I would have built a camp here and never gone back. When I took a sip of the water to assuage my thirst, I felt I would never thirst again for the rest of my life. I broke out of my reverie and sought out the High Priest.

I finally found Him in a tent amongst a grotto of trees. He was so old with hair whiter than the whitest lamb in the whole of Umudo. On the other hand, He was so agile, so full of life that the air around Him seemed to crackle like the heavens before a storm. His eyes were so merry, so kind, and so full of laughter and love. “Ikemefuna” welcome He said.

I was dazed with surprise! “How did you know my name ”?

“Before you were conceived, I knew you”. Look at my hand, He replied, stretching forth his hand for me to take a proper look at.

“Ewooooo” I cried! My name was engraved on His palm, amongst many others but mine was of the biggest print, and seemed to fill the whole hand.

“If you knew me, how come you never revealed Yourself to me”, I asked.

“I did but you never noticed and the way it works is that you can only find me when you search for me with all your heart, Okeosisi replied. I know why you are here and you have come to the right place”. 

“Are you sure old man”?

Anger flashed in his eyes like lightening.

“I WOULD SELF DESTRUCT BEFORE MY ORACLES LIES!  If you can believe, all things are possible boy! I am called Okeosisi because my words have NEVER FAILED and would never!

You will defeat Ajomadu but it is not through your power or by your might that this will be achieved. Your arms of flesh will not prevail, they will fail you abysmally! You would have to key into the power that made the heavens and earth boy to beat your opponent"!

I went to my knees, “I believe Father”!

“Good, my son, very good”!

He killed a lamb and washed me in its blood. To my surprise, He cut Himself and allowed the blood to drip into an earthenware cup, and then also cut part of His flesh. “For your transformation to take place, you will need to enter a covenant with me by eating my flesh and drinking my blood”. I gasped and baulked in horror but looking into His eyes, I could see He was very serious! My flesh like pounded yam would give you strength and since the life of anything is in its blood, drinking mine would flood you with my life” He continued. So I obeyed. Lastly, he brought out a ram horn filled with the sweetest smelling oil ever and anointed me. I felt reborn!

…….the match was over and Ajomadu was still on the floor writhing in pain like a beheaded serpent. He could not believe it!  The whole village was agog as the drums thumped and throbbed crazily! A new champion had been born.

All the excitement was lost on me as I hugged Ujuebuka to my bosom, revelling in the softness of her love like a weaver's egg in its nest. My heart felt like a broken gourd that was carrying sweet palm-wine of joy which had now spilled into every fibre of my being.  As rivulets of tears flowed down our eyes, I looked up to the hills from whence came my help and muttered a silent thank you.

 ……THOU ANNOINTEST MY HEAD WITH OIL, MY CUP RUNNETH OVER!!!

                                                                                                                           © 2013 Ekpo Ezechinyere