CHAPTER ONE
The boy picks his way through the market. It is late afternoon, almost evening and everything on the earth is hot and thirsty. The voices of grumpy market women fills the air as they batter and exchange curses with housewives looking for a good bargain. Boys with dark skin and shiny white teeth wiggle between fat buttocks and huge sweat stained mammaries, twisting their wheelbarrows artfully as they move cartons of biscuits, of noodles, of beverages and machine produced food that the world have come to love, from the market to the car park which also functions as a road, a sidewalk and a mini-market.It is a normal market day and buying and selling was going on like every other market day.
The boy stops by a meat stall, and his eyes flickers from side to side, as if searching for something. He seem to find it as he starts moving again, this time with purpose. He arrives at his destination; a stall where a fair shriveled lady sells garri, rice and beans. The boy stands beside the stall and dips his hands into the pocket of his threadbare shorts. He leans on the pole that holds the roof of the stall aloft and stares at the sea of people moving to and fro; buying and selling.
He bends and grabs his stomach, his face crushed in a wince of pain. He doubles over, swallows, then he stands straight again. His eyes darts to the trader then turns back to watch people buying and selling. You can see the journey of saliva down his throat as his gullet bobs up and down in hungry anticipation.
He turns again and sees the trader has turn her back to him. She is talking with the trader in the next stall, so he grabs his opportunity. Like a black adder, his hands spin out of his pocket and into the basin of garri; he grabs a handful and dips it into his pocket. He grabs another handful and dips it in as the scream comes; 'thief! Ole!’
He does not raise his head to confirm if he is the one being called out, he just turns and flees. The screams of the shriveled trader rises above the din of the market and people soon take note of the uproar and then some young men loitering near a football betting shop soon take up chase.
The boy runs hard aand fast and he soon escapes the clutches of the market and enters the road that is a car park as well as a mini market. He runs on, the solid weight of the garri in his pocket making him smile.
At the junction of the street, he turns his head to see if his pursuers were still after him but they have disappeared in the distance; their smoke clogged lungs could not keep up with his hungry feet. He smiles again and confidently crosses the road to the other side and starts the long trek for home.
INTERLUDE
Have you seen the sun?
I hear that it is yellow, a ball;
I hear that it heats everything it touches;
Is this true?
I hear it reveals all things and all deception
Is bared before its terrible light;
Is this also true?
Have you seen the moon?
I hear that it is white, a ball;
I hear that it draws the sea to sleep
With a soothing lullaby that sailors love;
Is this true?
I hear that it soothes weary limbs
With its silver light and it is all lovers delight;
Is this also true?
Have you seen the stars?
I hear that they are cold and distant
And that they speak to no one;
Is this true?
I hear that they twinkle like fireflies
But their light offer no warmth like the sun
Neither do they soothe like the moon;
Is this also true?
I ask because I am in the darkness of my skin.
My name is forgotten in the pyre of memory;
I am the silence of sin’s stain on the wall of saints;
I am a dead thing; a grave that gives no breath.
I seek to see with your eyes,
To feel with your skin;
I seek to understand what you see
And why it hurts so much to breathe.
I seek to know why my skin cackles so
And what I did to the earth that made her reject me.
Will you show me?
CHAPTER TWO
The boy saunters into a new street. He does not live on the street but he always passes it on his way home. The children on the street have beaten him twice but he can not take another route because there are worse dangers than a broken lip or dust in his mouth, out there.
He stops and looks around until he finds a half rotted stick lying close to the edge of the road. He picks it up and swings it. He feels its heft and smiles; today he might just win the fight. He steps into the street and walks on, his eyes darting from side to side.
A boy about his height suddenly darts out of the side of the road and rushes past him. As the strange boy passes, something falls to the ground. The boy steps back to watch the boy racing away but on seeing that he was not under attack, he walks on.
The gathering darkness of evening does not hide the parcel on the ground. The boy sees it, drops the stick, bends and picks it. It is a black polythene bag. He feels the bag and the grains of dry garri rubs against his palm. He opens it and peeks inside; it was garri; a module of garri from what he can see. He was smiling as he heard ‘catch am! Thief ! Ole!’ As he turns, something hits his head and he falls.
INTERLUDE
So this is how we fold ourselves
Into dust so the earth can grow?
This is how the ashes blow away
The spittle of curses and pain?
This is what it is like for the world
To come to an end,
For the curtain to fall like a shroud
On this sarcophagus, on this tomb
That was hewned for all of us,
For those of us that the earth has rejected.
The boy opens his eyes and the first thing he notices is the stink of gasoline. The next thing he notices is that he is naked and his precious shorts containing his garri is a tattered mess floating in a clogged gutter some distance away but he could not see it or anything at all because a tire hangs from his neck. He screams… gods, how he screams.
All he sees are boots and shoes standing about him. All he hears is laughter and crude remarks spilling from black lips. They call him names, curse his father and mother and he tries to explain. He tries to make them understand that he has not done anything to deserve this treatment. He begs, he pleads then the beating begins. He screams.
He feels the wood, the canes, the knocks, the slaps. Someone pours more fuel on his body and his injuries feels like fire ants are creeping all over him. He cries for God, he begs for mercy. He calls his dead mother and asks for her forgiveness. He pleads with his distant father, who has remarried and forgotten him in the streets, but at that moment, the sky is silent; prayers and pleas fall back to his feet unheard, unanswered. A sharp blow to his head silences him and he falls the second time on his side.
INTERLUDE
If I go,
Will it make you happy?
Will it give you peace?
Will it make you spread your limbs
In oblivious sleep?
If I go,
Will you let the birds sing?
Will you let the river gurgle in glee
As it races between pebbles to find the sea?
Will you let the earth breathe again?
CHAPTER THREE
A bucket of water rouses him from his sleep. His body aches in places and burns in others. He cannot hear the world around him. It feels as if he is in the river in his village and water is rushing pass his ears. He moans and then bile rushes to his throat and the munches of garri he had earlier, comes out with the bile. He groans and suddenly his ears pops open. There is an argument going on about him.
Someone has suggested that they burn him as an example to other thieves in the area but another is saying he is too young to face such kind of treatment. The sane voice is saying that he should be handed over to the police but he is being overwhelmed by those who wante a burning.
The boy opens his eyes and looks at the night sky. It is dark with pinpoints of light sparkling here and there. He feels the wind on his skin and he raises his finger to touch it. The wind plays around his hands like a sugar glutted kid. The boy smiles as a match strikes a match box and is tossed unto his chest. He hears the woosh and then he screams.
The tire catches fire quickly and burns brightly. The boy struggles with the flame, hitting it with his hands, as he screams and begs. He dances about the ground trying to run away from the pain but the pain follows him all over the ground like a hungry hound.
He falls to the ground for the third time, exhausted and he moans as the flames dance merrily all over him until all that is heard is the popping of skin and bones.
The end.
I hope this story touches you as much as it did me when writing it. I hope you get the message it intends to send. I wish you a lovely night. Thanks for stopping by. Peace.
All photos were gotten from pixabay
art and flair courtesy of @PegasusPhysics
