Oceania sensed discomfort as she came to be. She later learned that the discomfort was life and motion within her. Great beasts living their lives in her depths churned her pristine waters with the stinky blood of their prey. The storms. The storms, she had come to enjoy. Sometimes teasing and egging on the bolts of lightning, the rumble of their thunder soothing her. Reveling in the destructive power of her waves as they pounded whole islands to nothingness. She was raging fury and nurturing calm, impassive to all that would traverse her domain as long as they did not take more than they gave.

She had never known or cared about the boundary of her being until a particularly restless storm blew her waters into an unfamiliar domain. ‘Another Oceania’ was her first joyful thought. A companion who would be able to understand her. How naïve the thought.

Curled up in the deepest of her sanctuaries, Oceania nursed her wounds. Pain threatened to finish what the one who wielded a trident had started. It was all she could do to hold on to her identity as he tried to consume her. Her domain had been wrested from her; unprepared as she had been in the face of the usurper. Whispers of his influence danced around her spirit even this deep in her sanctum. The unfamiliar tendrils of power forced her deeper into herself in a last-ditch attempt to not be assimilated.

The seasons turned, marching and stumbling as they do. Pantheons rose and fell, lost in the unrelenting flow of time. Nestled unfathomably within the shadows of the deep waters was a cavern. Its walls forever untouched by light. In this cavern lay one of the old gods. Beaten and weathered by time but a god nonetheless. She had lost her name over the eons and all that remained was a spark of divine awareness that flickered but would not go out. Sensing the end of its journey, the divine consciousness reached out. Searching, hunting for something to fuel its existence. The need for Revenge burned bright but more than that, it felt the anguish of its children as its old domain was defiled and plundered. Though once spurned by them, it could not forget the ages it had presided over them; their benevolent mother. That thought brought with it a moment of stillness as its presence grew that much stronger from the fragment of self.

It had once been a queen, a god, a mother. Buoyed by this awareness, it journeyed through the curtains of dreams, taking strength from the light of the moon. Taking care to retreat to the depths of reality when the sun held sway in the heavens. ‘Spirit who once was’ continued to drift between the realm of dreams and watery realities, until it stumbled into a dream that echoed its anguish and loss. It marked that dream, flirting with it, until the dreamer finally heard its voice. Unfortunately, so did an ancient enemy. The one called Smiting Sun, whom she had instinctually avoided. He began to destroy her tendrils wherever he found them, seeking to finish that which had been started. So it was that a broken mother became its last hope for survival. Unbeknownst to her, Olorun; The Maker, watched.

Blood curdling screams punctuated the silence of the night. Women scurried in and out of a hut located at the edge of the homestead. There was a crowd of relatives and neighbors waiting at the edge of where the hut’s fire lit torches danced. A man stood out from the throng; pacing to the door and then back to his group of friends in the crowd. Hours had gone by, nobody calm enough to keep track, however the sun had broken the shackles of darkness when the first high pitched wail came through. The entire homestead gave a collective cry of joy. The father ceased his pacing and his face was almost split apart by the width of his grin.

Villagers took turns coming up to him and offering their congratulations. The village wise woman came out of the hut with a parting of the curtain of strung beads. A tiny bundle was nestled in her bosom. She brought it to the agitated man.

“It is a boy”

The crown erupted into another cacophony of cheers at her declaration, this one even louder than the first.

The wise woman schooled her features to prevent the disgust she felt at the reaction of her fellow villagers. The celebration would not have been nearly as boisterous if a girl had been birthed instead. She handed the baby into the clumsy arms of its father. He collected the bundle and immediately went to show it off to his peers. Not even sparing a moment to ask about the fate of its mother, his wife.

The wise woman was not sure she would be able to keep the disgust from showing on her face. She hastily returned to the birthing hut to attend to the afterbirth.

Nneka watched her son, her one joy, her crowning glory, eat fufu made of soil with his playmates and sighed. Children would be children; she was in charge of watching the children today. Coincidentally, her husband was convincing the family elders to let him take in a second wife. She had been a fool to not see it coming.

He had started looking at other women a year into their marriage. He blamed it on not having an heir when she confronted him about it. Being a dutiful wife, she took him at his word. She drank the most disgusting remedies and endured outlandish rites no matter how humiliating they were. Two years and three miscarriages later, she finally carried a pregnancy to term. Her husband had light in his eyes when he looked at her for the first time in years. She naively thought he would return to the charming lover he had been while courting her.

Their Douere was barely walking and his father was trying to bring another woman into their home. Sensing her distress; her toddler ambled his way over to the fallen log she was sitting on. She smiled at her baby boy imperiously asking to be picked up with outstretched arms through blurry eyes. She gathered him into a hug, placing him in her laps.

“Are you tired of playing?”

 “Mama… Cry?”

His dirt crusted hands caressed her faced. Only then did she notice the silent tears that had been falling down her bruised face.

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“Mama is just tired, come let mama feed you real fufu...”

Douere had just turned 9 and he was the best swimmer among the village children. His mother and the aunties had told him stories about coral caves full of cowries and pearls. If he could find one, his mother would no longer have to work all day and have time to stay with him. She wouldn’t need to talk to play the game she had to play with the village uncles every night. She would be able to take care of him alone and keep the bad dreams away.

He had a good plan. Weeks of cautious exploration had given him an idea of where the main cave with pearls would be. He had actually heard the voices of Mami water’s children playing the last few times he went in.

Douere was a careful child though, he knew to respect the waters. Oghenero, his best friend and the second-best swimmer among the children would guard him. She would call the grownups if he didn’t make back up after too long. Air sac filled, empty pouches knotted securely to the waistband of his trousers, Douere waded into the deep with the optimistic determination of the young.

Nneka, once the jewel of her peers had found repose on  her people’s communal refuse heap. The world spun around her, she hurt all over and it was difficult to distinguish if the all-pervading feeling of sickness would be ameliorated by vomiting or shitting. Maybe she would go for both? She had stopped caring about what happened to her body at some point. Why care? There was nothing left to live for. She should end it all.

Spite kept her alive though, the looks of guilt and disgust in those that had once been friends and mentors kept her alive. ‘A living reminder of their bigotry and hypocrisy’, was how she fancied herself now. A stark reminder of their failings as human beings and as a community. Unfortunately, her useless man of a husband had gone and gotten himself killed while hunting. She half suspected he had done it on purpose; one last act to frustrate her efforts at vengeance. She had haunted his waking moments until the tragic day when he didn’t return. The broken women he had left in his wake kept her supplied with whatever it was that had been keeping all the pain away.

‘Pain?’ Why would she feel pain? Did she lose something? No, it felt sharper, a deeper cut than the loss of a possession. She could feel the loss roiling in her chest, a desperate ache in her heart that threatened to rip apart her very being. Why wouldn’t it stop? She couldn’t even remember what she lost, who she lost? ‘Douere, her baby…….’ The sound of wailing shattered the peaceful silent of the night.

The coarse beach sand had nestled themselves into the grieving woman’s knees so she didn’t feel their pain as she once did. Her silent vigil lent a weight to the predawn silence. Broken only by the soft lap of the oceans waves as their misshapen fingers reached out for the rags that failed to give Nneka any modesty. She had stayed kneeling in defeat for 3 nights. Words from the village wise woman had finally snapped her out of the grief fueled fugue that had lasted for months. Shame, anger, grief all battled for supremacy behind her dead eyes. Douere; Her joy, her crown was gone. Forever lost while some faceless man rutted in her. For a time, she blamed sister who was supposed to be watching him. Who could tend a child except its mother? It was her fault for not watching over him and now he was gone from her. There was hope though, if she could trust the voices.

It said he was still alive, waiting for her. All she had to do was surrender to the waves and they would bring her to him. For 3 days and 3 nights she had listened and debated with them. A futile discourse, she had known what her answer would be from the first moment the whispers invaded her dreams.

Nneka tottered to her feet with all the resolve that her frail husk of a body could muster. She took her first step towards the water and immediately crumpled. A face full of wet sand was the reward for her resolve.

She wasn’t discouraged; the voices had gotten clearer. She could even hear his sweet voice singing amongst them. He sounded lonely. Why had she wasted all this time? Her baby was lonely in the waters, her baby was calling to her, she would answer. She climbed to her feet again, this time supported by the resolve of a mother. She straightened her back like she hadn’t in years and took another step. It ended the same, her body was too weak.

The first rays of the sun started to peak over the horizon. The voices took on a sense of urgency before they started to fade away. Somehow, she knew this would be her last chance, his voice would be gone forever after this sunrise.

“Wait ….” she croaked out before breaking into a coughing fit, her voice hoarse from disuse. She tasted copper in the back of her throat but couldn’t care about that right now. She was losing her baby again! She couldn’t lose him again! She couldn’t walk, so she would crawl. She pulled her way forward; every stretch of sandy ground covered a small victory for the broken mother.  Time lost meaning, her whole world narrowed down to putting one elbow after the other. The voices had gone quiet but she knew where they came from now.

The Broken god watched the mortal struggle on its shores. The sun was coming with his wickedness to put her to sleep. She wasn’t sure she would have the strength to awaken again if she didn’t finish things now. Her voice had already been sealed, her awareness beginning to fade. She remembered a piece of who she was; giant waves demolishing ships and cities alike. She spoke all that she was into that piece of herself and she was no more.

The wise woman sat on a stump outside her hut watching the struggles of two broken beings that would be whole. They had both tried but too long had they been broken; their vessels bereft of strength. The sun finally breached the horizon; its rays gleefully tore up the mists that embraced the cool places. The wise one who wore the skin of an old woman had mercy.

 “Be whole”

The universe bent to her will, the sun faltered in its path, a massive wave crashed over a crawling figure; the last convulsion of a dying god. The moment passed. The sun continued its climb, the waters returned to the gentle waves of a new day. Strips of tattered clothing crusted with blood and filth drifted to the surface of the water.

Many years later

“Hurry up, we won’t be able to hear it if the grownups are with us.” Ola encouraged his friends to haste.

He led his friends to the beach, its sand glowing under the light of a full moon. They had snuck away from their minder while the adults were distracted with the harvest celebration. The children gathered around Ola who had brandished a shell. He walked into the lapping waters of the coast till he was waist deep, beckoning his playmates towards him. He filled the conch shell with water and brought it to his ears, listening for something. Satisfied, he called to his friends.

“You have to really listen to hear it. Remember, you mustn’t answer oh. If not, she will steal your spirit. Oya, come one by one and see if you can hear.”

Tunde was the youngest, and always trying to prove himself to his older friends.  He stepped up, quashing the fear he felt at being this far out in the water at night. He put his ear to the shell, like Ola said to and tried to listen.

He strained but heard nothing. About to ridicule Ola for being superstitious, the whisper came to him.

His mother’s voice, calling the wrong name, “Douere….” Tunde couldn’t resist the instinct ingrained in him from when he was a baby, he replied “Ma’a mi?”