The first time I spoke to Would-be Mum, she nearly jumped out of her skin. All I said was, “Hello, Would-be Mum!”
But the tremor that convulsed through the umbilical cords to me and Dumbo was a veritable tidal wave that nearly cast us out prematurely. The seismic waves were so strong I was rolled over and over until my vital cord was entangled with that of my partner. And being who he was, Dumbo was so frightened he nearly stillbirthed himself there and then. He began to open and close his mouth like a beached whale, and his usual reddish brown coat turned mud green, the colour of rotting moss in a stagnant pool filled with yellow-eyed mosquitoes seething with venom and vitriol only a dark-hearted mocking Mess-Ang trembling with ill-suppressed mirth could affect as s/he delivers the dreaded divine decree at your innocent doorstep, bursting your bubble of bliss and even cackling with ill-mannered sniggers as you squirm heatedly as s/he leads your tyro-foam and shaky-tinsel-self towards the House of Unborns, unwilling sojourners down the divine chain of birth-death to meet Dumbo, a co-traveller through the valley of the shadow of death, square faced, square nosed, square mouthed, square all round like the bubbling hot greens fronting the House of Unborns with all the flags of the countries of the earth, those that are and those that are to be fluttering hotly in the windy stillness swirling drowsily around and about the House of Unborns.
Flags fluttering. Flags. Flags, Flags beckoning. Flags. Flags. And when the die is cast, the flag your destiny paddles you towards is a strong indication of your death- sorry, your birth country, well, yes, your death-country because compared to where you’re coming from, a place of perfumed breeze and eternal sunlight, traipsing up and down the streets of gold, munching the silvery diamond bright fruits from both the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, drinking from the effervescent river of life in meadows of indescribable lavender trees and chalcedony grass any other realm can only be death or death-dealing. Which is why the unborns tremble before the flags and there is much weeping and lamentation, grateful sighs and the loud hurrahs of those heading for flags whose leaders have extricated themselves from the mire of self-aggrandisement, the drudgery of senseless material acquisition and the allure of monetary baubles which to man has be...
“What happened, dear?” shouted Would-be dad, his tone scratchy with concern and tremulous with fear.
“A voice said hello to me!”
“A voice? Where did it come from?”
“Don’t know. It sounded like it came from inside my belly!”
“Jesus of Nazareth!” screamed Would-be dad. “My enemies have finally got me. Our first pregnancy after fifteen years of marriage and voices are speaking to you from your belly. My own has spoiled completely!” Would-be Dad wailed. Then he must have calmed down a bit for the next thing I heard him say was:
“Quick! Let’s go!”
“To where, dear?”
“Hospital, of course!”
“Yes, you’re right.”
Sounds of clothes stretching and rasping as they are hurriedly dragged off her body and a new set put on. Would-be Mum had just eaten bacon and eggs washed down with warm honeyed tea. Before now, I was savouring the tea through my cord while Dumbo concentrated on the food. But suddenly there was chaos in the realms within. The hitherto serene heart suddenly went gaga, pumping blood with a crazy abandon and beating wildly against the rib cage like a demented school teacher trying to drum quadratic equation into the heads of psychotic students. The visceral also ran amok: the liver slapped the kidneys, the spleen jabbed at the lungs frightfully mercilessly, and the large intestine seemed bent on strangulating the small intestine to an early grave. The plus and minus of the chaos multiplied our jointly divided commonwealth such that bile was squinted madly all over the place, tainting my honeyed tea and Dumbo’s bacon and eggs gravy with enough bitterness of living to last a wiling soul an eternity of ire and regret. There and then, I began, like Soyinka’s Abiku spirit-child, to shape mound from the yoke. I am not like Okri’s Azaro who decides to stay in order to bring smiles to the poverty-begrimed faces of his parents. Ade, Azaro’s friend who chooses to leave is my kindred spirit. I had decided to leave but may change my mind depending on the answer to my question. The problem was I didn’t trust Sokoti. I suspected he played a fast one on me when he instructed my Mess-Ang to take me into the House of Unborns not through the entrance door where the flags fluttered mournfully but through a secret door from the House of Destiny. So I never saw the flag the canoe of my life was paddling towards.
“Hurry up, dear!”
“I’m coming.”
Feet hurried out of the room. Doors slammed and Would-be Mum groaned as she hurried down a short flight of stairs into the garage. She cranked the car door open and slid into the cushioning seat of Would-be Dad’s car. The engine fired up and the car surged forward, moving on and on, the somnolent rhythm of the well-tooled engine actually luring Would-be Mum and us into a contented languor, stupor and ... until there was a sudden screech of the tires as Would-be Dad marched on the brakes to avoid a careless pedestrian.
“Idiot!” he shouted. “Go die for your Papa’s house, useless boy!”
“Cool down, Would-be Dad!” I remonstrated with him aloud.
“Y-e-e-p! Where did that come from?”
“From inside my belly!” shouted Would-be Mum. “Now do you believe me?”
“Jesus of Nazareth!” screamed Would-be Dad. “Ha! My own has spoiled completely!” Then he jammed his foot on the accelerator and drove like a man possessed to Holy Cross Hospital.
“Cool down, both of you,” I heard the voice of Dr. Catharine King say to our Would-be parents. ”You’ve both gone through a lot of stress lately just like every one of us. Coping with Covid-19 and its various offspring is not an easy task, I know.”
“You obviously don’t believe us, doctor,” said Would-be Dad.
“Not quite, sir,” answered Would-be Mum’s doctor. ”I believe you’re both experiencing what psychoanalysts term ‘the return of the repressed’.”
“Meaning what, doctor?”
“Like every one of us, this pandemic has impacted negatively on our businesses, our jobs, our careers, our social and interpersonal lives. I believe strongly that all the tensions of the last two years have been repressed into your subconscious and are now manifesting as hallucinatory voices from the womb of your wife. It’s that simple!”
“So my wife and I are suffering from collective hallucination, eh?”
“Well, something like that,” replies the doctor, her voice dripping with self-assured smugness. “A collective hysteria borne out of tension and anxiety over Deborah’s first pregnancy in fifteen years.”
“I see,” said Would-be Dad in rising anger.
But I didn’t. Moreover, I was beginning to be pissed off by the nonchalant attitude of Dr. King, outstanding product of the modern school of evidence-based empiricism and cold rationality. So I fairly shouted:
“What’s the name of this country, for God’s sake?”
First, there were two gasps, one each from Would-be Mum and Dad. This was followed by a short pregnant silence. Then something solid fell heavily to the ground and I knew that evidence-based empiricism and cold rationality had finally hit the floor! Welcome to reality, sister!
Pandemonium broke out and reigned for a while as medics and all scampered to resuscitate their fallen colleague, locked tightly in the suffocating embrace of whatever returned from the repressed. I lost interest in the whole melee and concentrated on Dumbo whose square mouth was folding and opening like a crab aspiring to speak Latin. I was sure he was trying to reprimand me for what I just did but one dagger from my eyes stabbed the thought to death in his square brain. I looked at Dumbo with so much hatred and wondered what kind of jaywalking destiny cobbled us together in this cramped space. I hated Dumbo from the first glance. I don’t know why. Perhaps he reminded me of some Mess-Ang who just dump their messages in your lap like veritable zombies. They do what they are told as “emotionlessly” as possible. I prefer Mess-Ang with some attitude like the one who delivered the unpalatable but unavoidable decree to me in Bliss.
***
Bliss ... Bliss ... Bliss ... Oh Bliss! How can I describe Heaven with such a substandard, utterly primitive tongue as human language! Every consonant, every vowel, every noun, every adjective, all the letters of the human alphabet fall miserably short in making graphic the abode of the Almighty. Religion tries but still ends up conveying a second-hand vision of Bliss because there are really no words to use on earth to describe things in heaven. I mean, what can a man use to describe the City of Eternal Light while living in this world of perpetual shadows and darkness? The best one can do is to explore the available resources in human language to convey to pitiful man what he cannot even dream about in his moment of maddest imaginings. And this is what Apostle John tries to do in the Scripture. For instance, he says the streets of the New Jerusalem are paved with gold. How did that useless stuff find its way to Heaven? What he wants to convey is the extraordinary, divine beauty of the streets of Bliss which are so brilliant the closest thing to it by a million removes is that cheap metal called gold. Bah! The comparison makes me want to puke! Then come the other purile comparisons: the walls of the city are made of Jasper and adorned with all kinds of precious stones; the foundations were laid with jasper, sapphire chalecedony, emerald, sardius, chrysolite, beryl, topaz, chrysoprase, jacinth and amethyst. The twelve gates were made of twelve different pearls and the streets were pure gold, like transparent glass. I can tell you for certain that none of these metals approximates the pure beauty of Bliss. It was just the best John could do given the limitations of human language and man’s limited imagination. But to begin to have a glimmering of the brightness of the City of Eternal Light, imagine any colour, say, yellow. Then imagine the earthly gold as being at the very bottom of a spectrum of yellow that spirals into eternity, say, yellow raised to the power of zillion times zillion in brightness, so bright it drowns completely all other colours of the rainbow. If it is possible for man to imagine such ethereal brilliance, a violent yet soothing burst of yellow, then one will begin to come close to a rudimentary understanding of the brilliance of Bliss. And the same goes for all earthly colours, red, orange, green, blue, violet and indigo. As a matter of fact, there are lots more colours in Bliss but human language has no name for them. How does this brilliance come about when there is no sun in heaven? Simple. The Lamb is her eternal light and no man or spirit can ever comprehend the source of that celestial light. All I can say is that the eternal light of the Lamb constantly transforms itself, bringing out new hues that keep dwellers of Bliss in perpetual wonder and delight.
Now, there aare three main categories of personalities dwelling in Bliss besides the Trinity; they are angels, new borns and the unborns. The angels are also into categories. The War-Angs or warrior angels are led by Arch Angel Michael. The Mess-Angs or messenger angels are led by Arch Angel Gabriel. The GD-Angs or general duty angels are led by Angel Uriel. Then there are the SD-Angs or special duty angels led by the tricky Sokoti. After the angels are the new borns also called the triumphant returnees, those who died on earth and made it to Heaven. They are the new borns as death on earth is birth in Bliss. Last but not the least are the unborns, personages like me who have never left Bliss since the Almighty gave us reality. We unborns know that our time to die will come and none of us is looking forward to our stint in the Dark World. Since there is no sadness in Bliss, however, we continue to luxuriate and celebrate in the Eternal brilliance of Bliss without any care in heaven or earth. I cannot now recall how many zillions of years I had been basking in the joyful light of my maker when that snotty nosed Mess-Ang with a sneer on his/her face dropped the divine decree in my lap and ordered me to follow him/her to the House of Unborns.
There’s no sadness, anxiety or pain in Bliss, except in and around the House of Unborns. As soon as the unborn spirit approaches the House, an inexplicable anxiety grips the heart much like the heart pains of a condemned criminal in the presence of the Hangman. The House of Unborns is a very large building sprawled over one hundred thousand acres of Bliss land. It is painted in gay cameo colour with dashes of white at appropriate places. In front of it are the flags of countries of the world, large, small and tiny. Winds are unknown in Bliss, but a gentle cooling breeze blows continually throughout Heaven cooling all and sundry and ensuring that everything and everyone is in a perfect state of environmental and climatic equilibrium at all times.
Except in and around the House of Unborns. As one approaches the House, the temperature seems to rise gradually until one begins to “sweat”, although no actual water can come out of the about-to-die spirit. There are banks of flowers of the most radical colours in Bliss, but the ones in and around the House are visibly wilting and their petals drooping. In short the ground around the House is warmer, and even though the gentle breeze blows even there still the flags in front of the House flutter droopily like mourners at a burial ceremony.
Crowds of unborns continually approach the flags, eager to know their likely country of death, that is, country of birth on earth. As I said before, one gets to know the country one is heading to as the Mess-Ang takes one from Sokoti’s House of Destiny in the direction of the flags before going into the House of Unborns through the entrance door. Thus, there are continual shouts of “Hallelujah!” mixed with groans of “O my God!” in front of the flags. When an unborn spirit observes that s/he is being led towards the flag of one of the developed countries of the earth, he breaks into a song and a dance. The most desirable flag, of course, is that of US of A. The only times the unborns groaned before the American flag were during the time of slavery (if you would be born there Black) and when Old Don was roundly trumped at the polls and was reluctant to vacate the House of White. Until a democratic servant with a republican ire served him the burnt scalp of a yam on a plate emblazoned with the Mexican flag. A super intelligent man, Old Don got the message and sneaked out the backdoor without waiting for the traditional handover ceremony. Those were the only times unborns groaned in front of the American flag. In contrast, weeping and lamentation was the custom in front of some other flags, notably those of third-word countries. No one can blame such unlucky spirits. Who wants to embrace economic nonsense mixed with political rubbish all wrapped up in a moth-eaten religious cant? When citizens of such countries are running to saner climes, is it not absolute craziness for anybody to be eager to be born into such evolving disasters? When a country specialises in eating up her own children, soon it will have no future left to talk about. As for me, I had always prayed that my feet will never stray towards the Naija flag.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Naija is blessed country: oil is there; gold is there; arable land is there; bitumen is there; coal is there; and the climate is okay. Above all, Naija people are super intelligent. Ebola ravaged many countries in the region, but when it miswalked into Naija all it got was a bloody nose. Corona Virus also came and is gasping for breath in poorly ventilated isolation centres. The only virus that has gripped Naija by the jugular and would not let go is bad leadership. Naija is blessed or cursed with the worst leaders in human history, corrupt, rapacious and kleptomanic rulers. Naija’s problem started with Old Lugga who cobbled disparate nations into a country to cover up his administrative incompetence. Since then, Naijas have been searching for a country that was or never was. I know that Naija will play a pivotal role in the end-time programme of Almighty God for the whole world. But I am determined not to be a part of it!
One major event made me swear never to be caught dead in Naija. Sometimes ago, an unusual cataclysm rocked the serenading serenity of Bliss to its foundation and at the root of it ware Naijas. Somehow, three Naija mendicants gate-crashed into heaven without passing through the gate of death or by special invitation from the Lamb. For some divine reason, the Almighty allowed them in, perhaps to see what they would do or not do. Now all the new borns returning from earth, good or bad, must first pass through Heavensgate. This is a huge building covering several thousand kilometre of Bliss land. Thousands of people die on earth every second; some because it is their time to die, many die untimely as a result of diseases, poverty, wickedness, political oppression and personal carelessness. No matter the cause of death, all new borns approach Heavensgate which has been partitioned into small booths much like the customs section of an airport. In each booth or cubicle a GD-Ang sits behind a desk with the Book of Life before him/her. The new borns are shepherded into Heavensgate by GD-Angs and made to go in one by one into the numberless booths to be judged out of the Book of Life. There are two exits out of each booth with two different parties manning each exit. Those whose names are found in the Book of Life go out through the exit on the right to be received with music and pageantry by the welcoming party. They are then borne away on the wings of joy and rejoicing to their allotted quarters in the House of Many Mansions. These will be received by the Lamb and comforted by the company of saints. But those whose names are not found in the Book are goaded towards the left exit and the welcome party will receive them with canes and cudgels. That had been the standard and unchanging protocol in Heavensgate from before time began. Everything worked according to the clock in an unbroken rhythm of “Look”, “Right” or “Left”. Then the three Naija mendicants crashed into Heavensgate and things fell apart for the first time in Bliss.
These mannerless young men called attention to themselves as soon as their souls broke free from their bodies. No matter how many people die on earth, the GD-Angs always manage to put all of them in a single file within seconds. Then they are led towards Heavensgate. Virtually all newly dead are still in shock, so they are easy to handle. All of them approach Heavensgate with an instinctive apprehension borne out of the innate knowledge that their fates will be sealed in the shining building. Thus, the new borns trudge forward meekly, silently obeying the orders of the angels. Not the mendicants, though. As soon as they realised where they were, they started chatting boisterously like a pack of school kids at lunch break to the annoyance of the new borns and the angels. Next, they began jumping the queue until they were sharply reprimanded by a philosophical angel who told them:
“Those who are heading to heaven are not in haste. What’s with you three who are not even sure where you’re heading?”
“Sorry, Oga Angel!” responded the trio petulantly, their tone showing no trace of remorse or repentance. Eventually, they got to Heavensgate, but instead of entering one by one, all three crammed into a booth. The angel in charge of the booth was initially startled but later ignored the breach. He opened the Book of Life only to find their names written in pencil! So he knew they were not really dead. He opened his mouth to raise alarm, but the three mendicants wrestled him to the ground and tried to silence him by force. In the ensuing raucous, they broke one of his wings and s/he screamed.
“Help! Naija! Help!”
Other angels rushed in and arrested the three rioters. As they were about to fling them back to earth, a divine decree came that they should be released. So they came into Bliss more or less through the backdoor. They were even taken on a tour of Bliss by no less a personality than Angel Gabriel and were eventually received in audience by the Almighty. Instead of being grateful and humble before the God of Heaven and the Earth, their leader, a professor who turned to begging to supplement his meagre pay had the temerity to ask:
“Almighty God, what offence did we commit that you sent us to Naija?”
For the first time since Bliss was created, there was total silence for a space of time. Then the Almighty burst into laughter. Fire! Thunder! Lightning! And the pearly bells rang shaking Bliss to its foundation. As the hubbub subsided, the three mendicants found themselves back in their earthly bodies with their ears tingling. Still, the Almighty sent an answer after them:
“I AM THAT I AM!”
That was my first time of hearing about the great people of Naija, and as I followed the Mess-Ang with an attitude to the House of Unborns I said a silent prayer to the Almighty never to be born in Naija. Shortly before we reached our destination, we turned to the right into the House of Destiny. Sokoti rules here. In reality, Sokoti is a massive angel, wondrously black from head to toe. I didn’t know the meaning of his name, but I was told that a Triumphant Returnee who came back from Naija gave him that name so, so long ago. From what I gathered, Sokoti was the name of a legend or a god of the Blacksmiths among the Yoruba people of Naija. So he was very black and strongly built. He was also in charge of destinies according to their myth of creation. Since the head of the Special Duties Angels is also in charge of destinies, the Naija returnee dubbed him “Sokoti” and the name has stuck to him all through eternity.
I met other unborns waiting to go into the House of Destiny to pick their allotted purpose on earth. It is a fast and smooth procedure: we go in there one by one, followed by Sokoti. Behind the door is a cavernous hall filled with heads. On each head had been inscribed the destiny of whoever picks it. As soon as one enters the hall, one must shut one’s eyes. Sokoti’s assistants will lead the unborn around, allow you to feel some heads before you pick. Still with eyes shut, the unborn will be led out of the hall and be made to stand before Sokoti. He will then order the unborn with the destiny head to open his/her eyes and allow him a glance of his/her destiny on earth before flinging the head into a huge container standing to his left. As soon as I stood before the great angel ready to be led into the Chamber of Heads, Sokoti looked sternly at me and said:
“You’re a mischievous one. My eyes will be on you all the time, so behave in there. Now shut your eyes!”
I obeyed as best as I adjudged reasonable. One of Sokoti’s assistants then took me by the hand and led me into the Chamber of Heads. I began to feel different heads with my hand as quickly as possible. With my right hand I felt a particularly smooth head, as smooth as an egg. I immediately removed my hand from the egghead. Who wants to be a professor, long in knowledge but short in cash? Then I touched an oblong head and also removed my hand in a hurry; such a head could only belong to a politician or a robber. Then my hand touched a totally squarely head and quickly snatched my hand away. Who wants to be a pastor preaching prosperity, while his/her mates are making the millions in the business world? At this point, I tried to open my eyes a slit to enable me search for a favourable head. But a not-so-gentle tap on my head told me that Sokoti was not going to brook any nonsense from me.
“Pick a head, you naughty one!” shouted Sokoti from behind me. I quickly touched a few other heads until I felt one that was too good to be true, smooth and almost velvety to the touch. Must be the head of a business tycoon on earth. I grabbed it and held it closely to my chest. Soon after, I was led out of the Chamber of Heads. I was made to stand before Sokoti as he collected the head from me.
“Open your eyes!”
I obeyed and immediately glanced at the inscription on my chosen head. What I saw was so shocking I made up my mind there and then to die at birth rather than fulfil such a horrible destiny. The inscription on the head I picked up reads: “SCHOOL TEACHER IN NI...”
“Impossible!” I shouted. “I am going to be a successful business tycoon, not a school teacher!”
“Indeed! You will be tycooning school children all your life on earth!” Sokoti sneered as he threw the head into the silvery container and it disappeared. He did it so fast I could not see the rest of the inscription. After swallowing my disappointment, I waited to see the flag I would be led towards after leaving Sokoti’s House of Destiny. I consoled myself with the thought that being a school teacher in America would still be far better than being a school teacher in Naija. But here Sokoti played a fast one on me. He whispered something into the ears of my Mess-Ang and the latter took me into the House of Unborns through a side door, and not through the entrance door where the flags fluttered droopily. From that moment, I began to suspect foul play and this strengthened my resolve not to be born alive unless in a first world country. And that was the reason I was so eager to know the country I was about to be born in. Now my simple question has caused terribly complex reactions.
Two hours after the good doctor had been stretchered out and some blood samples had been taken from Would-be Mum for lab tests, the Chief Medical Director came in and advised our Would-be parents to go home and “put the leg of the house into the matter”.
“What do you mean by that?” queried Would-be Dad in alarm.
“Look, man, you know what I mean. All our tests show that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with your wife, and the twins you’re both expecting are doing very well. Go home and talk to your elders. Your wife’s case is beyond the help and competence of modern science!”
“Jesus Christ of Nazareth!” exclaimed our Would-be parents in unison.
Soon after, Would-be Mum dragged herself and us out of the hospital and entered Would-be Dad’s car. The engine fired up and the car eased out of the car park on the way home, I presumed. But not quite. After a long while, the vehicle stopped and our Would-be parents got out. Along the way, they had had a serious argument whether to go to Baba, Would-be Dad’s father or go to the pastor first. Obviously, Baba won the vote and they went to see him. After Baba heard the story of the voices speaking from the womb, he phoned another Baba and asked him to hurry to his house. The new Baba turned out to be a diviner and herbalist who boasts that he is the powerful one who drinks pap with Satan every morning. After hearing the story, he concluded that I must be an “Abiku” spirit-child, born to die again and again. Then he began to utter some mumbo-jumbo without head or tail. In the middle of the gibberish, I fairly screamed at him:
“Shut up! I say what country is this?”
A shocked silence greeted my outburst. Then a long scream is followed by the sound of breaking glass,
“Baba! Baba!” I heard Would-be Grandpa and his son shout.
Too late. The Powerful-One-Who-Drinks-Pap-With-Satan-Every-Morning had bailed out of the window!
Afterwards, Would-be Parents didn’t waste time jaw-jawing with Would-be Grandpa, but got in the car and raced straight for the Camp. On the way, Dumbo looked at me and said:
“Wicked girl!”
“Shut up, stupid boy!” I responded.
He thereafter ignored me, his long nose reminding me of the test tubes in the House of Unborns, his square lips a testimony to the pain that accompanies dying to heaven.
Indeed it is not easy to become a human being. As soon as an unborn spirit enters the House of Unborns, s/he is faced with a bank of tubes tiny and large, mammoth flat-bottomed bottles called crystallizing bottles on earth, and huge Bunsen burners emitting pure blue flames with a temperature far exceeding a billion degree Fahrenheit or Celsius. Dying in Bliss follows a simple but tortuous procedure which has not changed since God “created” heaven and earth.
Step 1: Give the unborn spirit Chemical Luto to break down all inbuilt spiritual defences.
Step 2: Put the helpless spirit in a test tube and heat the tube to a billion degree Fahrenheit or Celsius. At this point, the unborn spirit has become mere steam and completely powerless.
Step 3: Pass the now gaseous spirit through a cooling chamber at a temperature of ten billion degrees below zero. The sudden drop in temperature immediately liquefies the unborn spirit and s/he is easily decanted as a drop into a crystalizing bottle.
Step 4: Inject various chemicals into the liquid that will enable him/her develop the character traits that the Almighty wants him/her to have as well as empower him/her to fit into the family, ethnic, race etc. that he/she will belong to. For instance, if the unborn will be very creative on earth, he/she will be given a large dose of S4O5Y10I2N3k1A15. If the unborn spirit is going to be a brilliant scientist, an extra-large dose of E3I2N18S4T2E6I1N32 will be injected into the liquefied spirit. And if he will end up a particularly dull person like Dumbo, every chemical that will make a normal person brilliant will simply be denied him.
Step 5: Insert the fortified or de-fortified liquefied spirit in the sperm of the Would-be Father to be deposited in the womb of Would-be mother during love play.
I did not know when we arrived in the so-called camp, but when the car finally stopped moving I began to feel uneasy like a thief who burgled the house of policeman and hid in the quarters of the hangman. Then I heard the voice of the pastor, not the usual pastor but The Pastor, and I knew the game was over for me. From that moment, I lost my ability to speak out.
“Don’t worry, my children. One of the twins is a special child, a destiny child. She is a talented one who will contribute much to the educational development of our country. Her problem is that she doesn’t want to be a teacher and doesn’t want to be born in a developing country like ours. But she’s joking. She forgets that God is I AM THAT I AM; He does whatever He likes. We shall pray a simple prayer and God will do what God will do. Come, my daughter, let’s go to the clinic. I don’t want you to deliver in my office.”
“But it’s not my delivery date, Daddy,” said Would-be Mum.
Just then a sudden earthquake erupted and shook our cocoon of comfort. A violent tremor shook Dumbo and I and we were turned upside down by a force beyond our ken. Dumbo was the first to go out. He went out willingly and smilingly. But with the last strength left in me, I held on tenaciously until a force propelled or kicked me out of the womb.
When I opened my eyes and saw those black faces grinning at me, I used my trump card and refused to breathe. The harried nurse was frantically slapping my bum when I slipped away.
But the next time my eyes I ope’d
To a great darkness black as night
Then a sickly bulb began to glow
And children’s voices in starv’d delight
Shouted “Up NEPA! Up NEPA!!”
I will be glad of another death!
The End