Akpata Magazine

Tag: nigerian fiction

  • Petrichor

    Petrichor. 

    That’s the word he used—the one he called the scent you said you perceived outside. The scent of rain, soil–the one curling into your nose right now.

    “I can swear,” you began. “Swear?” you remember, he said, interrupting you as always. His head had tilted slightly to the right. 

    You remember how the light bounced off the tiny golden hoop earring in his left ear, how his taupe-coloured eyes twinkled, how his cold fingers traced wet lines on your cheekbones.

    You watched sweat trail down the side of the Cold Stone ice cream paper cup—the one beside the packet of testosterone pills he purchased at the pharmacy before you arrived. Despite leaving the house thirty minutes earlier, you were ten minutes late, thanks to Lagos’s never-ending gridlock. He didn’t mention your lateness, but you saw his eye glance at his watch when you walked in. He could annoy you in a million ways, like how you were a bit pissed that he ordered before you came in.

    But what he wasn’t–what he never was–was tardy. You once joked that if the rapture were a thing, if indeed the blast of a trumpet by the archangel of the homophobic god whose name was also ‘love’ could make people become human magnets- an irony you are yet to understand. He would be amongst the first to be caught up in the clouds, one of the first to arrive at the pearly gates.

    “If the angels are half as pretty as you are, Omalicha Nwa, you bet I would,” he replied.

    You remember how he bit his lip and did that annoying hip swing while locking you in place with his mesmerising gaze. At that moment, you knew he could trade eternity for you. You could wager that, for you, he would catch a grenade, hijack a plane, take a bullet in the brain, or whatever Bruno Mars said in Grenade. And you knew that you could do the same for him.

    But you let the yinmu and “better washing” slide out of your lips. You even accompanied it with an eye roll; playful deflection was your love language. You had yet to master the ability to reciprocate love. Perhaps affection wouldn’t have been strange to you if you had grown up in a household where “I love you” was used as often as “I pray you remain rapturable.”

    You remember the earliest days of your relationship when such action would have attracted a frown and a reprimand. But you both had outgrown that part of your lives. In the last eighteen months you had both shed those old skins of judgments and grown into new ones.

    So, that day, in the matchbox flat on Bode Thomas, Surulere, you smiled so hard your cheeks hurt when he flapped his hand like a big bird as he drifted towards you. There and then, you could tell that the flutters in your belly belonged to a thousand giant monarch butterflies. 

    You wished you had flapped your arms and ran towards him, too. You wish you had succumbed to the prompts of your heart and pretended to be a goofy goose. Instead, you side-stepped him just before he got to you. You wanted him to chase you. 

    If you knew then that time was already ticking, you would have let him hold you for all the minutes you allowed him to chase you around the frayed pink couch. You would not have done small shakara.

    At the Coldstone outlet four days ago, you wanted to tell him to use a spoon like every normal person. The perfectionist in you wanted everything to be perfect. You would have added, “for once, Somto” to get his attention, but the dimple that formed on his right cheek when he smiled distracted you from the faux pas, as always. It was easy for him to sway your emotions and change your mind without effort. And sometimes you wondered if it had anything to do with you loving him more than he loved you. You wish you knew the answer to this or to anything at all. You cannot remember if you knew someone who once said their partner annoys them as much as they amuse them. 

    Or maybe you heard it in one of the Agony Aunty segments of Jola and Feyikemi’s  I Said What I Said podcast. You don’t know which.

    Right now, your head feels like those refuse heaps stacked beside gutters in shop fronts on Thursday sanitation days; your head feels like a mix of mess. 

    To be candid, on some days, you didn’t even bother about his ice cream habits or any of his quirks in public. Why should you? You once dated a girl who drank beer straight from the bottle. An old-time girlfriend preferred slurping her palm wine from the calabash; you’ve had your fair share of weird drinkers and wack lovers. You have kissed a hundred frogs before your prince came along. But Somto was the only person you knew who ate ice cream directly from the cup. Spoons and spades be damned, he would say.

    You don’t know why the memories are tumbling in; why every moment you shared is coming back to you, but right now, you remember the dust, nylon, and paper swirling outside the glass. You remember the ‘E’ missing from the ‘Cold Stone’ inscribed on the glass.

    “Swear about what, my sweet love?” he asked. Your faces were so close you could see the pebble-like smoothness of the mole on his lip. So close in that public space that throbbed with strangers’ laughter, chatter, and patter of feet. So close that you were covered in the haze of caramel, frozen yoghurt, Oreos—and that scent you are wearing now. The cologne he left in your house. The empty bottle that best describes how you feel.

    “That you’re the only one that knows this word in this place,” you answered him. Your index finger–the one with the black chipped nail paint and the matching tattoo of a half heart–traced a halo in the space above your head. You didn’t care then that it was a preposterous claim. 

    In a room with men in nice suits and women in colourful chic office dresses. You didn’t mind that you were in Lagos’s Silicon Valley: Yaba, where your love story began. It didn’t matter how preposterous it was that you thought Somto was the only one who knew the word for the scent of rain. That both of you were in love or even sharing that same space was considered unthinkable by many. Even in 2024.

    Ayobami Adebayo’s “Stay with Me” was what brought you together. So much for a love story. Movies were your thing, so when you picked up the book on that green plastic table crusted with leftover Egusi and porridge beans in the crowded cafeteria. You did what every non-reader would do: you glanced at it casually, like someone inspecting a specimen; you flipped through the pages; ran a finger over the spine and made a comment when you saw the title. The newness of the book and boredom were what attracted you initially; you didn’t see the title till you flipped the book over.

    “So, she didn’t have any title for her book other than Sam Smith’s song?”

    “And who said ‘Stay With Me’ was exclusive to Sam Smith? The voice that answered you made you jerk your head upwards. Something about the voice made you look twice at the person. Beneath the hoodie and behind the dark Ray Bans, you could tell that whoever they were, they were not like everyone. They would never be like everyone. That’s how you met. It didn’t surprise you when he told you of his pills and potion on your first date two days later.

    “Potion?” you curled an eyebrow at him. “I’ve known that I was different since I was a child. He shrugged, and you witnessed him biting into ice cream. You watched him eating ice cream from a bowl for the first time. You had your deal breakers, and such a quirk as his was one of them, but as you watched him, you drew a faint line over it. That would be the first of many compromises.

    “You know if you didn’t tell me that you were…” You drew spirals in the air because the word was still too heavy to pronounce. You were still in a daze, wrapped in a cloud of surprise and infatuation. You were not a stranger to queer relationships. You have always found the minds and bodies of women more appealing than men’s. At first, you thought it was a form of rebellion against your spooky evangelist parents. Eventually, you realised that it was what it was—you were a girl who loved girls more.

    “A trans man… A guy, man?” he replied in his raspy voice, a result of smoking two packets of Benson Switch daily. Your body tensed, and the Oreo in your mouth tasted like chalk. Your eyebrows must have shot into your hair when you reacted. He waved your fears away with a flick of his head. That was when you fell in love completely with him. A few days later, while your belongings were still folded in your big Echolac box pushed against the wall of your room, you kissed for the first time. 

    Stay with Me was the first book you completed without being forced or cajoled. Nikki May’s Wahala was the next. You became a reader after that day. He became a podcast listener afterwards. You both agreed that it was a fair trade.

    ***

    Pain shoots up your palm as the gravel in the black soil bunched in your hands pushes against your skin. But that pain is nothing compared to the one in your chest. It is a drop of water to the ocean, a speck of dust to the sand in the Sahara Desert. If you had known that the ice cream date was your last day together, you would have stayed there forever. Fused to that uncomfortable, gaudy wooden chair, stuck on it like an old bubble gum.

    Your eyes are pressed shut. So tight it feels as though the bones of your eye sockets are touching. A sound that can pass for a muffled groan and stifled moan ricochets in your head and chest. You want to let the light in, but to let in the light, you will also be letting in the dark. If you do, you will see the tombstone and the lies—‘beloved daughter’ etched in neat block letters.

    If you open your eyes, you will see the footprints of the ones who never accepted him on the freshly dug soil. The ones he shared nothing with but a last name. The ones who had hurriedly dumped ‘the family’s embarrassment’ into a final resting place. Their excuse—according to the blog—according to religious rites.

    Somto was no daughter even before he began taking the testosterone pills. Neither was he loved. You had screamed this when you first saw the concrete tombstone. You pounded your rage into the dark earth. As though you wanted to dig your way to him.

    Until you heard the cough. It belonged to the guard who had let you in. It and the smell of his sweat-stained body in the worn faded overalls. Together they pulled you back from that brink. Even if you wanted to go on, you couldn’t. The way the guard glared at you made you realise he didn’t believe your story about being a relative who arrived late for the internment. You knew he would have called to confirm if he had Somto’s parents’ contact..

    The way he snatched the one thousand naira note from you when you came in showed that he was tired of the throng of visitors for the day, but he would not turn down your gift. Or any other. 

    When you turned to face him, you had to swallow your grief.

    If Somto were here, he would tell you that the guard was more of a receiver than a giver. Straight people! He would say. That’s how he sometimes saw the world: Straight. Queer. Good. Bad. But you understood because sometimes trauma can affect one’s worldview. The people he always called bad never disappointed. The good ones, too. He knew so much about the human condition that you had begun to think it was a gift because only gifts are that perfect.

    How come the gift failed? Why didn’t he know that the stranger on Tinder was a killer?

    It was a question you had asked yourself a hundred times. Even if you knew that there would be no answer. Not even a lie masked as one.

    Behind your lids, a shadow settles, and a blanket of cold air settles on your skin. The former, you would have been scared to be alone in this place with crumbling tombstones, gleaming granite, and Gone-Too-Soon’s. This place with gnarled tree trunks and wilting flowers.

    This vast expanse of land with its ominous mounds and the smell of decay. But you don’t feel anything. You’re not different from the residents of this place—people who once lived, people who no longer feel.

    So, you press your eyelids tighter as the gravel burrows deeper into your palm. As your knees sink deeper into the soil. The iron fist tightens around your heart and throat. Your chest heaves as you drag in the glue formed in your lungs. You have asked yourself if the tightness in your chest would have been lighter. You want to know if you would have felt better. If the memories of the day you mentioned those words to him did not constantly dart around like bats chased from a tree.

    “Let’s see other people … if that will make you happy,” you had said, even if you knew you couldn’t see anyone else. You wouldn’t. You would rather be a hermit, a worm under a rock, than be with another. But you said it. And meant it. Because love for you has always been what Oprah once said: it is being your best when the other is being their worst. And that was the best thing you could think of after he confessed to the affair. The best was what you always wanted for him.

    You would see the news feature on your phone if you open your eyes. ‘Transman Stabbed to Death.’ 

    Over two decades of his wondrous existence is summarised in four words; his eventful life is limited to one sentence. Even though you had spent hours replying to every vile comment online, telling people to fuck off and directing the keyboard warriors to their choice places in hell. You still can’t believe that it has happened. You want the unreturned phone calls to be another of his pranks. Your ears are pricked for the beep announcing an incoming text; notifying you that he is back; that this was all a bad dream. But you only hear the dull thud of rainwater on the soil. And that smell: Petrichor.

    OBADITAN OLUWAKOREDE (OBA.T.K) is an independent writer whose childhood memories consist of sitting beside his father’s beaten box, devouring almost every book in the African Writers Series.  In those nascent moments, he discovered the power of stories to grip and groom. But it wasn’t until his twenties, after meeting his mentor, that he discovered how to wield and weave stories. His writing is vivid and vibrant, exploring stories never told or amplifying the ones quietly told. He lives in Space, but he can be found in Lagos, Nigeria. He can be reached on 08026893106 and on Twitter(X) @KingofKontent. 

  • Drowning Myself – Haliru Ali Musa

    This is my seventh day in the shower, attempting to wash away the sorrows of losing my lover.

    The hot water streams down, but it can’t cleanse the memories. It wasn’t always like this. I remember the first time I felt such profound loss. I had to grieve for my mother when I was just fifteen. I’m unsure if I remember how I managed to endure it, or if my memories have twisted themselves into something bearable over time.

    But it was a period marked by hardship, sadness, and a profound sense of loss—so intense that I believed I couldn’t survive without her. Yet, I reached twenty-five seemingly unscathed. Or so I thought.

    So, I knew the death of my lover would trigger a profound reaction in me, especially since I didn’t see it coming.  Everyone, I suppose, is destined to experience such devastation, at least, once in a lifetime. But, for me, it was more complicated; working at Kyauta Orphanage Home brought its own set of rules and boundaries: it’s against the rules for caregivers to fall in love with orphans under their care, and for a good reason. The power imbalance, for instance, makes it nearly impossible for orphans to freely consent to a romantic relationship thereby creating a fertile ground for potential exploitation.

    I don’t know what kind of message you’re supposed to decipher from my inability to justify my actions. Call it what you will, but I was in love. And my reasons were pure.

    Back then, when I resumed work at Kyauta Orphanage Home, falling in love was the last thing on my mind; my days were filled with diligent routines: checking on a few special orphans, helping them with meals, and simply sitting with them as they played.

    Nights, however, were different. I would go out and buy a bottle of cough syrup, a habit I had picked up during my university days. I never smoked or drank alcohol; the smell of both repelled me. Instead, I abused the dosage of the cough medicine. Most nights, I downed a full bottle, letting it lull me into drowsiness. By morning, I’d wake up feeling as fresh as a daisy.

    Naturally, a bond existed between me, a caregiver, and Jiddah, an orphan. This bond felt like the unseen roots of an ancient tree. It was not merely the comfort I could trace in her eyes, nor the warmth she said she felt when I was beside her. Rather, it was a sanctuary where both our souls drifted free—a kind of sanctuary likened to a “man and his bed’s”: An intimate space where vulnerabilities are laid bare and the essence of one’s being is unburdened  for a few hours each night.

    Eventually, when the man falls sick, the bed takes on a dual role; it becomes both a sanctuary and a prison–a place where the man is simultaneously cared for and constrained. The rhythms of his life slow, marked by the rise and fall of his fever, the restless shifting of his body, and the quiet moments of fitful sleep. 

    Such was what I felt when I fell in love with Jiddah, a deaf orphan I had cared for for over two years.

    Our bond began as something I couldn’t explain. At that time, it sounded wrong in my head when I tried to articulate it. Perhaps I never felt the need to articulate it until now…

    I remember her laughter: defined by her shoulders moving up and down, her smiles, her lips slightly parted, her eyes slightly squinted; and the way she would touch her chin with two fingers to indicate “Thank you.” Those moments made everything else fade away…

    And when she taught braille to younger blind kids, her fingers would trace the dots with rhythmic precision while her eyes were shut. In those moments, as she immersed herself in the world of braille, everything else in my mind seemed to fade. To truly appreciate the world of braille, one must witness it firsthand, and Jiddah was a master at it.

    But alongside those moments are memories of her that I tried to forget. One she passed to me in the most inconspicuous way: the secret of her violation by the house manager and her dream of leaving the orphanage someday to become a tailor.

    Perhaps, I tried to forget these things because, deep down, I knew they were actions I should have taken. I had my own problems, like my drug addiction, which was getting out of hand. I couldn’t go a night without drowning myself in several bottles of cough medicine. My speech slowed whenever a sound left my mouth. Each night blurred into the next, the haze of the medication masking my pain.

    But even in that fog, I knew I lacked the courage to take the appropriate steps to help her. I was trapped in my own cycle of self-destruction, unable to break free.

    And then came the day that changed everything.

    I was standing in the shower, letting the water wash over me, when the news of her death hit me like a cold slap. The shock froze me in place, the water pounding down but unable to wash away the sudden, overwhelming grief.

    “I know who did this to her, but I can’t come forth to say,” I murmured in the shower, repeating the words like a broken record, a thousand times more than my mind could count.

    Two days after she died, I sought out the house manager—the very man accused of betraying the trust of the vulnerable girls in our care. I told him about my need to leave the premises permanently. His face was somewhat expressionless, but I sensed an undercurrent of guilt. It wasn’t as pronounced as mine, but it was there, etched in the lines on his forehead.

    It took an immense effort to restrain myself from striking the man before me. Although what I really needed was to escape, to be anywhere but Kyauta Orphanage. Yet, strangely, I found myself unable to gather my belongings and leave. So, I resolved to confront him instead. Perhaps in the depths of his eyes, I would find a hatred profound enough—for him and for myself—that I would finally report him.

    “Don’t sweat it,” he said with a shrug. “These things happen. We do our best for the kids, but some things are just out of our hands.” 

    His words reminded me of what she had narrated he did to her on her 16th birthday. How he pressed his torso against her slender figure, consuming whatever space she occupied, while his hand stole the air from her throat and mouth.

    I stared at him, feeling a surge of anger. “Maybe I should just quit. Disappear. I can’t stay here with all these memories.”

    He raised an eyebrow. “Take some time off then. A few weeks, maybe.”

    “But…” I felt my resolve waver.

    He cut me shut . “No buts. You’re under my wing; nothing’s going to touch you. Ka ji.” 

    Then, I tried to block the mental image of the last time I saw her: her dark silhouette outlined against the stillness of her room, her slender frame lying motionless on the bed, surrounded by an aura of melancholy. Her bed was pushed against the far wall, its disheveled sheets tangled as if in a struggle. A lone pillow, stained with tear streaks, lay abandoned on the floor beside her.

    I tried to avoid imagining the perpetrator in the act. He was my reflection, aged and thickened, his features honed by the years. Clutching a bottle of pills that I eventually retrieved, I struggled to banish the vision of her frail hands. Some of the pills had fallen out of their container and were now scattered aimlessly across the room. On the floor laid the sentence she had written, a last farewell to a man she loved who had failed her: “Drowning myself.”

    Right now, in my shower, I am haunted by a truth I cannot utter. My hands, bound by invisible threads, mirror the act of swallowing the same pills she once did, seeking silence in the way she found it. Water cascades down my chest, mingling with my labored breaths as memories and emotions converge, battering me with their relentless force. I stand there, helpless, beneath the crushing weight of it all.

    And there it was—the hands that had stripped Jiddah’s innocence and left her shattered, now trying to rejuvenate me. 

    “Don’t do this, Yassir. Don’t do this. Someone, call a doctor!” His voice resonates through the corridors of my memory, reaching back to the earliest moments of my life. It’s a voice I have come to despise. It is my father’s.

    Haliru Ali Musa is an engineer whose passion for storytelling knows no bounds. Hailing from Katsina, Nigeria, he now calls the bustling city of Lagos his home.

  • Domestic Accident – Chizitere Madeleine Nwaemesi

    Today you’re in Australia, in a few days you will be in Nigeria. You have failed your graduate studies courses. A lot of things need to be done. Firstly, you will report to work and resign without having to explain why you have been absent without notice for twenty-one days. Secondly, you need to tell your uncle about the shadow that bears Mmirimma’s physique and a masquerade’s phiz that kept muttering “God did not answer your mother” in fierce whispers into your ears at night. You did none. Instead you bought and booked a flight ticket to Nigeria. You need to see your mother, even if it will be for the last time.  Last two days, you went to Denis’ apartment and packed your remaining stuff into a Grebs eggs brown box while he sat on the bed staring, his face weak.

    “Please, rethink this decision.”

    You said nothing but kept packing frantically. The plastic sunflower vase had gone in first and there was still enough space for your abandoned journals, medium-sized transparent bottled pepper soup dry spice (the one you used whenever you were in high spirit for home meals), set of abandoned lingerie, ancient books that you never survived a paragraph on, the portraits of naked women that you bought at the art exhibition his younger brother hosted in Sydney last month, and your manual blender. 

    “You’re taking everything,” he sounded small, wounded and you imagined his lithe body slouched. He always slouched.

    The box could fit into the back seat of your car, comfortably. You thought as you lifted it into your arms. He stood and retrieved the box, offering to carry it. You let him. In his garage, he shut the car door after dropping the box and held your arm.

    “Zara. Say something. You can”t just leave me this way,” you know what he meant but what will you do with this persistent urge to burst things like you would the soft rashes that sprout on your keister after getting periods which you scratch and scratch until they turn sore and sticky, seeping blood.

    “Do you have to go?” he held your palms now. You have to go. You had spent twenty one days in this narrow apartment barring calls from work and relatives, listening to his gruff snores after sex, and hiding from the shadows that wouldn’t stop reoccurring. Yes, you have to go. You need to take out this blanket of darkness that silence has woven around your life. 

                            

    “Mmirimma—Good water” is your grandmother’s moniker.  It wasn’t a mere delusion that beauty runs in their bloodline. Beauty is a major characteristic of Ndulue’s lineage but hers is a revelation. When you see Mmirimma, you will understand why her beauty is a revelation. At almost seventy-one, she was a straight built woman with sharp face contours and body curves. But that’s not exactly where her beauty lies.

    The beauty you saw was in her phiz, albeit old age but her kind is the beauty that never entirely fades. The outline of her facial features down to her shoulders was a tactful representation of those you saw in the foreign magazines Uncle Jidenna used to send home among other numerous abroad things. “Edibles for Zara–to keep her mouth busy”, the tag on the large Ziploc reads, much to your excitement. Uncle Jidenna is your mother’s younger brother. Mmirimma is your mother’s mother. They were just two: Mmirimma’s children, beautiful and successful. Usonwa, your mother and a pediatrician at Amaku Teaching Hospital, Awka; Uncle Jidenna, her brother and a professor of physics in Australia. 

    Your mother had you in her teenage years, when, according to your grandmother, “men swarm around her like bees but she picked none”. She said picked with a sneer like men are items of clothing, you know, like the thrift wears the Eke market women heaped on a spread out wide raffia mats before and after sunsets on weekdays for the women who circulate them like termites would sugar, haggling prices, picking and dropping each until they finally made their choice and some eventually never make a choice. Like your mother. It was devastating for you. Your mother had strings of men to settle for and rejected all. Why? Who was your father? 

    Mmirimma ruled her daughter’s life. You knew from the way their bond had been all these years, clasping tightly, like two surfaces held with glue. After your mother birthed you, she left you with her mother and disappeared to London to study medicine. It was intentional. “A baby should not tie her down when I”m here,” your grandma told you years later albeit near naivety and impossibility of you understanding such words and the impact. You misunderstood her. You are important but not as her studies. Or her career.

    Your mother was as beautiful as Mmirimma. Light skinned and elegant. Uncle Jidenna called her “Mammy without water” on the days they made jokes about what should have been, who should have been this or that while they conversed on Facetime. His face–yellow and robust, your mother’s, slender, and cheerful.

    “Mmirimma is going to London for a medical check-up,” she told him one midnight after they had discussed the decline of the country’s economy due to mass emigration. They discussed loss of labor and unavailability of professionals, especially in the health sector. You were awake on your mother’s bed peeping into the laptop screen.

    “Aunty Chika will take care of her. She owes me that.” Your mother yawned before her brother uttered a comment.

    “I will send her some money,” he finally spoke.

    “Mba! Don’t do that. Why?”

    “Nobody owes you anything, Mammy. Aunty Chika has responsibilities to tend. You remember her eldest daughter tried to commit suicide last month? Chukwu aluka!—God performed miracles— If her teenage son hadn’t gotten back from his dance classes for early lunch, it would have been another story. I will send her some money. She cannot take care of my mother with empty hands.”

    “If you say so. She isn’t staying long anyways. Her appointment has been booked.” Your mother threw up her hands in resignation. Her hair extension pooled past her tank top down to her waist. You worried why she never had the discipline of sleeping in nightwear. You propped up on the pillow eavesdropping, then later gave in to sleep, knowing full well that they will go on and on, from one topic to another until 3am or farther.

    Mmirimma returned from London with a gait you didn’t quite recognize. Your mother had gone to receive her at Akanu Ibiam airport in Enugu in early March. That was two weeks after she received a call from Aunty Chika. It was midnight when she received that call. Uncle Jidenna did not call her that day. They had fallen out because Jidenna’s wife went to Paris with her friends for a short vacation. According to your mother, he shouldn’t have allowed such extravagance, such freedom. Your uncle was upset because his sister was telling him how to treat his wife.

    “You shouldn’t have married her,”your mother said after long moments of fat silence.

    “Mammy, should I have married you? Maybe it’s time you accepted that I cannot be here forever. I have a growing family and a woman I love. I cannot have enough yet deny my wife the happiness she deserves. I acknowledge the fact that you and Mmirimma don’t like her much but it’s definitely not your job to choose who I love, Mammy. Stop this madness.”

    Your mother fumed. “So, in essence, I depend so much on you…” her tone half asking, half shaky.

    “I’m not surprised you’re twisting everything to suit what you want to hear. You are good at it. And, yes, you have a point. Accept any of these men hovering around you and stop this jealousy.”

    Your mother was short of words. So, her brother continued.

    “I never delay Zara’s tuition. I never delay your allowances. I have paid for every property you demanded. What else do you want? Should I have married you? Zanu mu—answer me. Should I have married you?”

    When the call session ended, your mother slammed her laptop shut and stormed out into the night. You knew her destination was the Avocado tree just before her mother’s block. Uncle Jidenna had erected two blocks in the compound; the bigger one for his sister and the smaller one for his mother. But Mmirimma was mostly in her daughter’s block. When she came back inside the room, it was almost dawn. Her eyes, puffy and cheeks red. Two days after the silence, Aunty Chika called. Your mother thought it was her brother calling to apologize as usual but trepidation crept into her nerves when she saw the caller.

    “Aunty, don’t tell me that! Mba! Ekwuzikwana ya ozo!—No! Don’t say it again! Don’t tell me that!”

    You sat up on the bed, tired of feigning sleep. Your mother’s daily activities usually stretched to the wee hours of the morning, so it often intercepted your sleep. You grew up trying to take part in her daily activities, unconsciously at first, then consciously during pubescence because you admired your mother. You love how she sat legs-crossed,‘sitting pretty”–that was what your grandma called such posture–every evening, reviewing what you didn’t know on her laptop. You love her hair; dense and kinky. You love her slender fingers. You loved her pale skin when she undressed and wished you had such a delicate mold of buttocks, waist-line, clean fold of flesh between her legs. You love her accent when she chatted with her London friends. You knew you cannot speak such grammar. Why? Because you are finding it hard to understand anything in English studies, in all your school subjects generally, and you always never excelled in your exams. Your mother is intelligent. You are dull. Your mother is beautiful and graceful. You are homely and ungraceful. All these caused you insomnia.

    “You people have killed my mother!”she screamed again.

    Your heart churned. You put your feet down on the tiles. Its chilliness stung. But you walked on, steadily, until you stood behind your mother.

    “No! Don’t tell me that Aunty. Oh, God!  Oh, God!”she landed the phone on the bed, panting, her left palm on her forehead, the right hand on her hips.

    “They have killed my mother”, she told you after seconds of pacing up and down the wide room. “That crazy daughter of hers pushed my mother! How could she? She should have died that day! Odira should have waited until dusk to come back so she could kill herself! Bitch! She dared to push my mother.”

    Maybe Aunty Chika called Uncle Jidenna immediately your mother ended the call because he called minutes later. Your mother began crying. He pacified her, told her about the unsteady mental health of Onyinyechi, Aunty Chika’s eldest daughter, and reminded her that Aunty Chika was their father’s last cousin. Mmirimma only sustained head injuries and minor knee fracture. She should calm down. He would pay for Mmirimma’s return tickets immediately. Mmirimma would be fine. 

    “Anugom“, your mother responded repeatedly, blowing her nose into the tissue she snatched from its box. “I have heard you.” 

    The day you fell down the staircase in school and passed out, your mother did not panic like this. They phoned her office line and she told them she couldn’t come right away. She would come after 4pm. She sent some money for hospital bills but they kept you in the school clinic until you resuscitated. When she came around 5pm, she scolded you about roughness so much that you wondered why she named you “Chizaram (God answered me)”. Did she really ask in the first place?  

    You checked yourself for any panic, the type that gripped your mother before her brother called but you couldn’t find any. Maybe…. Noo! Shame on you! 

    The Mmirimma that left for London was not the one that returned. This Mmirimma was different. She had purple eye bags. She hunched if she managed to stand. She was badly forgetful. She screams into space. She conversed with people she alone could see. She wees and defecates in her dress.

    Your mother was heartbroken. You had never seen her so heartbroken.

    “She shouldn’t have gone. I made a huge mistake, Zara. How could I be so clueless? Something more than a fall happened to my mother,” she lamented on the drive to the supermarket. Later, she stood at the Diapers section with a phone pressed to her left ear.

    “Jidenna, Nigerian diapers are not all that bad. There’s this one Nneka has been getting for her mother-in-law. I will try it.”

    You stood beside her, but your eyes never stopped darting across to the Pringles section. A little girl ran ahead of her mother to the onion-flavor row and grabbed two containers. Her mother stroked her face, bent to talk to her or, rather, negotiate with her before she dropped one. Her mother smiled.  

    “What do you mean you don’t remember Nneka? Nneka the prayer warrior!”

    Nneka is your mother’s godmother. Who doesn’t know Nneka? You wondered. Nneka that feeds on prayers like food. The first time your mother took you to her residence at Udoka Estate, her irrational obsession with prayers came as a shock to you. Your mother was away in Abuja for a one-week course while Mmirimma was in London.

    On the first morning, when the long awaited breakfast arrived by 10am, you wanted to jump into the food but Nneka reminded you that prayers had to be said first. Her line up of prayer intentions was just too much for food! You began crying. Later that evening, you overheard her on the phone asking your mom why she did not teach you the importance of prayers. You then understood why her children avoided home so much albeit all the luxury and comfort it provided.

    “Well…” She laughs shortly. “I will buy it for a start. Whenever we receive your package, I will switch.” 

    In the weeks that followed, activities changed at home. Activities had to change to accommodate Mmirimma’s new status. Your mother was always busy at the hospital so she suggested you forfeit living in the hostel. You had to school from home so you could take care of your grandmother while she was at work.  You had to cook with less or no salt at all so your grandma could be at lesser risk of heart attack.

    Your mother had taken her pillow, charger, and hair bonnet into Mmirimma’s block because she was spending most nights with her. She had to wake up as early as 4am every day to wash, clean and change her diapers while her mother muttered incoherent words. She cleaned out her room while you prepared breakfast. Anytime you cleaned her up, the stench clouded your chest and caused you lumps in the throat.

    During breakfast while you found it hard to swallow because the lump wouldn’t let you, your mother kept chattering about what to and what not to get for Mmirimma. Your tuition was delayed for a whole semester. Your mother remodeled Mmirimma’s bathroom. She changed a lot of her wears and restocked special food items for her. Mmirimma had to come first.  Slowly, your grandmother overshadowed the little existence you enjoyed, squeezing you out entirely from your mother”s schedules. Your mother stopped paying attention to your hair, your school books, your diet and choices. At 16, you are a grown-up, she said. You should take care of yourself. 

    One Friday morning, after a grudging late sleep, you stretched to full length before heading to your mother’s bathroom to collect the cleaning agents you needed for Mmirimma. Your mother had left early for Ukpo; someone had recommended a strong herbalist who could treat Mmirimma. She will regain her senses. Your mother was assured.  

    “Ugly child, you again?” her voice halted you at the entrance of the room. She let out a peal of laughter. Shivers spread out on your dry skin. The last time Mmirimma abused you verbally was when you broke her set of porcelain plates and hid them away on the crates packed behind the big blue water tank and forgot entirely about it until she discovered the mess.

    She told you how wicked you were from birth; how you almost cost your mother her life because she was hell-bent on bringing you into this world. She concluded with how different you looked (by different you know she meant ugly), it must have been the stupid man who sired you; of course, you don”t resemble her daughter in any way.  

    You ignored her sneer and headed to the bathroom where you turned on the water heater and fetched cold water from the tap below the shower. Then you came back for her. She let you lead her to the bathroom where you peeled off her wrap dress. The stench from her diaper hit your nose. A bigger lump formed in your throat. You swallowed hard. The bath lasted for five minutes after which you toweled her pale skin. Her body lotion went first before oil and vitamins. Allotted time was running out. You hastened to clean out her bed before you took her into your mother’s block. You had thought it was stressful for her but her daughter insisted. “She needs to move around, my mother is not an invalid”, she often emphasized.

    When you returned from school by noon, the air was humid with anxiety. You could feel it in your nerves, spreading to your fingertips. Your mother was not yet back so you checked on Mmirimma and found her in her chair with her head bent sideways. A pool of saliva garnered on the arm of the chair. It was long before she felt your presence.

    “Chizaram” her eyes had shrunken over the weeks and fallen back into its sockets. Her lips, thin and red. 

    “Mamma!” you answered and headed towards her.

    “Fix my bath.”

    You knew it would come next. She need not remind you. You flung your handbag and disappeared into the bathroom adjacent to her room. That afternoon, you let the water fill to the brim, past the brim and flowed down for long, then you went to get her. 

    Uncle Jidenna has sent different packages to your mother since Mmirimma’s fall but none contained any Edibles for Zara. None. Your mother doesn’t sleep in her room anymore because she keeps an eye on Mmirimma. Mmirimma has clouded your mother’s vision so sickly that you were beginning to find it really hard to breathe. These days you intentionally fling plates after washing so your mother calls out. Sometimes you end up breaking these plates but it wasn’t enough to distract her from Mmirimma.

    Back in her room, you ransack your box just to pick an item of clothing and leave others lying around. The only time she showed up was to take what she needed and head back to Mmirimma’s block. When your cramps came, she wasn’t there to squeeze out lime juice, mix it with little salt and hot water and cajole you to drink up.  She was in Mmirimma’s room shearing her hair. 

    You threw the lukewarm water on her bare back and she moaned. You wetted the grey sponge with little water and so much soap that the lather could be enough for two more baths. Then, you bent to her sitting position and began to scrub her skin, delicately at first and furiously with time. 

    The soap stung her eyes and she winced. You paused in scrubbing and watched. It was stupid to stand and do nothing but that was what you did. You didn’t know how long you stared before she leaped up and screamed your name. She beat around her arms wildly and you ducked. She launched forward and hit her arm against the shower stand and groaned in pains. You watched like a fisherman waiting on his hook bait to catch a fish like you used to watch the wall clock in your mother’s room, counting down on seconds, waiting for it to strike midnight. 

    Mmirimma caught your arm and cursed. She soon bent and her knees wobbled. 

    “Give me some water!”

    Water! Your mind raced. It was like the Rich Man pleading on Lazarus in the bible, “…even a drop,” the Rich Man begged Lazarus. Everything was in your hands and you felt like the messiah. You could have just muttered, “Mamma, I am sorry,” immediately or just go ahead to fetch some water to rinse her face so she could at least see. Instead, your mind went aloof. Hate possessed you.

    Maybe if Mmirimma dies, your mother will move back into her block with you and you will resume sleeping on her bed, watching her beautiful body while she undresses and nothing will ever change it again. Maybe if she dies, your mother could remember you existed. Maybe uncle Jidenna would realize that there was no other person but you to send goodies forever. Maybe there will be no one to ever remind you how odd you were. Maybe if Mmirimma dies, your mother will remember to tell you how you came about, who your father is. Maybe Mmirimma is old enough to die so she could rest.

    Her finger clenched your arms and her nails pierced your skin. Bile rose to your throat. Maybe if Mmirimma dies, you could be able to breathe in your mother’s house. Her arm quivered and disquietude crept up the depth of your tummy. You scooped water and poured on her low hair. She gasped and gently released her hold on you. You helped her sit back on the stool, then poured scoop upon scoop of water on her head, shoulder, and face until the soap lather dissolved into the flowing water and headed to the drain. It was not in your capacity to kill your grandmother, you thought. But you knew it was because your mother would blame you if Mmirimma died in her bath. She will not forgive you. You wore her fresh diapers and clean gown after you have toweled her body and led her out of the bathroom. 

    It was past 4pm when you heard a thud, whimpering and a shattering crash of something metallic. You were picking on the left-over of the vegetables and yam your mother prepared for Mmirimma in the morning before she left. The thoughts that the thud provoked in your head stilled you. When you got to her she laid face flat before the bathroom on the cold tiled floor. Blood seeped from somewhere on her face and formed a small pool beside her head; the curtain hanger had pulled from the wall and fallen on top of her lower body. The curtain covered her waist down to her slender calves. Her sprawled finger moved as she groaned deeply and then silence. 

    You dialed your mother and she picked at the third ring. Then you spoke lowly until she screamed “Ekwuzikwana!”—don”t say it again— into your ears and ended the call. It was Aunty Nneka who came and took you away, and throughout the drive to Udoka Estate, she prayed fervently clutching your left palm tightly.

    Then, prayed more after she asked if you were okay, if you needed anything, but your head was clouded and that saved you more questions like, “where were you when she fell?” and its kind. Something held your tongue to the roof of your mouth for days and you found Aunty Nneka’s prayers comforting and necessary. After Mmirimma’s body has been confirmed dead and deposited into the morgue and her room cleared out, your mother came for you. She emaciated within the days and her eye bags heavy with grief. Later that night when her brother called, she sat at the left end of the bed with Mmirimma’s photo album on her lap while flipping through it.

    “It is a domestic accident. She lost quite a lot of blood…” she mouthed, staring at a raised photo; the one Mmirimma took in a dancing regalia. Her ankles, neck and wrists were covered in fine Ola, her waist heavily rounded in Jigida and her body wrapped adoringly in a twinkle star Ankara. Her teeth shone as she smiled at the camera. She had taken the picture when she was still a member of a dance group in your hometown. Your mother told you sometime in the past. You almost forgot Mmirimma was once a dancer and you have seen her perform some breathtaking steps for her daughter in the past. It was all in the past now.

    Mmirimma raised her children single-handedly after the death of her husband in a fire incident at Onitsha in the early 90s. Their marriage was still young and Jidenna was a toddler. She grew famous in Onitsha market where she sold lace, maybe because her beauty could halt a downpour or because she was successful. After her son relocated to Australia, Mmirimma retired from her business. Her children could sustain her as long as life allowed. Mmirimma was everything her children wanted. They loved her. They cherished her. They placed her so high you envisaged her crash. 

    “It was a domestic accident”she sniffed noisily. “I should have removed all the tiles. I should have had everywhere covered with thick rugs. How could I be so stupid?” she raised the album to her face and sobbed into it. 

    “I shouldn’t have gone to Ukpo, Jide. I should have stayed home, but I needed to see the man. The man said we would bring her. She would have been fine.”

    You thought about how many times she had recounted these explanations to her brother and how long she stayed awake to cry at nights while you pretended to be asleep. She began to stay away from work and spent the long days in Mmirimma’s apartment, packing out her stuff, going through them thoroughly before tying them up in uneven bundles. She barely washed or ate. For relaxation, she watched Mmirimma’s photo album. The loss sat so deep in the air and you feared your mother may never love you as much as she loved Mmirimma. 

    During lectures in school, your mind drifts. You did not tell your mother that you sat on that verandah counting seconds into long minutes before you went in to see Mmirimma. You did not tell her that you stood and watched her groan in pain until she gave in to death. Then, you dialed her. You marveled at how much you hated Mmirimma. No. ‘Hate’ is such a strong word to use but what other word could qualify the disdain you felt for Mmirimma? Which even made you want to kill her? But no. You did not kill her. You reaffirmed yourself but there was a swivet;it was in your capacity to kill your grandmother. 

    Her burial date was fixed before you wrote your exams. The priest sprinkled holy water on her casket heavily and on everyone at the graveside like shower before she was lowered. The water prickled your skin and you remembered how her nails dug your arm and you shivered. 

    You left home afterwards and stayed at the hostel with a friend until school was over. At home, the insomnia you thought you could manage worsened. Every night when you try to sleep, you see Mmirimma. Mmirimma was everywhere–in the restroom, in your cup of tea, in your plate of soup, in the eyes of your mother, in your school books, in the face of everyone at the market, everywhere. 

    The next year, your mother broke the news of her marriage. A neurosurgeon in Enugu, average height, chocolate-brown complexioned and spoke through his nose. Your mother was going to Enugu. Your mother was leaving you. You wrote to your uncle and he directed you to apply for graduate studies. The day your mother drove you to the airport, she held you in a long embrace. Your braids squeezed under the crush of her arm. 

    “Remember, Australia is not your home,” she said before she released you. Where was home? You asked yourself many days later. Her big mansion in Enugu where the little one in her womb would soon occupy? Where do you even belong? Where was home?  

    You had thought the nightmares you suffered would not follow you to Australia. You were wrong. They boarded the plane with you and accompanied you to your uncle’s house. Mmirimma was also in her son’s face. She was everywhere–in everything you touched, saw or ate. She was dwelling in your head. Sometimes, you stared at the little scar on your arm where her nails had torn your skin and it reminded you of her curses, especially on the day you sustained that scar. 

    How could you have known so little? Mmirimma had seen the look in your eyes. She nurtured you until you turned six. She taught you how to wash your hands and wash your “flower” (that was what Mmirimma called the vagina). Mmirimma was aware her grandchild wanted her dead.

    But why was it so? How could you sell your soul to the devil? She would never forgive you. She haunted you until you could not concentrate on anything. She haunted you until you quit your studies. She haunted you until your uncle began suggesting you see a therapist. She haunted you until you left the only man who has truly loved you. She haunted you until you decided to go home and tell your mother how you watched Mmirimma groan in pain and die before you dialed her. Maybe you will have a home after all, if your mother would forgive you. 

    Chizitere Madeleine Nwaemesi is a Nigerian writer whose works have been published by Isele Magazine, African Writer Magazine, The Shallow Tales Review, Efiko and elsewhere. You can find her on_https://substack.com/@cmnwaemesi