Before I share my work with you guys, I would like to formally introduce myself to the lit sec. I don't usually frequent the Literature Section, but I am an avid writer. In my free time, I write mostly short stories, even though I have attempted a few novels, however those are stories for another day.

For some time now, I've been researching and working on a few short stories which deal with traditional African society. Through my work, I intend to help preserve and relay my culture to my audience, while at the same time drawING connections to social issues that have always plagued human beings. This particular story is broken into four chapters and is set in an Igbo community sometime in the mid-18th century and deals with class struggle. Enjoy my story and feel free to offer your criticism.

[size=20pt]KAMALU
[/size] by Odumchi.

CHAPTER ONE

The sun’s farewell rays shot out from the canopies of the towering palms that loomed over the compound of Onoh. Day was slowly creeping away, as indicated by the bright red and orange hues that graced the heavens. This transition was natural and quite smooth, for if one looked up intently, he could see the beauty of the setting sun dipping behind the palm canopies, and the sky awash with mysterious colors as if foreshadowing the splendor to come the following morn.

For Onoh, the transformation of day into evening brought nothing but excitement and slight anxiety. The following day would be his day, as he had decided. It was his intention and that of his friends—or at least he thought it was—for evening to fall and night to pass, ushering in the morning. In fact, it was for this upcoming day that Onoh had summoned three of his closest friends at his abode, so that they could make merry and celebrate with him, for it was his last night as a bachelor.

At the age of thirty, he was one of the wealthiest farmers in all of the nineteen villages of Arochukwu. Although a large portion of his wealth was inherited from his father who had also been a successful farmer in his day, he was generally regarded as the model of the ideal young man. For this, many envied him and many more praised him, granting him fame, honor, and prestige.

In his home village of Agbagwu, he was the single wealthiest individual in his age grade. His numerous barns were buckling with yams, his pens alive with goats, sheep and chickens, and his fields buzzing with the activity of indentured laborers, slaves and servants. However, as wealthy and as blessed as he was, there was one thing that his wealth failed to provide him: a wife.

In his day and society, it was quite unusual for a man of his age and political stature to be wifeless. Most of his age mates, and even his friends who were drinking before him, already had one or two wives and several children. Onoh’s case proved to be the result of his enlarged ego. As a wealthy and influential man, he believed he deserved an equally beautiful and amazing woman for a wife. With this belief in his head, he wasted several years in search of such a woman whom, according to his mother, “existed only in the spirit world”.

It was only after he had been placed under serious pressure by his mother and uncles that he was forced to desist from such nonsensical and frivolous a fantasy. His mother, who was seriously advanced in age, kept nagging him with the request that she desired to see and carry her grandchild before she would join her ancestors, and eventually he complied. Onoh settled for a charming and beautiful eighteen-year-old girl from the neighboring village of Atani.

Ivuoma was her name and she would be his as soon as morning came. She was extremely beautiful and quite breathtaking. The radiance of her rich, soft skin, the authenticity of her warm curving smile, and her elegant, hypnotic walk caught his eyes and enchanted his heart, making him forget that she was of a social class much lower than he.

Her family was composed of peasants who, in Onoh’s mind, “were only good for tilling the land as laborers”. He had done business with her family in the past: her father and brothers had worked for him on his farm and his promise to “settle them and lift them out of their cursed poverty” was what ultimately won their hearts. Ivuoma’s marriage to Onoh presented itself as an avenue for her family to attain social elevation, and for the first time in several generations, rid itself of the terrible ailment otherwise known as “poverty”. For this reason, Onoh had been assured by her family that whether or not she liked it, she was his.

The only thing retarding this prophecy was nature itself, for night had yet to pass. Although they had been drinking and parleying deep into the night, morning still seemed distant. Impassioned with sharp excitement as to the prospects of the events of the upcoming morn, Onoh concluded the discussion with his friends, blew out the flame torches that lit his residence and bade then goodnight. As they left his compound and set out for their individual homes in drunken stupor, Onoh stood there commandingly, examining the full moon in its raw splendor. Perhaps a bachelor’s perception of the moon is different from that of a married man? He took one last look at the moon and then blew out the last torch and entered his hut to sleep.

SECOND CHAPTER

In the village of Obinkita, there existed two brothers named Aniche and Nweke; the sons of the wine tapper, Mazi Kalu. Since the days of their youth, they had displayed tremendous talent and expertise in the art of hunting, much to the disdain of their father who would’ve preferred them to be farmers. According to their father, farming was “a solid trade upon which households could be established and fed”, whereas hunting did nothing but “satisfy the stomach temporarily.”

Many years ago, when they were much younger, their father labored and acquired tremendous debt in order to secure for them an indentured servitude on the farm of a wealthy planter, in the hopes that they would one day be awarded their own plots of land on which to farm. He sold his few possessions to acquire yam seedlings which his sons were to plant and harvest alongside those of their master, Mazi Nmerengen. Unfortunately, his children were so consumed with the business of hunting small game with their slingshots that they neglected their primary duty as laborers. When their peers would rise early in the morning to go and plant seeds and do farm work, Aniche and Nweke would sneak into the forest and hunt squirrels and birds, returning only in the evening time when they were exhausted and had eaten their fill of bush meat. As things turned out, Mazi Nmerengen ultimately discovered their activities and not only sacked them, but also filed an Ekpe lawsuit against their father, in order to receive compensation for the hundreds of neglected yam seedlings which lay rotten in the ground.

It took their father seven long years of struggling and hustling to pay off the debt, and at the end of those seven years, he had sunken even further into poverty. Of Mazi Kalu’s five children, they were the only males, and it was for this reason that he had chosen not to disown them, many years back. Their father had lost complete hope in their usefulness, but within his deepest heart, he prayed that they would somehow come to their senses and abandon the frivolity associated with hunting.

Aniche and Nweke thought otherwise. Every evening, after enjoying their supper, they would take their equipment and forage deep into the forest in search of wild game and return late at night or early in the morning with something—never empty-handed.

However, this night was different.

For some unknown reason, after foraging since sundown they had yet to come across even a common bush rat. Even the traps which they had set a few days earlier were still fresh and baited, as if the animals were avoiding them.

“Perhaps,” joked Nweke, “the animals have all fled to their maternal homes because they heard we were coming.”

“And who told them we were coming?” asked his elder brother, Aniche, in frustration.

Nweke shrugged and looked away.

Aniche, as the eldest, was naturally the more serious of the two. Although hunting was a shared ambition, it burned within Aniche’s heart more vivaciously than it did in his brother’s. In fact, for as long as he could remember, since his childhood a night had not passed without him killing something—and he would not let this particular night break that record.

“Let’s split up,” Aniche suggested. His brother, startled by the idea looked at him in bewilderment, for the two had always hunted together.

“What did you say?”

“I said, let’s split up. I don’t know why, but we haven’t seen anything this entire night, and look—the moon is already high in the sky. It’ll increase our chances of finding something, if we split.”

“Are you sure about this?” asked Nweke, as he looked searchingly into his brother’s eyes. Under the moonlight they looked like small, glowing orbs that were fueled by a burning, hidden passion.

Aniche looked back directly into his brother’s eyes and replied, “I am sure.”

With that, the two agreed to rendezvous at the cave on the border of the villages of Obinkita and Amannagwu, within which they usually skinned and prepared their catches and then parted.

With his Dane gun slung across his shoulder and his machete tucked into his loincloth, Aniche made his way through the forest. Normally, he would stalk through the thick bush, trying not to attract attention to himself, whilst taking note of his surroundings. But on this particular night, he did otherwise. As he walked, the earth seemed to creak and groan under the weight of his body, and all about him the rustling of leaves seemed to reverberate as if they were clanking ogele gongs.

He was not at peace.

In fact, Aniche’s mind was totally elsewhere; on something entirely unrelated to hunting. His mind was so far gone that before he realized it, he had wandered out of the forest and onto the footpath that led to the neighboring village of Agbagwu.

“How did I get here?” he asked himself, taking a seat on the bare dirt road.

The road was empty, for no one was out at such a late hour. It afforded him space to think. He thought about his wife—or at least the young girl whom he always called his wife. He thought about the girl who had been his lover since childhood; the girl whom he had always brought bush meat to after his hunts; the girl whom he had promised to marry; he thought of Ivuoma.

This same Ivuoma, the girl he had courted for so many years, was to be married the upcoming morning. He remembered the cool evenings in which they would sneak off into the lonely forest and sing love songs together; the countless times he had brought squirrel meat for her to enjoy; and the promises they had made to each other in quiet confidence. These golden memories ignited a hot flame within his heart. He was angry and bitter for he felt he had been wronged. His feelings of enragement were completely justified for another man had stolen his wife, simply because he was wealthier.

Back when things were normal, Ivuoma’s family appreciated his generous donations of meat, and he and her father had even discussed the possibility that they might one day be in-laws. However, at the sudden advent of this new suitor and his extravagant wealth, everything went wrong. They forgot him and burned the memories of their old relationship.
“Poverty has killed me,” he mumbled to himself. In a sudden flash of rage, he took his machete and swung it violently at a thick bush, nearly injuring himself in the process. He was seething with anger. His blood boiled. And then the thought came to him. He knew what he would do. Picking up his Dane gun and sliding his machete into its sheath, he dashed off determinedly into the moonlit night, following the path that led to Agbagwu.

After following the winding village trail, later that night, Aniche arrived at the enclosed compound of Onoh. After checking his surroundings to make sure that a soul had not seen him, he quietly opened the thatch gate and stalked into the dark compound. It was bare and empty. He heard neither the bleat of a goat nor the cluck of a chicken. Reassured that all its inhabitants were asleep, he then made his way into the main hut. Straining his eyes, he saw Onoh, the man that was responsible for all of his problems, sleeping blissfully on a straw mat. He unsheathed his machete, and in a quick motion, propelled it into Onoh’s stomach, causing the sleeping man to quickly awaken and dart his eyes about.
Onoh gasped for breath and began sweating profusely, while coughing up enormous amounts of blood. He scrambled his hands across his belly, attempting to remove the sword that was lunged into it, but to no avail. Staring at Aniche, he attempted to roll over but failed halfway. Breathing heavily, he extended his arm and tried to grab Aniche’s leg, but Aniche stepped back warily. With a loud sigh, Onoh’s body relaxed and his arm went limp.

He was dead.

Immediately Onoh had died, Aniche’s eyes, as if being released by a spell, became magically clear and he realized the gravity of what he had done. No longer was he vexed or enraged, but now he had settled into a timorous young man for he knew the consequences of his actions. He could not believe what he had done. A cold shadow of fear settled within him, for the gods would punish him accordingly. He knew that once the body was discovered, people would consult Kamalu, the most potent arunsi (god) in the region. Aniche panicked, and mindlessly leaving his Dane gun and machete behind, took to flight.

I'll post the remaining parts after I get a few comments from you guys.

I don't like short stories because there are always missing scenes but so far I love your story and the missing scenes are not much yet. I also love your description of the sunset.
But take note of this, instead of writing 30 yrs, pls let it be counted in moons. Also ensure you describe your characters i.e height, shape etc. Finally, let your updates be longer.

This is actually wow! Please keep it up, I'm so loving this and also take note of luvmijeje's advice.

this is good keep up the good work

I will have to find a way to start paying writers

Nice story

**following**

Mynd_44: I will have to find a way to start paying writers

Including me? **winks**

Thanks for all your advice, everyone!

luvmijeje: I don't like short stories because there are always missing scenes but so far I love your story and the missing scenes are not much yet. I also love your description of the sunset.
But take note of this, instead of writing 30 yrs, pls let it be counted in moons. Also ensure you describe your characters i.e height, shape etc. Finally, let your updates be longer.

I will heed your advice. As for the 30 years, remember I didn't explicitly say "30 years." I said "at the age of 30." However, I appreciate everything!

Any new replies?

Like mine?
You are good, but you can improve, and take not of d suggestions. And you have me on d train.

I enjoyed this story and found it to point towards too much $exual $excitement in America n No Need For Beef AnyMore

op, your attention needed here:



https://www.nairaland.com/1353457/odumchi-remove-thread-titled-igbo