https://penastory.com/2016/12/29/iba-the-scourge-solomon-uhiara/

I had returned to my residence that notable evening – one which had in its grasps the retrospect of the unbecoming adventures I had earlier set out to excavate behind the borders of my village in the early morning. My entourage of personal files enclosed in a brown paper envelope and the clumsy looking wares I wore on both feet were somewhat a piece of thrash when the dusty streets of Umuahia town had devilishly caned and perused the leather and the sole to nothing other than the obscure loads of dusts well laid out on each pair.

We Africans acknowledge a proverbial saying which says that the earth is very hard and whatever that demands to walk on it should have feet that can debate comfortably with the ground. My dilapidated shoes were mine and I must say they’ve walked through Umuahia. The compound where I called home was like the very ones littering the ghettos of Lagos. The landlords built each room so that it faced the other in the little compound and the others so on in the exact sequence. The neighborhood was solemnly filled with vast emptiness which at the very least was not surprisingly undeniable.

I had barely reached the door when the fragile thoughts of my beloved Kivi arose from within my mind as I once again pondered and reflected on the lewd reasons behind my want for her lingering presence. We hadn’t set eyes on each other in a week and I was craving her touch like ants pursue the scent of sugar cubes in wooden cupboards. That was how I thought of it at the time.

As soon as my legs hit the threshold of my door, I looked around to see nobody was watching. I thrust my finger under the mat in front of my doorstep for that was where I hid my keys so Kivi could easily open up without much stress. The splattering sound of the key chain trampling and slinging the cemented floor beneath the foot mat was minutely audible.

You must by now be wondering who Kivi is. I’ll tell you in no plenty haste. She was the damsel I had met on my way back from camp a few years aback when I had concluded, to applause, the very thing my father had sent me to acquire – my university education. We met in a bus- I know it should be the last place to meet a lover – enroute the village market which they called Ahia-ukwu. That was where we began our journey of romance and the longevity had been indeed overwhelming to say the very least.

I went into my room and dropped my life’s work on the mattress which lay on the other side of the room. The carpeted floor bloomed forth softness and mild coldness as it was somewhat dampy under my feet. It made me recall the last time Kivi came to this place. She had arrived wearing a blue scarf on her brownish unmade hair and a short gown that had flowers which their names seemed mysterious to my very self. But that didn’t matter – I loved the shortness and admired the way the pad on her shoulders shrugged with each pace. She had watered my lips with hers and she had covered me with her naked body – all these things I missed of present.

The neighbors outside were still not back and the available light in the room made my eyes weary and blurry as I strained to see through the half empty room. I looked around – my only reasonable belongings were the mattress, the VCR player which I had smuggled from my father’s sitting room and the stationary fan – it never blew and the cassette player never played – as there was zero power supply at the time. The year was 1997 and the then National Electricity Power Authority had embarked on a very lengthy and abrupt strike – without prior notice to its consumers – to our very natural dismay.

I made for the cupboard on which stood the ‘Npanaka’ which I remembered still had some oil left in it. Goodness gracious! exploded from my mouth as I shook it and felt the remaining oil still there. I had purchased it on my way home during my journey back from another village down the valley that served the crossroad leading to Amaoji and Amaukwe twin villages. I was at the spot when white and black construction men came in their yellow machines and destroyed the erosion menacing the road, pouring black stones on it and steaming oil (in fact half the entire village was present that very week; no one missed an episode) as we young ones aspired to grave our names on the side of the road when they had concluded. I had bought it as soon as I heard the progression of the imminent strike which we all knew was going to be fruitless without cease. I purchased it for nothing more than a few coins at Ahia ukwu market. I remember the old woman who was selling lanterns and stoves and other cooking equipment in her little kiosk instructing me on how the little thing worked.

“Open the lid carefully,” she had said “then pour this oil into it and grease this thread up and down so that it will easily ignite. It is just as easy as peeling egusi,” she had told me that very evening. I paid her five naira in silver coins and walked out caressing it with my hands and saying the country wouldn’t kill us all. That was how I did it when I returned home to hear that the strike was still going to linger till infinity.

I lit it with a match and positioned it methodically so that it ignited without much fuss. It served me ostensibly pretty well. I stared once more at my watch – that very costly piece or so I thought which had been gifted to me by the debate club in my university days. Those good jolly days. I smiled, remembering my vibrant days of service. I apparently checked the time- not with reason but as a very marked habit of mine. It was 7:00pm and to my dismay my love still remained unavailable to my reach. Was she waiting for me to travel all the way to see her at her place- to see her broad chested father at the wooden gate of their wide compound at Amaimo. I couldn’t bear the sight of the man and his glittering machete and those vehement questions he threw to me whenever I drove my father’s white horse to see Kivi. I disliked the man and he too hated my guts. I had visited way too plenty – often during several weekends when I felt unimportant, yet she never ceased her frivolous expectancy of my ‘ never to arrive visits’.

One particular Saturday, I rode the white Horse in style through the primary school where I had schooled to Umuwara to greet my people then finally at Amaimo. Spectators had watched me, these things were still undoubtedly very unpopular at the time and this particular bicycle was pale white as my father had purchased it from an old relative in Ministry of Transportation. On reaching the place, I had rung the stainless steel bell on the right side of the bicycle head – it throbbed out chimes of soft rings. Kivi had come out in haste as she had expected me that day. She came and sat on my laps admiring the bicycle and admiring me to my amusement – not that I wasn’t handsome as an African man should be but she surprised me too many times the way she glanced at me with her head askew and her eyes punctuating the softness of the words she said to me outside her father’s gate. I dared not enter for fright of the man and his machete. I remember the other young men passing by the gaiety entrance and flabby gate of sincere affection. Their eyes bore envy and my shoulders rose above my head like the agama lizard who fell from the tree top amidst the eyes of his foes and thundered his red head on the surface of the soil in approval of his morale.

To be continued

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