She sometime comes to my mom's shop at bodija, her scattered hair, capitulating vehemently, the center a bit bald. Although she probably should be in her early fifties, she already looks eighty.

"My friend" she would call me, grinning genuinely from ear to ear, my mom holding me back either with her hands or with those scary eyes of hers. And because I was always lambasted for talking to her, I would smile at her. She too, back at me, flashing those roughly arranged set of teeth, reeking of brown dust.

We reach out to ourselves not physically but by hearts, as mother would most time angrily hand her twenty naira as though her purpose for coming is to beg, and stylishly walk her away from our shop.

Mother will immediately take broom, she would while sweeping the floor, pour out mouthed holy ghost fire on the floor of our shop, as she rants and curse the ill luck that she usually predicts to be in the offing "abi what kind of person is this one today bayi, the next time she brings this her two left legs here, i promise to cut them off, good for nothing fellow, awon akósìbérò!" She would curse after her.

I would sit at a corner, mother won't see me cry my eyes out as she rains curses on my aged friend, i was forced to question the creator. Why he wonderfully made some and fearfully created others. Why we find so much of bitterness where there's supposed to be a bountious bulimia of sweetness.

If it was the holy ghost fire mother usually invokes that came down that night or something else started the fire is still a mystery to me, i woke up unable to breath, already suffocating from the excess smoke that enveloped the room, our room was on the top floor of a storey building, i was unable to cry as my throat hurts from too much inhalation of the smoke, i saw my life floating away, grandma reaching out to me, bidding me to come, and mother is not here to snap her fingers at Grandma, to wade her off her daughter as she always does.

I closed my eyes in death, as i whispered a silent and final prayer to God, then i saw a movement, that would have startled me, a rugged and haggard physique. But maybe it's because i was already in the crude hands of death, i wasn't a bit feared. Closer and closer it came, the last word i heard "My friend"


Mother was weeping profusely when i opened my eyes, apologizing to my aged friend, professing profusely how sorrg she is, neighbors kept raining and pouring out torrents of insultive words at mother, emphatically stressing that she's a wicked witch, one who cared less for her life, one who chose to live, when her child is dying.

Mama shukura the classic reknowned gossiper described how mothers buttocks shook like undone akpran as she ran out of our house when the fire had started, how she kept shouting on top of her voice that someone should resque her child, how my aged friend came out of nowhere and rushed inside the house, caring less of the fiery fire that was eating her clothes and skin up.

I turned to my aged friend, reached out to her through my heart like I always do.

The long wet tears on her face still lingers in my memory till date, as she turned and walked away, without saying a word, no goodbye, i didn't even get to say thank you, to tell her i love her more than i ever did mother.....


I hope one day, I'll find my long lost aged friend....