[Black Sunday]


I was standing by the window trying to get some fresh air. I admired the work of God. The blue sky spread forth like a canopy, without pillars,the cloud like an ice ball, hung in the air. A billow of  cloud formed a lion-like figure. When I was kid I and other friends would  point at various animalistic figures the cloud formed. We would argue immensely.


Then a diminutive figure drew my attention. On the ground floor, in the compound was a small boy, his blackness I had never seen before in my 26th year on earth. His black was black. Could even be blacker than the Devil. Who even saw the devil before concluding the devil was black!. Falsity!. 


The black boy joined the other children playing football. I had not seen that kid before, could it be we had a new neighbor?. No! I virtually knew every single one in the neighborhood! Or could be a neighbor's visitor?. I scuffed as I watched them engrossed in their fun, not even caring a bit about the stranger amongst them.


Then the black boy stalled briefly, dipping his hand into his pocket and bringing out some biscuits. He opened the seal and brought out a bit and sank his teeth into it. The other children piled around him requesting for their own share. There were four of them, the biscuit was exactly their number. So everyone got their share.


I shook my head, home training! They lack home training! They would definitely be spanked by their mother if they were there. But who cares! They are kids anyways.


By Midnight, everywhere had become silent like a ghost haunted house except for the ill- timed gnawing,scratching and squeaking of the goddamn house rats on the attic(ceiling). Scammers! A rat poison I bought earlier in the day was not effective. Everyone is corrupt!.


I was sleepless, I twiddle on my phone unyieldingly. Then I heard a screaming voice, "help o, my neighbors help…"

I recognized the voice to be that of Mama Timothy. I was confused. Then I heard another scream then another, then another each from a different source. 

My heart skipped. I dropped my phone and crawled on my bed towards the window. As I peeped, a number of people were outside on the ground floor. 


I jumped down the bed, put on my velvet gown and dashed out.


I struggled through the crowd, making way to the screaming women. Just as I got closer to them. Mama Adinoyi began narrating her ordeal. "... He was requesting biscuits, facing the wall. Before I knew it he began convulsing and died right on spot."  It appeared the aggrieved women narrated the same story.


I was startled and confused, then a series of thoughts began to flash through my mind. The black boy, the black boy earlier in the day, who had given the dead children biscuit to e—eat!. I muttered subconsciously.


The crowd's gaze was now on me, piercing through my skin like a gamma ray. " So you mean you saw the boy who gave biscuits to my daughter," Mama Joy said, stammering , headed towards me and clutched the loins of my gown. As swiftly, Mama Asipita launched at me trying to bite me.

"You have killed my only child. 'wa'wumiajini o'(you will kill me today) Mama Asipita whined.


It took a collective effort before I could get back to my room.


The next day was Sunday.They buried the remains of the Children. Surely that day was a black Sunday.


Three days later, I was jugging around the vicinity. When I came across five children playing on a hip of stone dust. One of them piqued my curiosity.He was black as the one I saw the other time. I was impelled to confirm.


I drew their attention. They all faced me. I was shocked. The strange black boy, Adinoyi, Timothy, Asipita and Joy all stood looking at me unmoved. Hurriedly, I took my phone out of my pouch and hit the keyboard. My fingers were shivering, wet with sweat. I had to dry my hands a number of times before I could finally dial the appropriate number.


It was rigorous trying to explain to Papa Joy through the phone that I had seen the supposedly dead and buried children. As I hung off trying to take a picture of them. They were nowhere to be found. They had vanished.


How would I explain what I had seen?.


™Musty strange.