15 October 1967

8:55 am

It was really painful saying goodbye to maami, she couldn’t bare to see me go, just now at the car park, she had held my hand tightly yet affectionately, and though I was really embarrassed, she had succeeded in chanting the praise of my ancestors, my dead father and finally mine. She wiped her eyes with the edge of her wrapper and yet insisted she wasn’t crying. It hurt me to see her that way, more so, if I had the choice, I would stay back, but as it is ‘a man must do what a man must to do’…’a man must be brave and courageous’…’a man must not shy away from challenges’, hadn’t she told me all that.

Now I’m in the lorry conveying me to a foreign land, a land where I had only imagined in my dreams, actually I am not sure of how I’m feeling, on the one hand, my heart is spinning from excitement…finally, I’m on my way to Eko, ‘eko akete, ilu ogbon, eko aromisa legbelegbe‘…and then I feel so much like returning back to maami, for surely I do not know what the future holds for me…but I must stay hopeful, I must…

11:05 pm

Just some few hours gone and I miss home already…the nostalgia strikes me at the thought of what I’ve left behind…my friends, Aduke who had only just accepted to be my girlfriend, the town square, my secret hideout, oh I could go on and on…the wind urges me on and I think of what is ahead, I breathe in an unfamiliar air and I knew the journey had started…

…

I do not know what the time is, there is nobody to ask from, I only know that right now, I am exhausted, I left the lorry in search of Pa. Adubi’s house, and now I think I’m lost.

…

I told him I was looking for  no 69 Pariola street and I showed him the paper in my hand…he told me there was no street like that, and that the street had probably been renamed. I believed him, he gave me food…he told me the time, it is now thirty minutes past two…his name is Smart…he is a kind man…

18th October 1967

7:45 am

It’s been three days now and Smart had taken me in, he goes out everyday and leaves me behind in this uncompleted building he’s made into a house…he told me it is not legal for us to stay there and that he was planning on moving very soon. I hope the soon is soon enough. I want to do so many things, I want to write to maami and I want to find Pa. Adubi

12:05 pm

I am very bored right now…I’ve written a letter to maami and I told her to thank our ancestors well because they sent a god to help me. I told her I was doing fine and that I would locate Pa. Adubi in a matter of days.

…

We’ve moved…Smart came in with lot of things… bags, trinkets and clothes. He said it was urgent…he was really sweaty and nervous…

20th October 1967

3:05 am

I still haven’t found no 69 Pariola street… today I am going off on my own, I do not trust Smart anymore, yesterday he took me out with him and I couldn’t get myself to do his business. He told me that in Eko, you have to be sharp to survive, I didn’t believe him, the gods of our land forbid such smartness…our elders say “a thief might run for a thousand years, but surely he would one day stumble and fall”…

6:05 am

Now I am on my own, now I have to fend for myself, now I have to be a man. I scribbled those words on another sheet of paper and left it beside Smart who was still asleep. I have a thousand letters I have to send to maami but I do not know how.

6:30 am

I am dying, I had just seen her…the one they call mystery, Ijinle. A dark cloud hung over her and she stared at me with such eyes…such evil, daring eyes…but I couldn’t stop looking, she overpowered me with her gaze…I was helpless…I was lost. I wish I had not left Smart, maybe becoming a thief would have been better…no I wish I had not left maami … oh Aduke, I’m sorry I never got to show you sunrise on the hill of Ayegbo, it so captivating…so divine, and I can’t tell you of my adventures in Eko …nothing but this. Maami a man must to do what a man must do, a man must be brave and courageous, a man must not shy away from challenges…and now I must be brave, not to this life, it has deprived me of the opportunity, I must follow Ijinle, I must be courageous…I cannot write anymore…her gaze is so overpowering…

…

The doctor came out, checked her watch, scribbled something on a notepad and left …time of death 7:45 am

…                               …                               …

‘The boy you brought in, you say you saw him lying on the ground in front of your shop?’  The perky  nurse asked…how could she be so dauntless, so…’sir, are you listening?’…’yes, yes’, I answered my voice quavering, ‘he was hit by a motorcycle’…’you would have to fill some reports’, she said, then like an afterthought, she added…’he is dead’.

I’ve been here for a while, I do not know what the time is, I cannot ask anyone. I just finished reading the little book I saw with him…I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t do anything, I could only say one thing…’there is a no 69 Pariola street’…

THE END