The night is a long one, the darkness is thick and the light up the skies is a single dot, it's better it isn't than it is. The chirping of the crickets and the croak of the frog from the slum the other side of the little stream that serve as boundary beckons to my within to be part of the night. I tossed side to side on my bed, a combination of rafia mat and bamboo unable to sleep, it feels lonely here and I feel the companion I need is outside.
The villagers always gossip about the ghost that appears on the stream and sat by the palm tree every night, a silhouette that have the form of a man, which always came by during dark night like this. It's been terrifying, the king had to pass a decree banning anyone from coming out during dark night. He says it's the Obanje night, the night the gods commune with the Spirit of the ancestors and they cast apparition in the form of male silhouette. This silhouette are the Obanje's themselves, the once who feeds on the sacrifice of the gods, the human sacrifice. Who are sent to take anyone in sight for meal to the gods to appeal to them to accept a wandering ancestor.
The story has it that though there are several obanje appearance, it's only visible sitting by the bank of the river, staring at the slum the other side, leaning on a tree. The iroko tree. The one outside my house. It's originally palm, but each time the obanje sits close it becomes an Iroko a take off and landing point of the spirit of the dead making it to their ancestors.
This new belief plunged the village into fear, the ogbanje made its first appearance twelve years ago, the same year I moved into the village. And anytime the night is dark, and the frog croak and cricket chirp and the wind whistle softly it beckons on me to be a part of it, to abandon my raffia mat and bamboo to be part of nature. So I sit and stare at the slum, my eyes piercing at the dark night, the rays from my eyes romances the wet grass, as the gentle breeze caress my bare body. The croak and chirp speaks in languages I under stand, and it all die down before sun rise.
As it seems tonight, pushing myself excitedly from the loneliness in my room to the comfort of nature outside, a part that I belong to, tomorrow the villagers are going to say the obanje came last night, it baffles me, who the obanje really is?
©
Chines Zoe.
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