When you scurry out from the bunker with Mama and three other women and two men immediately after the bomber plane raided, nothing prepares you for the sight of your papa.
His head, dismembered from his body, and his body charred into tiny bits, it brings to mind the goat meat mama buys before 1967 the one she uses for Sunday stew especially when uncle Ndidi and Uncle Ogujiofor were visiting. You stare at the head of Papa, his eyes half way shut, he seems to be staring at nothing exactly but you feel it was you. His mouth ajar like he was still screaming for help, like he wasn't dead yet.
You recall how that lips was stained with oil yesterday evening when mama roasted the remaining yam she got from the community primary school that now double as refugee camp. You were alone at home when she returned whining about how she got that small yam and oil. You pretended to not hear that she said she quickly grabbed it from the woman who suddenly slumped on her way out of the compound, she said her eyes were tired, her legs couldn't proceed and she was a pack of patched flesh and bones. You pretended you didn't hear that so that she will stop talking because it made you sick, but she didn't stop. It felt like she was confessing to a priest, and her life depended on the confession.
Papa returned about that time, and you were so happy, you screamed the loudest "Nno" spreading your arms like a jet fighter running to embrace him, running from Mama's confession. He held two dead lizard, you eyed it hungrily, excited that finally your family will have a decent meal of roasted yam and lizard. Okorie didn't stop boasting at the playground yesterday and you also prepared to not only boast but keep the legs and tail of your lizard to share with your friends, you will do Okorie long throat.
You remembered Papa's oil stained lips because you'd looked at him when he told you to eat more and have his share of the lizard. "Achorom ka i diri m ndu. I want you alive for me" He stressed, and you looked at him and caught his oil stained lips that had broken into laughter.
It was Mama's scream that brought you back to reality, that's where you remembered that you have in fact frozen staring at your Papa's head.
"Gowon bia lu ziem o. Gowon bia wuruzie dim o, Gowon ke ife ichoro kam di ndu nae me? Gowon.... Gowon"
You wanted mama to stop so that you can think, though you didn't know what exactly you wanted to think, but Mama's tears was rubbing it in, that your Papa is numbered amongst the statistics of murdered Biafrans, that away from him being another Biafran, he was your source of life, your hope for a future, your only known provider, he was the one with whom you share precious moments, who loved and provided for you and Mama, he was your rock, when Uju had been blown up by bombs, it was he who held you in his embrace and told you "Ife di oku ga ji oyi." you stood there transfixed, unable to move any part of your body, even though your eyes had given way to tears and your body had began trembling, you still couldn't move.
Then suddenly, you felt that thing take over you, it pulled you from where you stood to where Papa's head laid, you were going to hold it in an embrace and shout his head back to life. It was then that Uncle Iweazor held you, pulled you away from the scene and began walking towards his room. You felt a thousand arrow go through your heart, you felt the sting from your cheeks, it felt acid poured from your eyes and not tears. All you can do now was kick, was fight the mental image of Gowon your head had conjured, what you were actually fighting was death who had paid your family an impromptu unwelcomed visit. In Uncle Iweazor's embrace your wailing began and didn't end. You called Papa to come with you, you told him that it was possible to live without a body, you told him your mama and you will manage and take care of him even in his new state. You told him how life had always been the four of you until Uju died. You tried to make him see that a man can live without a body; beckoning on him to follow you into Uncle Iweazor's house before another of Gowon's plane came.
But he didn't come.
BIAFRA 1968, October the 3rd.
Chines Zoe!
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