The day I was silenced for life, Mother said was the day the sun kissed the stream in a glorious entanglement that made the water give up steam the moment all that hotness touched all its coolness. Mother also said the clouds came with the sun and one could easily reach out and touch it.
I found her story unbelievable but she repeated it continuously to everyone who cared to listen, so much that it became true. After all, when lies are told over and over again, they become true.
She told them I became dumb because Amadioha, the god of the sky would strike a beloved one of any person who sees such a phenomenon with a strange sickness.
That fateful day, Father was angry that Mother delayed preparing his dinner on time. She had visited Mmiliaku, her friend and the village gossip and stayed there for a long time. Father returned from his farm at Ukanta and met the fireplace cold, no pot close by to signify cooking and no covered plates containing his meal on his table.
He was angry and a dark shadow descended on his eyes making them glow with rage. He came outside and found me playing outside the walled fence of our hut with some children from the neighbourhood.
“Nneamaka!” He barked at me.
I left my friends and ran back to our hut immediately.
“Where is your mother?” He asked.
“She went to visit her friend,” I replied, hoping he would dismiss me so I would go back to my play.
Across the fence, a neighbour’s fowl crowed loudly. He scowled and looked into the distance as if his eyes would find my Mother immediately. If eyes could kill, Father’s eyes would have wreaked havoc on my Mother if he saw her at that moment. He shook his head and went inside the room.
He went to his hunter’s bag, brought out his snuff, and settled on his cane chair on the verandah, hitting the little bottle on his lap to unclog the particles.
I shifted my weight from one leg to the other impatiently waiting for him to ask me to go but he didn’t, he rather took his snuff and continued looking into the distance.
“Papa, it will soon get to my turn to do the Njemanze dance with my friends, can I go back now?” I asked.
He looked at me and I suddenly felt stupid.
He said nothing and I sat down on the mud steps leading to our house, trying to hold back the tears that rushed to my eyes. He would beat me if he saw that I was crying because he refused to allow me to go back to play, so I fought the tears back.
Mother came home that day when the sun was already casting long shadows of the palm trees in our compound on the threshold. She stopped short in the middle of the compound when she saw us: one sitting and brooding angrily, and the other with tears fighting not to spill.
“Nna’m biko, ewe n’iwe-” (“my husband, please don’t be angry”) her voice trailed off in Igbo as she tried to explain what happened and why she wasn’t home when he returned and hadn’t prepared dinner.
Father was silent, a clear sign that he was so angry. Mother knows that very well and she quickly ran to get her water pot and dashed for the stream.
Father called after her, “You must be joking, what wife would leave her home unattended to go and gossip with a friend?”
Mother didn’t turn, she was running and soon she disappeared among the clusters of huts following the path to the stream. She didn’t know that it was time for Amadioha to come for a bath, which happens once a month, and usually before dusk: the entirety of the sky would come down to the stream. The day is usually unknown, and it is expected that no one will be at the stream by that time.
Mum was a few meters from the stream when the weather changed. The sky started its descent and she was right there. The sun had touched the stream and the clouds close enough for one to touch and grab the gases when Amadioha saw that a mortal was standing close by.
He thundered immediately and a slash of lightning went off.
Mum ran back but it was too late.
The lightning struck me at home.
I was still sitting on the verandah with Father. He was still brooding and shaking his right foot impatiently. I still had tears in my eyes and still longed to go back to play with my friends when the lightning hit me hard and I collapsed on the ground.
I went dumb afterwards, my tongue twisted in my mouth and I started making incoherent sounds unable to speak.
So Mum would always tell people how it happened, how she was late in preparing dinner and how I was silenced the day the sun kissed the stream.
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