I am alive …
Nmuo was already middle aged when the oldest man in the village was still a baby. No one therefore know exactly how old Nmuo is.
Yet he has a lot of mystery around and about him. One being the strange cock in his outer obi which local stories have has been with him as long as anyone knows him. Also, stranger still is that whenever Nmuo gets sick and at the point of dying, the strange cock will crow and someone else in his family, either his son, daughter, grandchild or even in-law dies, one way or the other. And magically, Nmuo will get well fast, with renewed energy, full of vibrancy and life.
Offor, they warrior is the last survivor from a long of a long line of brothers, sisters and grandchildren of old Nmuo. The home is now desolate with only Offor and Nmuo remaining.
War is eminent between Obinka, Offor’s clan and their troublesome neighbors of Mboi. Offor, with the other warriors are preparing to go into battle, when Nmuo took ill. It is obviously one of those his mysterious sicknesses that is the harbinger of another person’s death. And here is Offor about to go to battle.
Offor stood by the ailing old mans bed, watching him, with a very pensive expression on his face.
When the village heard that Nmuo had fallen sick, a night penultimate to Offor going into battle, there was very long and sullen faces in the village. They all know what will be the result for Offor. For Offor is well loved in the village for he is quite an ebullient young man.
The damsels love him, and the young ones admire him. However, more than all this is the fact that he is one of the village’s leading warriors. Brave and fearless.
Outside, the drums of war had started beating loudly. The message of the drums could easily be understood by any adult of Obinkar village. However, drum or no drums, one could hear the shouts of the Mboi warriors drifting over the darkness of the night from their border with Obinkar, if therefore the Obinkar warriors do not meet them in battle by tomorrow morning, an invasion will commence.
That night, the elders of Obinkar met. The gathering of the grey heads in that region is always a reason for folks to worry. They had met in the middle of the night, the period which no sane person is expected to be wandering about, especially in a tense night such as this. The meeting had taken place in the desolate hut in the middle of the dark forest. They had come one by one, and all had entered into the hut with their backs, through the back door.
Only idioms had been used as a means of communication. Should a chance intruder invaded that sanctuary or an eavesdropper had been around, be or she will not make any sense of what was being discussed. The ominous meeting had lasted till the very early morning. And the had departed as mysteriously as they had gathered. All drifting silently into the dark, with the night welcoming them with its cloying embrace. Willing to keep the secret of what must have transpire and words that were spoken and deeply solemn agreements made in her bosom that day.
That morning, the warriors, including Offor had marched off to war.
Now, village stories have it that there was a summon of Offor and some young inner circle members of the dreaded okonko cult in the wee hours of that morning by these elders in another desolate part of the village.
Now, what transpired in Obinkar village that mysterious night and the morning before the war with the people of Mboi, is still being talked about muted voices in that village many decades after it its occurrence.
What is known, is that in the compound of Nmuo, there was a fresh grave. It was known that Nmuo was alive that night. By morning, he had disappeared.
Elders tell stories of visitations by him in their dreams. In some he is placating that they should rescue him, that he is still alive. In some, he is threatening every sorts of calamity and disasters upon the village if they do not respond to his plight.
Then one day, the strange cock that crows only when some is about to die, just keeled over and feel and died. stranger still, before ab-nyone could know what is happening, it has dissolved into nothingness. only a few strands of its now bleached feathers lie scattered in the wooden pot where it had stayed all its life.
