Once Upon A Century...

CHAPTER - 1

1 - Catastrophe

The cold dewy morning was soothing upon my skin. And that scent –that after-rain scent with a touch of smoke, filled the ambiance. Idle, my eyes followed every trail of mist dancing their way to the heavens till they vanished, and again, for the umpteenth time I wondered if smokes made up the clouds in the sky, I had always seen them as clouds coming from my firewood.

I doused the fire I had made to warm the leftover soup from the day before and was attacked by a rush of smoke that threatened to choke me to death. Coughing, I ran out of our kitchen - the best standard in our village, made of woods and palm fronds. When I had gotten far enough from the smoke, I long inhaled to fill my lungs with a generous amount of oxygen. Two sunrise problems were solved with little or no hassle – my father was served breakfast and our meals were timely warmed; I mentally applauded myself for a job well done. Papa should be done with his food by now – or almost.

Few moments later when the smoke had cleared out, I went back to the kitchen and dished just enough portion of fufu and oha soup for myself, carried both plates and strode a little faster than a snail to the front yard to join my father eating on his mat. As papa came to view, I wondered what a gastronome of a father I had. The thought made an invisible hand tug on my lips, making them stretch into a smile. He had woken me up early this morning to fix him something to eat only for him to fall asleep right after the meal –on the same spot. Why won't parents practice what they preach? My father would scold the chi out of me if I ever fell asleep on the same spot I ate. As I approached his sleeping form on the mat, I prepared to tease the living daylight out of him.

I snorted out a laugh."You should have just told me it was hunger that forced you out of bed this morning, papa —It's okay, I will be leaving the pot of soup in your hut from now on," I teased as I settled unto the mat made from freshly cut palm fronds and let down my food like they were a fragile infant. My brows creased as papa's food was almost untouched, there were hand prints on a small portion of his fufu and an equally small portion of his soup was missing along with two pieces of bush meat out of four. Strange. Even if he was done with his food, he would never remain meat –especially a bush meat like antelope. I took a closer look at his topless body and saw that he was taking slow, laboured breaths. My heart stopped for a minute before it started racing faster than it usually did. I found myself beside him and tapped him multiple times —no response.

"Papa! Papa!!"  I began to shake him. Panic rushed through my insides. My heart was going to rip my chest open. Why was he not responding?

"What's wrong, papa?" I searched his body, unsure of what I was looking for. His beads that usually rested on his belly now clung loosely to his throat.

"Please don't do this to me! please don't!" I cried. But he still didn't respond to my call. He was so still. Scarily still. His chest was still and his stomach had stopped rising and falling.

"Papa, what is this!" I cleaned the whitish substance pouring out of his mouth. How did the soup become white? This was the same soup we ate last night!
I blinked away the fuzziness in my head, my mind had to be playing tricks on me.

"Papa!" I kept crying and shaking him but he just seemed lifeless. I lowered my ears to his chest to check for a heartbeat but there was none. His skin was eerily cold.

"No... no... no way! no!... you can't leave me all alone here! no!... you can't do that! Please stop this ruthless joke!" I talked to his body that seemed lifeless. Or was it? Fear clawed at my insides, trying to pluck my heart from it's socket. My body felt rigid and the urge to die engulfed me paralysing my efforts to breathe. My body hit the ground with a loud thud and pain I never knew existed surged through to the surface with a flood of heart wrenching wails.