GUNBOLT MONARCH

Ezenwa tried but could not forget the nights with Urenna. Her beauty was something a man could stake his life fortune for. That memory was still lucid, how he had heard an unexpected knock on his frail hut’s door and it was Urenna. She was curdling a basket. Quickly Ezenwa remembered he had been at the stream with a basket to gather snails but returned empty handed after peeping at Urenna, bathing. What he did not know was that she saw him and she desired what he desired. The hut was dark, save for a pale ray from the moonlight which pierced through some cracks on its walls, aiding him a faint sight as she hurriedly freed herself of her blouse and her mammalian gland flung bare like a pair of brownish cups, perfectly turned upside down. He reached for her in fierce attempt, and plunged her vigorously till he could hold no longer, that sensation that made him quiver and squirt. She stood up, dressed up and walked away, silently. Ezenna felt a swift rush of carnal relief but somehow, wished she had made some noise, at least, like Philo; the newly married maiden whose nights swirled the atmosphere with unrestrained moans, so he would place a palm over her mouth as he suspected Okechukwu, Philo’s husband often did when suddenly, Philo’s moans gets stifled. Days that followed, Ezenwa and Urenna avoided looks on each other and spoke very little to themselves. She was a taciturn and he was timid. But she, at unexpected nights would appear as before and they would have a taste of each other, till he left for the city with hopes to return and have Urenna over and over again.

Ezenwa seethed with hatred for unobtrusive Ideji, firstly: because Ideji was now Urenna’s husband and secondly: he had become the king of Ozara. The Monarchs of Ozara had longed hailed from Ezenwa’s clan, Isiumu, and it had begun to look as if the Kingship of Ozara was their inheritance. Story had it that the advent of white colonialists introduced Warrant Chiefs who served as middlemen for the colonial rulers and the Chiefs were selected from Isiumu for their obsequiousness to the Whiteman, thus, years after the fall of colonialism, Warrant Chiefhood transcended into Monarchs, and the selection never left Isiumu. Turns twisted when Ideji, a bland fisher-lad of Umudara who served King Ibekwe, won the affection of the people for slaying a Crocodile that had turned red the waters of Ozara with the blood of its victims. Thus, at the death of King Ibekwe, the people yearned for ideji and he was crowned. Ideji rose from humble homage, had never been to the City and was shoeless as a boy. Ezenwa and his clansmen mocked that he was also clueless, after all, he was a yokel.

38 years had passed and Urenna’s buttocks never left its exact position, round and curvy, and her cone-shape breasts were still firmly rooted. And Ezenwa, now an illustrious man, unethically opposed to every end, the leadership of Ideji. It was too much to think that after all his affair with Urenna, he lost eternal ownership of her to Ideji, and worst of it, his clan lost its pride of rulership to the same bland Ideji. He would seethe concerning an agreement King Ideji signed to sell a palm plantation to a new-age company whose investment would not only enrich the community but develop it, then he would seethe over the King’s inability to instantly curb a foray of hoodlums who invaded and looted farms in Isiumu, raping women and killing men in their wake. He also condemned the leadership when there was not enough rain suffice for crops to flourish, and criticized when the night came too soon. In fact, he seethed over everything till he magically churned his clan fiercely against the leadership of Ideji and the community was at a brink of catastrophe. There had never been such a weight of abuse on a King all the years they were elected from Isiumu.  Ezenwa knew within him, that he did not oppose what he termed a bad leadership but fought a person and a clan who not only have taken power from them but have also possessed an OIL that once graced his manhood – the beautiful Urenna; an OIL he used as he pleased. The Family Heads of Isiumu even refused to remit taxes to the Community’s treasury, claiming it was being embezzled by King Ideji and his cronies. They lamented that the roads were worst in their clan and that they had no education and little development. “Poverty,” they said, “was also endemic to them.” “It is unfortunate,” people often muttered, “that Isiumu didn’t realise to amend all the mentioned predicaments when power revolved around them, thus, had construed the self-inflicted woes to the blame to Ideji, surely because he was not one of them." Some pundits in the Community believed ideji’s leadership had not been crystal-perfect but its imperfections were falsely ramified by opposition.

King Ideji ordered the arrest of Isiumu Family Heads for insubordination and one of the Heads who attacked the King’s guard with a cutlass was severely beating, thus, raising further agitations from the now restive Isiumu. The Company that was to buy the palm plantation was affrighted at the Community’s political imbalance and they disappeared, then Isiumu with Ezenwa at its head, began a fresh propaganda about inconsistency, that the King embarked on a project and then reneged it. They decried that the King had shooed a profitable investment due to corruption. Now very depressed and tormented, King Ideji in a bit of propitiation, built more schools for Isiumu, made them more roads and filled more seats in his cabinet with the sons of Isiumu but those didn’t seem enough. They complained that the actual amount the King said to had budgeted for those projects were far more than what was used. They also accused the king of involvement with the hoodlums that invaded farms in Isiumu. King Ideji, thus, scheduled a meeting with elites of Isiumu including Ezenwa, to deliberate on schemes to extingush security challanges in Isiumu but they disregarded the call and, those that attended earned hatred and condemnation from their clansmen.

These squabbles brought the King to a demeanour of arresting, imprisoning or detaining whoever raised voice unjustly against him. It then was termed a barbaric and tyrannic leadership. To curb the incessant raiding and murder in Isiumu, furfew was declared for dwellers to desist from the streets before the end of twilight, and it was called a gunbolt monarchy which aimed at inflicting hunger and poverty on Isiumu clan whose market tradings was said to be at night. Now toughened and hardened by torments distractions and oppressions for Isiumu clan, King Ideji sort to match terror with terror.  What they did not realise was that it is not the oppressed but the oppressor who determines for the oppressed the pattern of battle. The once benign and democratic Ideji now seemed autocratic and tyrannic more than could ever had been imagined of him.

It was sad that King Ideji’s gunbolt monarchy, his tyranny was not of his making, but was imposed by unrestrained insubordination of those who believed power was their next of kin.

MAMAHOOD

Ijedi managed to fetch enough thistle to properly bundle the firewood she had gathered. The noonday sun had caught up with her early morning farming routine.

A little past dawn every day, she, accompanied by her son, Enyinna, would head for the farm. Those were one of the many moments that rooted an abiding connection between the young mother and her child. They would tend the crops in the only but disputed piece of land her late husband bequeathed to them upon his early departure from among the living, fetch firewood for cooking, and hay for the goats, then sell some food items at a popular evening market by the village entrance. Though they barely had enough to eat, their lives were quiet and happy. Her only surviving brother-in-law, Ejike, in alliance with her mother-in-law had succeeded in grasping all that she inherited from the deceased, and their sticky claws were still unceasingly itching for the little farmland, the one thing that was a source of living for her and her child.

Presently, as she was concluding the day’s routine and getting set for home in the accustomed company of her son, there approached some young men armed with cutlasses. They looked aggressive and introduced themselves as a syndicate affiliated with Ejike. They came with an order to seal off the farmland. She saw no need for a dispute, after all, a woman of her sort was very incapable of physically engaging such hefty creatures. Ejike had taken his malevolent battle right into the bedrock of her survival, and she was not strong enough to fight back. She was only strong enough to be a woman. She fleetingly thought about how shameful it was that the village heads had connived with Ejike to pass a judgment in her absence, a judgement that sought to take food away from her mouth and that of her son. Issues concerning the land had lingered so long in deliberations among the Council of Elders, and she had felt nearly resolute that the good and honourable elders before whom her daily plights of widowhood was unhidden would let her retain ownership of what rightfully belonged to her. A little anxiety however was bred when some leading voices among the elders surreptitiously offered to help her only if she was willing to offer her body. She felt disgusted, not at the vile desires of these old and expiring men, but at the inordinate possibility that she was expected to bask in immoral undertakings in order to secure what was known to be hers. She nevertheless tried to assure herself that there were still good fellows among the Council who would not be influenced to rob her of her inheritance.

It was at the morning of that take over that she realised how wrong she had been. The unanimous decree of the Elders, the highest verdict in the land, had robbed her of her last piece of bread. She went home with her firewood hefted on her head while her eight-year-old son followed behind, carrying the farming tools along with the fetched hay. She pretended nothing was wrong as she trod with feet shod with well-worn slippers on the dirt path from the bush, but she was breaking up inside. It could be seen in her eyes, bright with unshed tears.

Years after that morning passed. Life became drastic for them. Having no farmland, but labouring in another man's farmland for a pittance made hell seem more bearable than her present reality. She was not happy that her son at such an early age was constrained by life to obligatorily work and fend for himself. It was no longer easy for her to take care of her child. In her dark moments, she sobbed prayers for death to come and claim her, to take her to her husband’s side. She would looked at her son’s face and she realized that even though her bones were broken, her spirit was still strong. A man at the demise of his wife may find comfort in the arms of another woman or in the brew of wine, but she as a woman and mother could not entertain any other choice but to be strong. She had to be unreservedly bent on catering to the welfare of her son. And she was willing to bend even she breaks.

And then, four years passed, and the man, whose farm they laboured in, informed Ijedi of his son’s interest in Enyinna, to take him to the City to have a better landscape of toiling. Ijedi was torn. She wanted to keep her child by her side, to be the only one responsible for his wellbeing. But she knew the City was the better option for him. She cried, sobbing a prayer to the heavens to guide, protect and prosper her son in his virgin voyage far away from home.

On the morning Enyinna was to leave, her prayers gushed like torrents from a rainy sky. Her supplications were nothing more than blessings, requests from God and beautiful proclamations upon her son. She asked God to keep him safe and far away from untimely demise. She prayed for him to emerge uncommonly successful in all good things his hands found to do. She vigorously gestured, throwing her hands about, and perspiring. Her voice was loud and unrestrained. As though the prayers were not enough, she pulled her son to her body, passionately grabbed his head, ruffled his hair and began to weep until her sobs turned into a wail. She sobbed until Enyinna was pried from her grasp, and she continued murmuring her prayers as she watched her son, sad-faced and unsure, depart from her.

That was affection expressed the only way a mother could, an action that explained the difficulty and trauma of goodbye, juxtaposed with an intense desire of a mother to see her son succeed and become a man.