After It Happened

Chapter 27: 26

28th March, 2018

Danielle,

I got to leave school before lunchbreak! That's great news right? At least I finally get enough sleep if

only I can block out Grammy's and Aunty Amara's shouts of "Fire! Fire! Die by Fire!". It's really hard to

ignore their loud prayers especially when the words 'Olanna' and 'evil spirit' continuously leave their

lips.

Do you really think I am possessed by a spirit? Today's events got me thinking. There is really no

reasonable explanation for my episode today I can think of apart from possession. That is what

everyone is thinking judging the whispers and looks my classmates and teachers were giving me as I

picked up my school bag. I can't really blame them though. This is Nigeria after all. Anything that

seems physically unexplainable has to do with the spiritual.

I remember a story Aunty Amara always tells anyone who cares to listen. I must have heard that story

a thousand times. Have I told you before that Aunty Amara is a single mom? Well that should be

obvious since she doesn't live with her husband. She divorced her husband when Dubem was still a novelbin

baby. Noone will tell me the details; I'm not sure Dubem even knows everything.

From snippets of conversations I've heard, I think he was violent towards Aunty Amara and her

children. He was about to bring home a new wife and Aunty Amara who was fed up decided to end the

marriage. She has been living with her mom- Grammy ever since.

Well going back to the story. After the divorce, Mimi, Aunty Amara's first child who was in her final year

as a Medical student got engaged to her boyfriend who is really rich. According to Aunty Amara, her

daughter who was her light and joy got really sick. She was taken from one hospital to another, but her

sickness wouldn't stop.

Mimi was in Lagos State hospital receiving treatment when an old woman walked up to her bed

shouting, "Stop killing the girl! She has done nothing to you. Let her live!"

Aunty Amara who was in the room at the time was shocked and simply watched as the nurses led the

old woman out. The next morning she rushed Mimi to a nearby church and laid her on the altar begging

God to save her daughter. Of course you should know how the story goes from here. Almost all

Nigerian stories go the same way- serious prayers, an encounter with the spiritual, a miracle, and a

confessing culprit. The culprit in this case was apparently Aunty Amara's sister-in-law who died

mysteriously in her sleep as soon as Mimi was miraculously cured.

With how things are going, I hope I don't start seeing ghosts and marine spirits. I will just die.

Peacefully dying is better than always fighting a raging war for a life that doesn't make sense right?