Run, If Life Permits
He sits on the front of the big Mango tree, leaning backwards, resting on its trunk as he naps and snores like an inebriated riff-raff. He’s a tall, young man who used to be plump and handsome. His name is Ndụkwe which means ‘If life permits.’
Mazị Ọjị scuttles towards Ndụkwe whose snores permeate and cluster around him. He had wished he had died with his parents in the raging flame that blazed down his home, eleven years ago. Mazị Ọjị stares at him, his face portrayed as an inner glow, which irks him. So, he strikes Ndụkwe’s head with his walking stick, jolting him from his dreamland.
“Greetings nnanyị,” Ndụkwe greets, taking a step away from him, then he topples and falls on his feet like he has just seen a ghost for the first time.
Mazị Ọjị bares his teeth, advancing towards Ndụkwe with predatory precision. “May Amadiọha strike you dead.”
Ndụkwe yawns.
“I’m asking you, you good-for-nothing fool!” Mazị Ọjị thunders, striking his stick towards him, which he dodges, leaping away from him. His trembling feet and wide eyes gives him an ultimatum of euphoria.
“Uncle, I’m hungry—”
“Are you speaking to my father in that manner?” Says a voice from behind Ndụkwe. Mazị Ọjị smiles as his two sons emerge. One will think they’re identical twins due to their same ebony skin and height, except for their body stature.
The first son, Ezedike, is swift and muscular-built, while his brother, Obiagụ, a year younger than him, is slender, which is deceiving because one may think he’s weak.
Mazị Ọjị watches Ndụkwe’s eyes widen, seemingly surprised they had come through his back. For that reason, he never knew they had entered the compound.
“I don’t know where he gets the audacity to confront me.” Mazị Ọjị states, smiling at Ndụkwe’s shivering frame.
“You have the gut to talk back to my father,” the second son, Obiagụ, chirps in, veering towards him.
“I wonder oh. His wings have grown too big now.”
Ndụkwe knows he’s in for a beating. Running away will not lessen his punishment. He yelps as their palms slam on his cheek and their feet collide with his, which pulls him down to the ground. Ndụkwe whines at the hands and feet, battering him like an aluminium sheet in the hand of a local tinker.
It’s still early in the morning, although the goats have been bleating since last night. Ndụkwe is still asleep, because it seems he’s accustomed to those bleating, but suddenly bolts to his feet at the crow of an astray cock, shrouded behind the wet leaves of the mango tree in the compound. From where he lies, he can see the air is mixed with fog. The wind feels eccentric on his skin, which sends shivers crawling across his spine.
He stands, yawning, and his bones snap with ease. Only to be confronted by the stinking smell of goats urine and faces emanating from his wet thread bare calico jumper. He bolts on his feet like a geared lorry when he realises his dress is wet and begins to fold his tarred mat.
A nanny goat lies at the other end, on top of his few clothes, chewing an invisible cud. Ndụkwe pulls and beats the goat lightly to chase it off, but it refuses to bulge. His hands slice beneath its hips and try lifting it, but the goat begins to bleat loudly.
“You sexual pervert! You’re raping my goat!” Ndụkwe let go of the goat, startled by the loud gruff, accusing voice. Ndụkwe wishes the ground can swallow him right away or possibly faint at the sight of his uncle whose face switches into a mischievous glint. His hands were clammy, feet rooted on the floor as tears stream down his cheek.
“Uncle… I…” He knows none of his pleads and utterances will save him, but a half loaf of bread is better than nothing.
“So, you’re raping my goat? Ah!” Mazị Ọjị voice raises like the claps of thunder. It slides through the air, permeating around the compound.
“Ọ bụ gịni? What’s it?” comes a voice. A young man materializes, scuttling towards them.
Ndụkwe falls on his knees. “Uncle, please, don’t do this.”
“Get away from me, you pervert!” Mazị Ọjị lashes his stick on his head, turing to face the figure that just enters.
“I caught him red-handed raping my goat.”
“Arụ! Abomination!” the figure stretches forward and whacks Ndụkwe across his face. Ndụkwe thinks he sees the twinkle of stars dancing above his head as he reels and falls on his stomach. Again, a stick smacks his head and he whimpers, trying to stand up despite the pain. It feels excruciating and he continues to plead.
“Papa, what did he do this early morning?” Ezedike mutters, stepping beside his father who doesn’t stop clouting Ndụkwe.
“He was raping my goat!”
Ndụkwe doesn’t know when Ezedike appears beside him and holds the collar of his polo tighter. He sees himself on the ground in a second. His sight becomes blurry as tears continue to course in torrent. “I’m innocent! I’m—”
“Will you shut up your mouth! The king needs to hear this.” The figure bellows, lifting him and begins to shove him forward, followed by Ezedike.
“Let just stone him right away.” Mazị Ọjị smirks.
“That’s not right. The king needs to hear it first.”
They leave for the king’s palace.
Ndụkwe’s mind has been running amok at the pattern which he will die today as he lurches inside the king’s palace, behind him a small crowd that had formed along the way, spitting and cursing.
Sighting the king on his throne made from carved wood with the drawing of a lion’s head on its edge, and his daughter beside him. He scrambles to the throne room of a zinc sheet roof and mud wall which is doorless and faints.
He jolts awake at the cold water slaps on his face. He pants, grunting at the pain crawling over his skin.
“I’m innocent!” he resumes pleading.
“What did he do?” the king, a dark-skinned man in his late fifties, asks. His tight jaw, face are gorged with wrinkles that run from his upper eyebrows to his jaw in a zigzag line, and streaks of grey hairs visible beside the edge of the silver crown he wears.
“He was caught raping a goat!” a voice yells from the crowd. The king and his daughter share a glance.
Ndụkwe’s stomach seethes at the frown lingering on the king’s face. He can feel terror seeping through his veins. Does he believe him or the crowd?
The silence that hovers among them seems to be nibbling at Ndụkwe’s fear while he awaits the king’s verdict.
Again, the king lifts his gaze and bores it into his like he intends to fish out the truth himself from his—Ndụkwe’s—eyes. Ndụkwe lowers his gaze, still kneeling.
“Take him to the dungeon. I will pass my judgment tomorrow,” the king mutters, distilling the silence into shreds. Gurgling erupts. Two hefty guards stride forward and grab Ndụkwe when a voice halts them.
All eyes trail to the owner as the princess, Akwaeke, who has been silent, sitting with her father, steps forward. “Father, he’s innocent. Can’t you scent it?”
“Are you out of your mind?”
Ndụkwe watches the princess shuffles towards him.
“Whose goat did he rape by the way, where’s the said goat?”
Murmurs reply her.
“Mazị Ọjị’s goat. We brought him against the wish of Mazị Ọjị who told us to stone him to death.”
The princess nods. “Where is Mazị Ọjị?
“He’s not with us. I came in place of him.” Ndụkwe notices Akwaeke rolls her eyes at Ezedike replies as if she is expecting it. Akwaeke was said to be betrothed to him by her father.
“The goat?”
“He refuses to release it to us.”
“Why is he not here by the way at a critical matter like this?”
The king barks, obviously angry at Mazị Ọjị absence.
Ndụkwe feels his heart flutter at the princess smile.
Princess Akwaeke knows her father is against Mazị Ọjị and sees it as an opportunity to hit the nail at the head. “Father, you see he values his goat more than that of this young man here.”
Five minutes of silence, the king faces Ndụkwe and said,“Go home.”
Gasps drone the air. Did he just release him? Ndụkwe mouth clings open as he keeps staring at king whose face suddenly alter into a frown.
“The dungeon is still open for you if you don’t leave this minute.”
Ndụkwe scrambles to his feet and makes his way out from the palace. He hears dismissal and the crowd begin to disperse.
Mazị Ọjị molds the garri between his palm into a lump and dips it inside the melon soup before he drags it to his mouth which he digests with water after licking his two fingers. Obiagụ comes out from his room and shuffles towards his father who have just finished eating his food and is leaning on the sun-lounge chair.
“Papa, do you think the king will punish that brat?”
Mazị Ọjị knows nods. “Of course. The punishment for such is death.”
His son takes a small bench and sits, facing him. “Why can’t we just kill him ourselves? After all, nobody cares.”
“We can’t because we must not soil our hands with his blood, thus framing him up is better to die in the hand of others.”
Mazị Ọjị strips, blood drains off his face at who he sees. He coughs, gasping for air.
“Papa!” Obiagụ is beside him in a second, patting his back after he gave his father the remaining water to gulp. Ndụkwe out of generousness, limps to help but Mazị Ọjị reprimands him, yelling out loudly.
“Get out!”
Ndụkwe is taken aback by his uncle’s action and can’t understand why his uncle wants him dead badly. If only he had other relatives besides his uncle, he wouldn’t be going through all this.
He watches his uncle struggle to sit on his seat, his son helping him. When he glances at the green plastic table and sees the piece of meat. It takes him to the memory lane of those old good days when his father normally had dinner with his uncle before his death. His eyes become moisten with tears as he tries to speak but words refuse to form.
“Uncle… I’m… Sorry…”
“Get out of here at this moment or possibly leave my house!” Mazị Ọjị flashes his teeth at him, jaw gashed. Ndụkwe scrapes his cheek, striding inside but stop as if staring at something.
“Take those dirty clothes of yours inside, or better help me burn them,” he hisses at him when he glimpses what Ndụkwe is staring at. Ndụkwe has no choice but to pack his clothes inside, piled together to where useless materials are burned.
“Ndụkwe!”
Mazị Ọjị calls from the front yard, in his chieftaincy dress of red-feathered cap, tailored dashiki shirt embroidered with silver thread and a black wrapper. He taps his walking stick continuously.
No reply.
“Ndụkwe!” he shouts. He’s sure he had heard him singing a lamentation song earlier. “Stay there and wait for me.”
“Agụ onwe ya!” calls a voice.
“Who is that?”
“It is me, Ekene.”
Ekene is one of the ten ịchie of their community whose words and opinions are never overlooked.
“Oh! Ekene. I’m all set. I just want to drop a message for this good-for-nothing fool. Ndụkwe!”
“Nnanyị,” Ndụkwe answers, scrambling towards him.
“Amadiọha would have struck that mouth of yours if I had met you there!” Mazị Ọjị thunders. “Go to the market and buy a fresh kola nut before I return back home. Only God knows what I will do to you if I return without food prepared.”
Ndụkwe takes the money stretches to him and watches them leave.
Mama Ofe-Ọma’s bar is the best place men of Ụmụnna go to ease tension after a hectic day. Ofe-Ọma as normally called by her customers instead of Ịfeọma is a dark-skinned woman with a round face, brown lips, and a pointed nose. She possesses this flirtatious manner that attracts people to her shop and is unmarried despite being in her early forties.
Seated in her bar is a two friends, Okoro and Ọsịta, who is known for their jovial and tensing manner. They’re her regular customers.
“Okoro, I heard you ran away with your wife’s pot soup,” Ọsịta says. Okoro had quarreled with his wife last time which almost resulted into a real fight. Although it was because of food, but there was nothing like running away with one pot of soup. Okoro rolls his eyes. “That’s because I’m looking for your head inside.”
“Tụfịakwa! It can never be my head.” Ọsịta circles his head and drags it down, spitting in the process. “No wonder your teeth are too long.”
Okoro looks like a drenched vulture, and his oval, protruding stomach does nothing to beautify his appearance. “Thank you for the compliment.”
He raises his gaze at the section he thinks Mama Ofe-Ọma may be resting and yells out. “ Bia, Ofe-Ọma get me two bottles…hmm… One bottle of palm wine. No money for two people.”
“Okoro, are you not buying a drink for me?” Ọsịta asks, arching his eyebrows.
“Ok. Ok, before you castigate me, bring two bottles, please.”
Their drinks were brought.
Okoro throws his glance outside the building when he gaze get struck until Ọsịta follows it to see what he’s looking at.
Sighted is Mazị Ọjị and Ekene striding side by side.
“What is it?”
“You ask as if you’re a stranger to this community.” Okoro mutters. “I get it. Your wife’s hips won’t let you know what’s happening.”
“Okoro!” Ọsịta says, warning etches in his tone.
“I’m sorry. But stop behaving as if you didn’t hear of the girl found headless at the farm of Ogubuike. Or aren’t you aware of Ọjawa mysterious death and how Okenye and Ekene maltreat their wards?”
“How is this things relative to Ọjị?” Ọsịta eyes were wide. Mouth clings open.
“So you’re among those blind-fold by Ọjị’s affluence? Perhaps you’re not aware of Ọjị is the mastermind of all this calamities—”
Ọsịta clumps his hand on his lips. “You’re in a public place.”
Okoro snaps his lips free . “I’m not afraid to point out his sins. What about his nephew? Your so-called Ọjị made him an orphan and treats him worse than a slave, yet every one of you feigns ignorance of it.”
“Okoro, are you insane? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Ọsịta blurts and scampers to his feet.
Okoro rolls his eyes and chuckles. “Sit down my friend. I know of all his sins and waiting for the opportunity to tell him to his face. He becomes powerful and rich after his elder brother’s death, yet he isn’t satisfied. He plotted the death of Obika. May your soul rest in peace, nwanne m.” he shakes his head.
“Who is to blame? The king who allows him to commit these atrocities or we?”
“Listen, the world we live in is bad not because of the bad people in it but those who refuse to do something about it.”
“You are right but what can we do to stop him?”
“Kill him, of course.” Okoro blurts with too much venom and hatred in his voice. Ọsịta nearly slip over at the boldness in which Okoro said it. He glances around him, then scampers out of the building.
“What a weak soul!” Okoro yells, dashing after him after he had called Mama Ofe-Ọma to take her money on the table.
The night is still young and the sound of crickets have begun to blast from within the compound. Ndụkwe feels a chill slithering down his skin as he squats on the pavement of their house—his uncle house. He can see two figures sauntering inside and is thankful the ray of the crescent moon barely shines on the place he squats, knees and arms clamp together to prevent the tendrils of cold from seeping through his spine.
“Ọjị, did you think the poison would work?” a familiar voice like that of Ekene’s asks, the silhouette of his body barely visible.
“Of course. Tomorrow, we will hear that the king dies in his sleep.” Mazị Ọjị replies. They poisoned the king. He quickly stands on his feet and bolts out, unnoticed, to the side of the building when he hears Ezedike pattering towards his father.
“Papa, you’re back from the meeting?” Ndụkwe doesn’t see his uncle’s movement but is sure he nods.Then he hears Ekene bide his farewell. “I’m off. Let me go and rest my bones.”
“Ok. Go well.” Mazị Ọjị replies.
Ndụkwe remembers when he got into a fight with Ekene’s son, Ikenna, on one occasion. He had strode along the playground, going to get his uncle, Kola Nut. Children—Ikenna and his sisters—clustered on a sand dome they made with their feet. A stone landed on his back after he had passed them. Pain raked through him at the impact. He turned to see the culprit. None seemed to be looking in his direction, but he could see they were trying to muffle their giggles. He clenched his fists and stormed over to their side, and at that moment, the girls dashed away, leaving only Ikenna, who didn’t gaze at him.
With a grimace, he asked, “Why did you stone me?”
Ndụkwe didn’t bother to know if his assumption was right because he thought the girls ran away due to his size.
Ikenna’s silence irked him so he whacked his face, resulting in the fight he wasn’t barely able to keep up the pace of his opponent.
Ndụkwe saw a star twinkle out of his eyes when he arrived home. Ikenna’s father, Ekene, was waiting for him with some men who didn’t allow him to explain himself as they battered him to a pup.
Ndụkwe throws his head aback, still shocked at what he just heard. He can’t believe his uncle can be this wicked to poison the king.
“Papa, what I heard a moment ago. Is it true?” Ezedike asks as they head back to the pavement.
“Yes. It’s my ultimate goal to rule this community once you’re married to the princess.”
“But Papa—”
“I know. The king had scheduled the date for the wrestling match of who would challenge you and win the princess’ hand in marriage. Meanwhile, are the boneighbourhoodys I ordered you to get ready to kill the prince of Ụmụnne who dares show interest in Akwaeke?”
“Yes, papa. That stupid prince will not live past tomorrow.”
Ndụkwe reels, unknowingly knock off the bench he doesn’t know is beside him as the sound blares, permeating around them.
“Who is there?” his uncle asks.
He scrambles to his feet, dashing out. He has to hide and plan how to save the prince of the neighborhood community from getting murder.
“Someone is eavesdropping on us.”
“Kill whoever it is. Even if it’s that good-for-nothing fool.”
Ndụkwe bolts towards the door leading to backyard farmland as feet storm towards him. He will need to stay alive if he has to save the prince, but how? There’s no place to hide.
Heart thudding, he dashes to the door but discovers it’s locked which increases his pounding heart, pulses racing. Ezedike’s feet aren’t heard anymore like he’s walking with a precisely organized stride.
Ndụkwe can’t see his shadow and begins to wonder whether he had truly heard his storming feet earlier.
Then, he muffles the gasp that threatens to escape his lips as a thought clinks into his mind.back
Ezedike may think he bolted towards the room he shares with the goats. Time to escape!
“Papa, Ndụkwe isn’t in his stinky room!” he hears Ezedike’s voice, as he had guessed. As quick as a hare, he begins to tiptoe towards the front yard, using the other side of the building, which is opposite and isn’t far from where he stands, trembling.
“It is him. Don’t let him leave alive. My secret isn’t safe if he does!” Mazị Ọjị replies from the front yard. What kind of death will they give him if he is caught? Ndụkwe doesn’t have the time to think about it as he makes his way to the front, staring at his uncle pacing up and down the compound, eyes roaming through every nook and cranny.
Ndụkwe sighs and bites his lips. He can’t possibly leave the house without his uncle seeing him.
“Check the backyard door before he escapes!”
“On it!” Ezedike replies. minutes later. “The door is locked.”
“He is hiding somewhere within this compound. Check!”
Ndụkwe’s eyes grow wide, and his heart crashes against his chest at the hand that clasps his lips. “Sh! Make a noise, and I will alert them.”
He can’t believe it’s Obiagụ as he beckons him—Ndụkwe—to follow him. What just happened? Obiagụ saving him or leading him to a trap. He notices Obiagụ is leading him to his room, which he has never stepped foot on.
Ikechukwu Henry is a self-driven creative writer of Nigerian origin and Igbo by blood. When the voices in his head rage and the whispers grow deafening, he writes with a propelling assurance of the speculative world beyond reality.
His works have appeared in numerous magazines and they could be found in his on-page website: https://taplink.cc/ikechukwuhenry
He tweets @ikechukwuhenry_
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