M was nineteen when he stopped being the coward. He wasn’t born as one, but years of moulding made him one.
‘The bible said turn the other cheek if your neighbour slap you for one,’ his mother, a new convert into Christianity after the death of his abamen, would sing. ‘If only my husband listened, he would not be underneath our feet.’
M had always been strange. He talked to himself because he had no friends, he looked to his feet when anyone spoke to him, and he had vitiligo. It was rumored that his mother slept with another man that was why he was born with a peeling skin. He was an abomination, a curse to members of his village. Elders had once come to his parents’ house to put an end to him. The chief, his mother told as a lesson severally, accused M of drying up the stream into the patches of his skin and the gods demanded blood for them to be pacified. His father would have none of it, so he went to the shed located at the back of the house and brought out a cutlass to send them from his house. She pleaded with him to calm down. ‘He didn't. He collapsed and died, end of story.’ After that, she turned to Christ and gave him a warning every time she could. In a way, M thought his father was like Jesus, dying for the sins of his child.
The first time M disobeyed his mother he had been sent to fetch water from the stream.
‘Don’t talk to anyone, carry the pot on your head and come straight home,’ she said as she handed the faded clay pot with a chipped top. M collected the pot happily and skipped all the way to the stream, oblivious to the stares the people who saw him gave. He thought of the outside, and the grasses and seeing his only friends; the birds, and grass cutters. He was happy.
At the stream, M rolled up his shorts and squatted. He grinned when he caught a glimpse of a crayfish. He gently dipped the pot into the water before he brought it out, half filled. He was proud of his task even if it would take him several commutes to his house and back.
Then he heard voices, and turned around to see a group of children his age approach. It had been a long time since he talked with anyone who was not his mother. It was his opportunity to interact with other people. He waited for them to come closer, practicing the words he would say underneath his breath.
‘That pawpaw ripe pass,’ the tallest in the group spoke, they were four boys.
‘Na lie, how much you go bet?’ another answered as they got to the stream and took off their shirts. They wanted to take a swim in the stream. He took their closeness as a cue to approach.
‘H-how far?’ he gave his best smile as he walked to them, feigning inability to carry the pot by the side of the water.
For the first time they all looked at him. He assumed they had seen him and ignored, but he was wrong. They looked from one to another.
‘Wait o, is this not that boy papa talked about that day?’ again, the tallest spoke, averting his eyes from one of the boys to M.
M fidgeted, but he wore his curious eyes with pride. ‘You know me?’ Although his mother never went to the University, she was able to tutor him on a combination of things, English language included.
‘Ehn, you think he is that boy with peeling body?’ another answered.
‘Yes, yes. Na him o,’ a third person said, his eyes opened wide with fear drawn over his face like a ghost touched the nape of his neck. Then he looked to the stream, ‘This water go don be cursed.’
They looked to the water then back at him. M felt his chest tighten, worse than when he heard his mother’s cry in the darkest of night.
‘Make we go,’ the last of them said and went to pick up their shirts. The rest were ready to flee, however the tallest stepped towards M.
‘Is it not enough that you have finished cursing our village?’ He asked with hatred.
‘I-I came to carry water. And I need help, I cannot put it back on my head.’ M still offered his best smile as he pointed to the clay pot.
‘Oh,’ Tallest said. He turned to the three others, who already gave distance, and said, ‘Let us help’ They frowned at him but hesitantly followed. M believed he got through to them, he would have friends for the first time. ‘Obuluo,’ he said in their native language.
The four lifted the pot off the ground with a bit of struggle, and then the tallest said, ‘Come closer let us put it on your head.’
‘Alright,’ M rushed forward, stretched his hand to offer assistance. He smiled shyly. He had expected to feel the sandy bottom of the pot. Instead, he was soaked, drenched from the contents in the pot. He gasped, shivering from both cold and surprise.
The group laughed satisfyingly, ‘Next time, don’t come near my stream,’ Tallest said, then he flung the pot far away from M.
They started to walk away when he called to them, ‘You will pay for this,’ he growled, then felt the sharp tongue of his mother’s warning along with a surge of anger.
Tallest frowned, then crossed the distance to kick his legs. M fell to the floor in pain. ‘Wetin you wan do me? Fight me?’ Tallest questioned, then kicked him again, and again as the others laughed.
‘Turn the other cheek, turn the other cheek,’ he chanted internally until he calmed down.
‘Fear fear,’ the tallest spat before they finally made their way away from the stream with their belongings.
M managed to steer clear of people all his life after. The second time M disobeyed his mother, it was because of a girl. One night, when he was eighteen, he bumped into a stranger he had never seen on his trip back from the farm. The bowl of corn spilled to the floor, and he muttered profanities under his breath but never out as he picked them up when a hand reached for the corn too. M looked up to see a girl, with skin that glistened under the moon.
‘N,’ she introduced herself as she apologized. It was her first time in the village and she had been so engrossed at the fireflies that she did not look at the road.
‘I never get to see this in the city.’
M had never seen anyone as beautiful, he could not see himself away from her. ‘I have been here all my life, I can take you around,’ he blurted in one single breath. At first, he thought she would shrink away in disgust, just like people always did but N wore a smile, big and bright.
‘I would like that.’
M and N grew close throughout her time in the village. It was for a month, but it felt like both years and a day. M showed her all his favourite spots, while N told him about her experiences in the city. M had never wanted to go to the place where money grew like grass, and there were more cars than his hands could count. She also shared music with him. Her MP3 player hung on her waist like an imported belt, while they both shared her earpiece, listening to the bass and blues of the songs folded in the mobile device.
They would go to the market square together on some days. At first, M was worried about the reactions of people to their physical closeness. He would give them space by walking behind her, that way the members of the village would mistake their interaction for an impossibility. N, however, got fed up with that.
‘Why do you shame me by walking behind me when we are supposed to be next to each other?’ She questioned angrily, stopping right in the middle of the market, awaiting his response. He tried to gesture to the people without looking at them, for fear of their wrath at his audacity.
‘Are you ashamed of being seen in public with me?’ The question almost made M laugh because he was far from ashamed, he was afraid. She was royalty, daughter of a wealthy headmaster in the city and he was the harbinger of curses.
‘I will bring you bad luck if I am seen with you. Can you not see how I look?’ He watched his feet on the red soil of the earth, unable to see the realisation in the eyes of N, or what he thought would be realisation. Instead, N engulfed him in a hug, the first he had ever had in his life. She was not afraid of him or his skin, and she was not afraid of the reputation that was sure to follow her from the murmurings of the people present. M, at that moment, knew he would never love anyone as much as he loved N. She was his person.
From months to a year, M and N grew even more inseparable, even his mother noticed. She would sing around the house about ‘he finding a wife, finding a good thing’. M, however, always pretended to not listen, careful not to make his heart be overcome by false excitement. He needed to confirm, to be sure that his love was not one sided, just as his desire for the world had been.
M took her to the stream, and they sat, watching the birds play in the silence that the view offered. N laid her head on his shoulder, and that sent a tingle through his arteries to his heart. He felt every pump of his ventricles, every movement of blood from his heart to his tissues. Quietly, M spoke.
‘N, I love you.’
The girl raised her head to look at him, and he feared her response because her face coined into a billboard of confusion. ‘What did you say?’, N questioned in response.
‘Nothing,’ M shook his head, afraid of repeating the words, of hearing things he knew would be the truth.
N laughed though, and M began to feel embarrassed until she said, ‘This is the thing with you M. You never find the courage to do things, to say the things you really want to say out loud.’ Then N lifted M’s face to look at her. ‘I want you to look me in the eye and say what you said once more’.
In the year they had been together, M had seen N’s eyes plenty of times, but the view at the moment was bedazzling. He found himself getting sucked into the brown iris, into the world of visions only she had experienced. Then he said the words, louder, and clearer. ‘I love you N, from the moment I saw you I knew I did, and I always will.’
A sheepish smile climbed up N’s face as she repeated the same words to him. ‘I love you too M. I knew from the moment I saw you.’
The world stood still for M on that day. It was his heaven. He would cherish that minute for the rest of his life, that was before a fit of laughter rang from near them. M and N turned simultaneously to the group, and fear seized M’s veins. Tallest and the three. However, Tallest was the shortest now as the other three towered above him. Still, he wore the face of nightmare that haunted M many years ago. M had heard Tallest went to the city, and was mixed with a group of delinquents that landed him in kirkiri, so seeing him in person was shocking.
‘Well, well. Na you be this?’ Tallest approached the couple, and M clenched his jaw, using a hand to wrap N into his protection. ‘My very good friend M. You don turn oyinbo finish.’
‘Hello, Tallest.’ M said curtly, hoping the interaction would end with his politeness, instead Tallest carried on.
‘My name now is Lil T. No dey call me Tallest.’ Fitting name for a fitting height, M thought but kept his mouth shut and eyes to the ground. ‘Who do we have here?’
‘Na Headmaster pikin,’ one of the three said proudly.
‘Ah, I see.’ M raised his head to look at Tallest briefly but put his head down again. ‘I have heard of how beautiful you are, but not this beautiful.’
‘T-thank you,’ N was never nervous, M thought, but everyone had heard about all that Tallest did before leaving the village. How he burned down the houses of his parents, and drowned someone in a neighbouring river. It was only right to be afraid of him.
‘What is a fine girl like you doing with a cursed boy? Come, be with me.’ He reached to grab N’s hand but she swatted it away.
‘No,’ she said even as her voice broke.
Tallest laughed, a sinister laughter that spread around the quiet stream. ‘I said come to me,’ he demanded again, and this time grabbed her wrist, pulling her despite her screams that chased the resting birds out of their nest. M felt his heart beat increase. Turn the other cheek. He chanted his mother’s words over and over, but N’s screams pierced his brain.
‘Why do you want to stay with fear fear?’ Tallest taunted N, ‘He is a good for nothing coward that cannot fight or protect you.’
Turn the other cheek.
N screamed even further as Tallest dragged her in the sand. ‘If you do not behave, I will press you inside the water.’
Turn the other cheek.
‘Stay,’ Tallest screamed at N, then hit her across the face. M looked in her direction as she lay on the ground, her screams shifted from loud to quiet, as her eyes stared at him in a growing disbelief. ‘M…’ N whispered but the wind carried it to M’s ears. He breathed out, pain etched on his chest and anger inside of it. ‘I’m sorry mama, but I could not turn the other cheek.’ Not this time.
M stood up in an instant, and ran straight for Tallest. He pulled him into a tussle as all his muscles flexed in rage. Rage over years of anger. Over the taunts of the village for his skin condition, and for hurting the only person, outside of his mother, who loved him back as a person. Their fight pushed them into the stream, and even as the current pulled at M, he never let go of Tallest, baptizing him in the water of his pain.
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