THE LIVING DEAD

 

Three raps at the door and it opened. A face emerged behind the door and smiled at the stranger.

"Hello, how can I help you?", she asked.

The stranger smiled too, holding her double sized  belly with one hand and with the other she held her handbag and a girl of about three years old.

" I am looking for Akin", she said, almost in a whisper.

"Akin", the other woman asked with a bizarre expression.

Another woman emerged from within, opening the door wider. She stared at the woman and her child as one would a stranger.

"What does she want?", she asked, staring from the woman to her child and vice versa.

"She is looking for Akin", the younger woman announced with that same expression.

"Looking for who", she asked again. The frown had spread all over her face putting a strain on her voice which seemed to be choked with unshed tears.

"Akin", the stranger said, beginning to doubt if she had the right address.

"What do you want with him," the older woman asked while wiping her face with the end of her wrapper. Before she answered the question, she noticed the resemblance between the older woman and Akin. This must be Akin's mother. She noted too that the younger woman had a pointed nose like  Akin.  She is definitely Jumoke,  his younger sister. They look so alike. 

"He is my husband", she said, looking from mother to daughter. And this is our daughter".

The two women looked at themselves in horror and back at the stranger with her baby. They allowed her in  shaking their heads. She was led from the sitting room to another room that led to the backyard. As they went, she saw the picture frames on the wall. First was an old man, unmistakably, Akin's father. It was followed by a picture with both Akin's father and mother as newlyweds. This was followed by Akin's picture when he was a toddler. Another was  when he graduated from the University. Another frame had young Akin and his  sister standing in front of a table with a plate containing biscuits and two bottles of soft drinks. Then finally,  a picture of the nuclear family together. They got to the backyard where there was a well and beside the well were gravestones. The first one of them is very old. Part of the slab is already  chopping off and it was marked Pa Olasunkami Akinwale Boyd. 1935-1975. The second one was relatively new. She couldn't see the inscription on it because its  slab was facing the fence. As soon as Akin's mother got to it, she crouched and began to wail so loudly that the little girl clutched her mother who was also frightened. She rested her head on it and began to scream his name.

"Akin...Akin...please don't die. Please, stay with me." The man lying on the hospital bed was thrashing about as though he was trying to escape the grip of something  pinning him down.

"Call...the doctor...call the doctor o! Akin please, don't leave me! Look at me my son", his mother cried, clutching his head to rest on her bosom. The doctor came and behind her was Akin's sister, stamping her feet on the ground and holding and releasing her head with tears in her eyes. The doctor flashed his torch on the eyes of the man that were already turning white. Before he could bring out his stethoscope or call for a nurse, Akin stretched, foamed in the mouth and became still. Without being told, Akin's mother knew she  had lost her only son. That was ten years ago.

"Akin, when are we going to see your parents?", his wife asked.

He hissed before speaking.

"Teni, I told you there is nothing to see. They and I are in our different worlds. They don't give a damn about me and neither do I".

"I am not asking this for myself. I am asking this for your daughter and...and God knows what sex this one is going to be…"

Akin, whose back was turned to his wife on the bed, turned to face her.

"What are you talking about Teni?

She held her belly and slowly moved her palm around it.

"We are having another baby".

"And you didn't tell me".

"Because you didn't ask".

"How was I to know when you didn't tell me?"

"But I just did".

She snuggled herself to his bare chest and planted a kiss on his lips. He  promptly took her to lie on top of him. He pulled off her wrapper and found his way inside her. They disengaged after they were satisfied.

"Now, you will take us to see your parents". She said it with that voice that said she had paid him his dues.

"I will describe it to you but I won't go with you".

"Why Akin? It is not fair and you know that".

"They don't want to see me and neither do I wish to see them."

"But why? Why would a parent disown their own child?

"We had a fight a long time ago. I didn't want what they demanded of me nor would they accept my choice".

"Was it about a woman you wanted to marry before you met me".

"Yes.

"But you didn't marry her. Did you?".

"I almost did before she died".

"And you are taking that out on your parents?"

"Yes. If they had accepted her, she wouldn't have left our house that night where she died in a motor accident".

"I am sorry to hear that. But you never told me anything about this? Akin, do I even know you?"

"Yes, I am your husband, the father of Wura and our unborn baby on the way." He tried to kiss her but she pushed him away.

"He told you all these", Akin's mother asked, cuddling her grandson while Teni rested her back on a pillow in the hospital bed.

Teni had gone into labour when she saw Akin's grave and that he had died ten years ago.

"He never brought any woman to us, let alone being rejected by  us".

"You mean I was lied to for more than five years?"

"I am afraid so. I didn't believe you until you brought out those pictures.

"If I was told this could happen to me, I would never have believed it. Akin was looking so alive that I wouldn't have believed he had died."

"Didn't your parents ask questions about us?"

"They never supported our relationship in the first place and they never gave any reasons. We married without their consent and now I have children by a man who is a ghost"

"Do you believe in ghost grandma?".

"With this that has happened, I think I believe it."

"Why do they do that? Why do they go on to live in another place, raise a family and thereafter disappear ?''

"Perhaps, it wasn't their time to die when they did. Then they drift about." 

Both remained silent. Akin's mother stared at the bundle of joy in her arms with mixed feelings. She questioned how ghosts could have a body to the point of impregnating a woman. Teni wiped the tears lurking in her eyes. She could see her parents in her mind's eye laughing at her and taunting her about being the wife of a ghost. She sighed and tried to blank the thought from her mind.

"Please, tell me how Akin died."

Akin's mother raised her head, stared at the distance as though a screen was before her replaying the events leading to Akin's death.

"He was like a lamp of the family. Right from birth, he was a child noted for everything first. He was brilliant and very inquisitive. He graduated from the University as the youngest in the class and promptly got a job. He was given a position meant for people in their fifties because he was that good. He had not even spent a month at the job when he began falling sick. He died within a week after the sickness. We were told he was poisoned from work by people who envied him.

"What a wicked world", Teni sighed.

"A wicked world indeed. So, how did you and Akin met".

"We met in a supermarket where I was doing my shopping. He came up behind me and said he would like to marry him. I gave him that look when you see a madman coming towards you. He didn't give me a breathing space neither did I  give him a response nor listen to whatever else he had to say. I left the supermarket. Then days later, my friend whom I was staying with at the time came to call me at the backyard where I was washing my clothes. She told me a handsome man was waiting to see me.

When I saw him, I was so afraid and would have gone back but my friend insisted I listen to what he had to say. One thing led to another and before I knew it, I became pregnant. We went to see my parents but they refused. I told Akin it was better we come and see you for your opinion. That was when Akin became evasive. He gave one excuse after the other about never coming to see you until I nagged him to submission. Still,  he only described how I could get here but he would not come along.

"And you didn't suspect something was fishy".

"It never crossed my mind. What I thought was that Akin was stubborn and would not swallow his pride to reconcile with his parents. I never told him I was coming the day I did. I told him I wanted to spend the weekend with a friend. I decided I should ask about him first when I got to your place  before telling you I was his wife."

"When you mentioned that you were his wife, I felt dizzy because the day Akin died flashed through my mind. When I saw Wura, a carbon copy of Akin, my doubts were shedding their feathers until I saw the pictures of both of you. Then I knew that Akudaya truly exists. The way he was when he died was still the same way he was in the picture."

"Do you think we would see him again?" Teni asked.

"Never again! His secret is already out. Maybe he would go on to another place or just fade out completely".

                          THE END

Happy New week friends. Here is my little submission about Wraiths or Akudaya. Do you really believe that they exist? Do you have first hand experience of any kind? Let us know.

Until next time, I remain Yours truly,

Julius Topohozin.