Caleb Tochukwu Okereke: Dear Aunty, let me tell you the things that have changed

It has been one year and a month since you left.

Your last moments I remember were spent in the Lagos hospital, surrounded by family, sympathizers and the apathetic medical personnel’s.

You died from insufficient attention on every part, from the nurses who were too busy, perhaps quibbling about the new wig that lined Balogun stores-Peruvian hair, Brazilian hair- and the Doctor who put rest and comfort before human life.

Aunty, you died from the taxi driver who drove your failing body from one hospital to the other and who grumbled with ease about how he would turn off the car engine if we did not double his pay. And the congestion called Lagos traffic that did not seem to worry that somewhere in the fleet of cars queuing behind it was a woman whose breath was failing.

The night before you died, I had held hands with my Brother and Mother and read from Mark 11-24 ceaselessly. Until our tongues hurt and we started to pray, a lengthy prayer, interspersed with the ringing of Mother’s cell phone and the cadence of Uncle’s voice-“Another hospital has turned you down” or “they said no bed space

It’s hard to believe of course that a year has rolled easily by already. Aunty, let me tell you the things that have changed.

Did you hear about our new President who is travelling around the world and getting Ministers screened forever? Or that Nnamdi Kanu, the pioneer of Radio Biafra was arrested.

Did you hear of the former female Minister who lifted money? Big money, too big money, bigger than the kinds we needed during your days in the hospital? Or Lamar Odom who relatively attempted to take his life.

He did this because in the forest of life, Lamar Odom is the flower petal-Beguile and attracting pollinators. He is the sour candy in a fancy pack or the insipid communion wine we expect at first to taste like cocktail.

He has not known of life in a place where traffic lights do not blink and Policemen to extract meager sums from bus drivers aim revolvers at the passengers. Lamar Odom has not known of life in a place where life has no meaning, he is like the village boy forced to live with his Uncle who trades at Alaba and who is oblivious about everything.

Perhaps, it is because he knows that when he takes his life, there are people present, like Angels, like a Mother shoving Panadol into the hand of a child, to always offer that life back to him. This was not your case.

Aunty, you know I like to read Novels. One of my favorite authors recently won the Bailey’s women prize for fiction and I saw her picture, face propped up by her palm smiling at me from my cell phone screen. Speaking of literature Aunty- Last week, I was at the Lagos Poetry Festival and I met people, people like the kinds in the dreams I disclosed to you silently, like the kinds in the messages I conveyed with my eyes.

Aunty, two months ago, I signed my first publishing contract. Of course, the connotation of this might not hit you yet until later Aunty, so I’d say it again for clarity, I signed my first publishing contract.

Now I know this has been the yearning all along, I know I have prayed and fasted for this day and it’s difficult to comprehend that it’s finally here. This does not mean I would get any richer Aunty, It just means something, it means something.

Somewhere in Ebutte Metta, your area, was gutted by fire yesterday. I think the news-men called it the water corporation. Aunty, this fire thing happens every day. Two days ago, it was Makoko timber market, same day too- I saw a video of some youths flying the Biafran flag, they want war Aunty, war and blood. I wish, and I know you wish too, that they all would sit and read the golden pages of the King James Version of the Bible.

Did you by some chance hear of the election in my state, Abia? Did you hear that the tribunal chose to uphold the election of Okezie? I do not want that Aunty, there are many who do, but I do not.

I was in Aba few months before, our roads are deplorable, the city teeming with thieves and pickpockets. Our schools, even more deplorable and yet our President is flying from Timbuktu to wherever. See, I liked that man Aunty, once upon a time.

Chelsea. This might not be your thing Aunty, but Chelsea. And that’s all I’m going to say.

I want to tell you too of the Philly Boxer, who this week is drugged and the next is bisexual. I want to tell you of the eight children who are among the list of the wanted Boko Haram insurgents and the police officer’s son or the bodies of toddlers washed day after day to shore as if in an uncanny sequence.

But these things take time Aunty. Come let’s talk as before!

Biko!

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Caleb Tochukwu Okereke is a Nigerian writer and literary blogger born in the 90’s. His works have been published on the Kalahari review, African writer, Quality poets, teenageaye magazine, amongst others and in the Texas based journal-The Hamilton stone review. A skin deep literary fiction writer, Caleb is also a well known spoken word artiste and believes in conveying the countless stories of Nigeria through his works.

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