From a distance, he heard a manly voice. It was the priest of Onammiri. If it was daytime, he would have been wearing an unfriendly look on his face. But his footstep showed that his mission was urgent. Onammiri priest was on his way and reached Emenike’s compound in a violent manner ever known. He went closer to the window of Emenike announcing and dancing with all his strength and anger, running around and calling out many dead people and their positions in the spirit world.
“A performing masquerade who tries too hard to outclass his colleagues may expose his anus. He is too fast. When an old woman falls down twice with her basket wares, her ware would be scanty and will be counted. If a man is destined to drown, he will drown even in a spoonful of water. It is his chi who could answer every detail about this. You stop receiving well-done from passersby when you finish your farm by the roadside. If the hand does not touch the pot a little, the pot does not rattle. It is really sad. But no matter how the moon shines, darkness turns into night. All our gods are weeping. Ekweagu is crying. The great Mbeki python would be leaving. The land must be cleared of reproach not by sacrifice, but by any answering the call of the gods. No matter the amount of fortune you choose to spend on medicine and sacrifice, you must answer your call. The time is up. Ojionu and Onammiri are against you and our ancestors who are in grief want to use them to deal with you. You have run well like a man and ended like a woman. A man does not go home with the same amount of strength with which he began work, but it is sad to see you go this way. An innocent man does not fear even when he is judged wrongly. I have been told to say these; I do not know many others. The fall of dead leaves should serve as a lesson to the green one still standing. Safe journey.”
A man whose lover promised to come heard the footsteps of the spirits. Emenike was expecting it. It was no new news to him. A lone voice was with him and he walked sluggishly, in a manner ever known. That voice kept him company in his walk. A voice of the conscience advising and encouraging him, blaming and taunting him. For the last time, his heart sank. The time of death was too deep for man to accept it with honour. It carried the pain, the regrets, the many things unsaid and left undone. He was ready for a down action, either to die or not to. He was certain also that he was concentrating his fearful will upon an unknown object, unknown mortal, some too young to understand the ways of the gods and Oja. It would after all demean the pride, the effort, the will it took in these times to keep his great name and fortune, the many good names. His whole body shook and trembled. His spirit sank. The journey to the great beyond unprepared on a single day, on a single mistake that never earned him anything, was all bad, too bad. Again, his whole frame quivered like a reed shaken in the wind. He stood up, carried his bag and machete and left for Ekweagu forest to answer the gods. He told no one for he left through the back after turning his head back many times. He was leaving this home, his many sweats, his obi, his gods, wives and children, his neighbours, yam barn and many things he had kept in their places from his days of young manhood. The early morning darkness hid him before anyone could know. The many mouths that could have said their last word to him would never see him again.
Agumba had kept watch over him outside the compound and never knew he had gone through the back. He could have stopped him; he could have pleaded with him or at least followed him to the spot. He knew if he had shown himself to the sun, it would have been something else. On stepping into the forest near Amandi-isii, he stopped. In a moment, the world seemed to stand still, waiting for the next action. The evil bird of the night had settled on a branch almost close to him and cried sadly to his heart. It was the messenger of his chi. For a mere mortal, it was something too deep to understand. The bird was crying and singing sadly in the silent early morning. The whole earth was as quiet as the riverbed, not even a rustle or a bird song. He looked up, dropped his bag and started making a cut in his body. He made cuts twice on his body and fell to the earth in his pool of blood and then he struggled and grasped for breath and it all failed him. With death in his eyes, he ran out of the arena. It was where he would die, for the eyes to make a meal out of him. The gods had disgraced him. He was struggling to run back to the forest, but the forces could not give way to him. He stood and shook heavily. His senses were still with him. He never wanted to suffer shame. He never wanted to die in the public place. He was not to choose where he would die. He fell down again. Then his head rested slowly to the earth. He was counting his breath, a sure way to die. His spirit was deserting him and gradually he died.