There was a mild wind that morning. It touched the leaves and the limbs of trees and grasses. The clan was at rest after the battle between man and the gods. That morning did not meet Emenike’s family well. There was great fear and anxiety all over the place. It was an Orie, but no one took note of that. A great head had fallen off the body. Things could never be the same. People left their homes and came to the roadway and talked in whispers, supporting their head with their hands in their mouths. Everywhere was as silent as the air. A bad thing had befallen the whole clan. In his house, his wives and children left their huts to his obi and maintained the highest silence ever. No one knew what to ask or what to say and who to ask. No one had the power to cry from the heart.
Day broke; the elders arrived at Amandi-isii, all in a hurry. In whispers, the news had gained ground. It was a bad news, the death of a notable clan man. Young men and women ran to the path and saw the heavy body of their man lying lifeless on the ground. He had taken his own life. He had died in the most shameful manner in the open world. The crowd formed a circle and spoke in whispers. Some cried openly, others crossed their arms, standing shoulder to shoulder and wriggling their hands. The elders were in sadness, far apart from his body. All over the place, there was a low rumble of murmuring. The elders stood with their staff held firmly in the ground and took the bitter news like rock. They had the final words.
An uneasy silence had settled over the waiting crowd when some notable elders started to speak. When a man put out a bad step while dancing, his kinsmen kept scratching their eyelids.
“Let all the women go home now and see their children. This gathering is for men,” one of the elders said and the women acted on the order.
As the women dispersed, he began again.
“It is the outcome of the drumbeats of the gods we heard last night. Occasionally some individuals get more than a fair share of misfortune. It is bad for a man of his repute to die outside his own house. He did not die an honourable death. He killed himself outside his own home. The body is for the gods and not for humans. They know better. When a man learns from the failing of others, he is bound to make no mistake. A lesson for the new generation has been made today. Soon the men sent to Obeledu will arrive and we are all to join the other elders at the arena until they arrive.”
The morning had become broad light when the messengers were sent away to call the corpse carriers. Agumba and the older men sent a call to Obeledu to come and carry his corpse to the place the gods would choose. The young man was so sad as he stood and watched steadily at the dead body of his father, his close confidant, until the arrival of Obeledu men. The sun was high in the sky and for the whole day the sun scorched him, the miserable sun that would not go down. It dried the fresh green leaves that were used to cover him from exposure to the sun, and he was blackened beyond recognition. The blood that had flowed smelt so bad because of the sun. He knew he could not near him because he had died mysteriously and knew it would be bad to go close to his dead body, but he did. But a father remained one, even at death. Some managed to pull him out, but he refused and hid his face on Emenike’s face and cried. He cried to a friend, a father, a confidant. The elders never took note nor counted it on him. He was a child acting in ignorance. If he were to be an old man, they would have sent him out of the clan for nearing a man that killed himself. The arrival of the Obeledu men would be in the evening, and so he stood and mourned his father’s death like no other person.
The evening was approaching, and the sun was recoiling to its shell. The Obeledu men had come well prepared. The priest was standing silently and only looking away to the space and communing with the gods. The men were back, and another beating was heard. He looked steadily at his father’s dead body until the arrival of the Obeledu men. They arrived so late that soon it was said that they would not come again. It would also be bad to continue keeping him in the manner he had died and no Umudi man would touch him. Silence was stealing the clan. All the cocks and hens in the neighbourhood set up alarm to show that something bad and sorrowful had happened. Then they took him in file with the elders to Ekweagu at the mountain top where the gods had chosen. The silence of evening was so fearful that it was felt in the clan. The mighty had fallen and the earth was in mourning. The return journey of a great man and its many chronicles began from the land of the living to the land of the dead, the land of his ancestors.
Soon came a black night, like many other nights in Umudi and morning like many other mornings, and the news continued and died with time.
Emenike, the man who danced all his life like a man, had now ended it like a woman. A man who trusted in his achievement and strength died, forsaken by the gods and buried outside his home unceremoniously. He should have known as everyone trusted he would know because of his position in the clan and in the service of the gods, but he forgot that one’s chi deserts him in the day that life seemed sweetest. A man like him should have died honourably and at least see in his belief what happened after him from the spirit world, but such he lost as one of his greatest pains. The destiny of man was not always visible to his eyes unless he saw favour in the eyes of the gods. The gods who themselves were silent when man chose to be a talkative spared him the knowledge of the final outcome.
The world is like a mask dancing; if you want to see it well, you don’t stand in one place. You have to change position. The man murdered by his kinsman does not bleed. He died trying to satisfy his clansmen and the gods. One could take over the other. So, the beginning of man seemed sweet and his end seemed bitter. In his house and in the clan, things could never be the same. Many things could be tolerated. Liberties would be taken and until the days of their ancestors were remembered to be taken up again – the world of the black man – typical Igbo would never be the same.
Like a defeated man, he slowly allowed unforeseen occurrences to carry on or destiny which, in the belief of many, controlled the future and well-being of a man to befall him. Where one fell was where his god pushed him down. That was what everyone understood his death to be.