Seven years ago… Mother, drenched in stale sweat, labored to bring us to life. We had overstayed our welcome in her aching, stretched womb and were now being expelled. I came first, my fists clenched, yowling like a street cat that had been unceremoniously dunked in a body of water. She followed in quick succession, solemn and still with wide, curious eyes.
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We both loved the sickly-sweet smell of the candy floss spicing up the air outside the school playground. The vendor arrived promptly at three o’clock each evening just before the afternoon bell began to toll, releasing us schoolchildren from the ennui of Sister Glory’s droning voice.
We would stand around the candy floss machine in awe, watching as its owner, a young scrappy lad with a pep in his step, sprinkled sugar grains into the round basin, and gasping as the machine groaned abruptly, almost desperately, to life. The round basin would then swirl around and around and around, never-ending, as the grains were somehow transformed to pink, fluffy balls of cotton.
“It’s magic!” Paul would swear and we all agreed. It had to be magic.
#
We both loved the rain too. It was uncanny the way we knew instinctively a storm was on the way. The clouds would loom over us, dark and pregnant with the barely bridled tears of heaven. We would inhale the pungent smell of the rich, damp earth as it readied itself for a soaking, and we would wait for the first peal of the thunder that was our summons. CRACK! The skies would roar, calling to us.
“Let’s run,” I would say.
“Yes, let’s run,” Imade would echo.
We would run wildly into the chilly rain. The droplets, round and heavy, would sting our skin, leaving our play clothes sopping as we laughed in sheer delight. The leaves would rustle noisily underneath our feet, threatening to make us slip and slide as we dashed around the field.
“Imade! Imade, come out from that rain at once!” Miss Otigba would cry. They always called on Imade but never once called on me.
“Will you come out of that rain right now?” She would screech again in her screeching falsetto, but we would never stop running.
#
We were not so happy at Mass when the pale-skinned priest would chant and wail in a tongue that sounded as ancient and sacred as the mountains that formed a ghostly celestial ring around our little village.
Imade would smirk knowingly at me as I sat gingerly at the edge of the long bench seat, screwing my eyes shut to block out the sight of the small chapel enshrined in glowing candlelight, and covering my ears to block out the sound of the seemingly endless litanies chorused by the others standing in the pews.
Mother always insisted on a visit to the confessional afterward.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” Imade would say primly as Mother had taught her. We would both then stifle our giggles as Father Michael answered in a high-pitched inaudible voice which seemed to emanate with a rather alarming effort from his extraordinarily pinched nostrils.
#
The hour after prep was one of our favorites. We would sit outside on the terracotta porch, breathing in the musky fragrance of the rotting flowers that had fallen from the dying jacaranda tree Grandma planted years ago. The tree had sickened since Grandma died.
It was surrounded by a wide circle of gravel and when Mother was not looking, we would sneak off our rubber sandals and stand barefoot underneath the jacaranda tree, luxuriating in the feel of the rough, harsh stones underneath our feet. It made me feel alive.
“Let’s run,” I would say.
“Yes, let’s run.” Imade would echo.
The sharp, small pebbles would nip at the soles of our little feet while the dry harmattan wind would whip fiercely against the tight, stubborn coils of our hair as we tore across the arid ground.
“Come inside before you hurt yourself!” Mother would cry out, but we would never stop running.
#
We hated Wednesdays. Before Grandma passed away, Iyawo came around on Wednesdays. She would come over all toothy smiles, with horrid potash and bitter leaves in hand. We would try running then but Attah, the wiry gardener-cum-cleaner, would give us a long lead and then easily snatch us up before we made it to the corrugated iron fence that surrounded the compound.
I would struggle and sob and scream alongside Imade as Grandma and Mother held her down so Iyawo could force her nauseating concoctions down her throat. Afterward, Imade would lie comatose, cold to the touch, as cold as a corpse, as Iyawo used her dreaded razor blade to sketch patterned incisions on her palms. Grandma would rub Mother’s back as she cried and I would huddle in the corner, in the shadows, with no one to rub mine.
The day that followed immediately after was always the loneliest. Imade would not speak to me then, no matter how hard I tried to remind her that I was there. She would run off with the other girls in matching red and green pinafores and ignore my presence as I ran apace with them. I almost hated her then but at dinner when the incisions had healed, she would pass me pieces of her fried fish as a peace offering. I would collect each piece with a triumphant smile on my face.
Attah always cleared up the neglected pieces of fried fish arranged neatly on the floor before Mother could see.
#
The news came on at seven and Father, garbed in his old singlet with holes and a loosely draped musty wrapper around his waist, would settle into his armchair. He would shift around on the worn padded seat to find the perfect spot while the chair creaked so loudly as though it were being tortured to the death. Then he would light up his pipe and fiddle with the long, half-broken antenna of the radio until it tuned into the woman saying in a halting accent, “And now, for your news at seven.”
Imade would curl up in his lap so he could lovingly stroke the carefully coiffed rows on her head, and I would curl up at his feet yearning for someone to stroke mine. When the news ended at eight with a riotous jingle heralding the usual advertisement for extra-strength pain killers that could defeat feverish conditions and the most stubborn of headaches, Mother would cry out that it was time for bed.
“Let’s run,” I would say.
“Yes, let’s run,” Imade would echo.
Whooping loudly, we would jump up and run up the stairs to bed where Mother’s clean linen sheets awaited. The sheets were white, as white as the next-door neighbor’s goat that continually chewed at Grandma’s tomatoes and they were cold, as cold as the strawberry ice lollies that Aunty Meg brought as a treat whenever she came to visit from the city.
“Be careful now!” Father would caution in a tired, tired voice but we never stopped running.
#
Last night, I tried to persuade Imade to come with me to pay Grandma a visit. After all, we both missed the sound of the folk songs she would chant at night, seated on the terracotta porch under the lambent glow of the dirty light bulb, clapping in an aggressive rhythm at the phalanx of hungry mosquitoes.
Imade balked at first and so, I sulked and refused to play with her until she finally agreed. We were just about to set out on our journey when the door opened abruptly, and Mother peeped in to see us dangled precariously on the window ledge of our room on the second floor.
“What are you doing?” Mother screeched.
“We are going to see Grandma,” Imade explained petulantly while I glared angrily at the interruption.
Mother erupted in wails loud and stringent enough to bring Father and Attah careening into the room. Needless to say, our journey was aborted.
#
It was not Wednesday but Iyawo came around the very next day.
I sat down, crossed my legs, and stared at her balefully as she made the usual incisions on Imade’s palms.
“Leave her alone!” I screeched. Iyawo turned and looked in my direction, her startled eyes narrowing in what seemed almost to be fear.
“What is it?” Mother asked sharply.
Iyawo looked my way again, and then she looked at Mother, shook her head.
“Nothing,” she said but the look in her eyes said otherwise as with trembling hands, she made yet another incision but in a pattern I had never seen before.
#
Iyawo’s last visit changed everything. Mother stopped grieving for Grandma and brought out her old sewing-machine onto the terracotta porch. She would sit there each morning and afternoon, tapping steadily on the pedal, with fabrics in every color of the rainbow scattered all about her. She would stop only to sell chewing-gum and cola candy to the passing children, and to serve Father, who was no longer so tired in the evenings, his dinner. Attah whistled loud and long as he planted the seeds that would grow into a new, strong jacaranda tree and Imade, oh, Imade… she never once looked at me.
I would prod and poke, I would rant and rave, I would mourn and mope, but she never once looked at me.
She would sit and play with the scraps of colored cloth Mother discarded on the porch and she would laugh in glee as Mother chanted Grandma’s old folk songs, but she never once looked at me.
She would race to the iron, corrugated fence waiting to jump into Father’s arms when he came in and she would laugh in glee as he tossed her in the air and spun her around, but she never once looked at me.
She would tear across the field with the other girls dressed in red and green pinafores and she would laugh in glee as they chased her, but she never once looked at me.
She would soil her hands with the clods of fresh earth, and she would laugh in glee as Attah whistled his favorite tunes for her while he dug away in the garden, but she never once looked at me.
#
One day as we sat on the terracotta porch, I looked up to see clouds looming ahead, dark and pregnant with the barely bridled tears of heaven. Imade looked at the clouds and then, she looked at me. She looked at me and I saw my longing mirrored in her eyes. My heart jumping, I waited eagerly for the first peal of thunder, our usual summons. CRACK! The skies roared, calling to us.
“Let’s run,” I said.
I stared at her in shock when there was no answering echo.
“Let’s run,” I tried again, panic slowly setting in.
She did not answer still.
CRACK! The heavens roared again. Surely, she would answer now.
“Let’s run!” I tried one more time, my heart aching.
She finally looked at me. “No, let’s not.”
And that was the end of Imade and me.
I left in unspeakable rage and fear and worst of all, was the deepest sorrow at the knowledge that she was irrevocably lost to me.
#
It would be many years before I would see Imade again. I was there the moment she remembered me and gasped my name as she lay thin and aged in her dying bed. I was there the moment she let out a last, harsh, painful breath and finally let go of what I had desperately tried to make her let go of years ago.
She looked around her, as though suddenly afraid that she might be alone and so, I stepped forward so she could see me.
“Sonarae. Have you been waiting long, Odion?” She asked tenderly, beaming as her eyes took me in.
Only all my life, Ovbokbhan.
“Let’s run,” I said out loud.
“Yes, let’s run,” Imade echoed.
We grasped the other’s hand and ran off into the light, leaving behind the shouts and cries of grief in the now distant hospital room.
My twin and me, we never stopped running.
© Lara Brown, 2024
Worlds via Words 