If you say “father” for the hundredth time, he might hear you. Why is he so still? Lying there, so unconcerned, despite all the efforts you were making. You wonder if he is paraphysical energy, pulling fast from you because you can no longer reach him. You want to feel the tender skin of his ears the way you did every morning on Sundays. You used to do it all the time, but he would send you away, irritation clouding his voice. You know why he got upset. 

You were the type of person to emulate every single thing that passed by your eyes. If someone stuck their tongue out to suppress laughter, you’d pick that up instantly. The way you picked up the warden’s habit of touching his ears when he was drowsy. And your father was disgusted with that aspect of your life. The fact that you went to prison. 

When your breath races the way it’s now, you always shake up your body with such force that people around you fear you will keel over and suffer fervent throes. But the trick is yet another habit you picked up from Garsfar, your high-school seatmate. But right now, you’re not shaking off this anxiety that is possessing you. You are too weak for some reason. And your brain seems to be static. 

You should think of what to do to get out of this mess. Your dad needs to move. You need to shake him up. You need to shake him vigorously, violently if you must, anything to break the gray film that is enveloping his body. But your brain does not think of anything. It can’t. And you’re falling. You can see the little bedroom you shared with your dad around you, but you are falling into something deep. 

“Dad”—You try to say the most important word to you now. You want to say it, but you can’t. 

“Dad,” but only your mind says it. Only your thoughts know what feelings come with Dad. It’s all there, on the tip of your tongue. It’s before your eyes, yet your hand cannot reach it. “Dad,” you’ll try and try. Your grip on the thin bedsheet is firm in your mind but loose between your fingers. You know what this is. You know what’s happening. But did it have to happen now? 

You have always managed to make your dad sad. Not that you did anything intentionally. But things manage to go wrong all the time, like now. What is the use of opening your eyes if you cannot help the person in need of it? You want to cry, but only your mind is aware of it. Your eyes just stare at your dad. You watch him cough hard and go still. “Help,” you scream, but it is a whisper. “Help, anybody,” and it is a prayer. 

When the morning floods your world, life returns to your body, but your soul will be broken. Because right before your eyes would be the man you cherished the most, still and cold. Real, and yet unreal. The screams would come naturally. The tears will flow as they ought to. Your hands will grip firmly as you please. Your legs will kick and kick as you please. The world would hear your voice as you wanted. 

Your breath will match the agony in your heart, but the one that matters most will remain in the past. What would you trade? What can a trade cost you? “No, none of them. I won’t do them anymore…” You will offer your habits. Take them away and give you your dad. Anything you want. You’d even trade places with him. You needed that stillness more. This man you loved should walk away, sing again, laugh again, dance again. He should be alive to scold you. This man should be alive.

ii. 

The last time you danced for joy was July 25. Two miracles happened that day. The world you knew was cracking at the edges from lack of moisture, and everyone around you was going half naked because of the heat. Everything was becoming an eyesore, your mind too. A newborn constantly flashed before your mind’s eye as if it was warning you of its arrival. It caused you panic attacks and you mixed up your father’s medicines. He cussed at you all day long for that.   

The premonition looked very realistic at night. The child was wailing in a cot you did not own, and its wails were audible to you alone. It made you feel crazy. 

When the rains came and blood flowed, you broke down. Your heavy heart felt lighter, and you wept. You did not mind that all eyes were on you on that public bus you sat in as the blood flowed from beneath you. 

Garsfar was a nice guy, yet you’d never give up any muscle to help him with anything, let alone his baby. 

What? You’re not perfect. 

You’re a young female adult, and you have those urges. And yet you were scared. You were scared of carrying a child. Many women feared childbirth like you, but unlike them, you felt that aspect of a woman’s life was just too much. The world was asking too much of you. You’d never give that much to anyone. 

One woman tapped your shoulder and smiled, suggesting that she understood. But it did not matter to you what she felt she knew. Because you knew more. You knew how much disgrace you’d have to clothe yourself in should you miss your period for the month. It would be too much of a load, coupled with your father’s dwindling health. What would you have done? How would you have narrated this story?  It would have been a disaster. 

The rain poured nonstop. It rained for days. It filled every cracked lip, remembered every rusting tap, and washed sadness away. Away from others, to your doorstep. Does everything always have a cause and effect? Must a man’s joy always be another’s catastrophe? And did you always have to be at the bottom of nature’s joke? Why is it always reserved for those at the bottom of the table? 

It’s not that bad things only happen to unfortunate poor people. In fact, terrible things befall the rich as well. Natural disasters affect rich and poor, alive and dead, old and young, wellread and illiterate, all at once. This means you are aware that the doom standing in front of your eyes was in another form somewhere else but also as terrible as now. The source of income your little family had come to depend on has now been snatched from you. The only link to civilization, away from the “outskirts,” was now ripped before your eyes. 

You felt your dad behind you, and you could tell from his breathing that he was as shocked as you. There was no way he could drive his minivan past that. The muddy road had been cut into two. It had been separated so finely by erosion from the incessant rains that you’d think a human did it. The large gap would now render your father jobless, you companionless, and the entire community in trouble. 

The youths constantly called upon at times like this tried to fill the gap with sandbags. They poured broken bricks that some miraculous neighboring rich man suddenly provided. The same youths who had been ignored when they summoned courage and attended the community landlords’ meeting to suggest better solutions to the bad roads. 

The same youths that were ready to use pickaxes, shovels, and hoes to dig out makeshift gutters until the “impoverished” landlords were ready to build real gutters. These youths were ignored. These youths now attend to everybody’s problem. These inexperienced and impatient youths. You swallowed your pride and joined them. You looked from face to face looking for a sign of “I told you so,” but it wasn’t there. Is this what defeat feels like? 

The anger you felt the next day, when half of your efforts had been suppressed by yet another rainfall, was great enough to smoothen your creased khaki pants. How dare it rain? What did it want? Was it making fun of everyone now? Even you and the youths? Your anger was so great that you did not see that nature reiterated your point. You did not see that it was on your side. Okay, you did. You saw that it was stressing your point. But you did not need its support now. 

You needed it to stop. Stop taking its course for a breath. It needed to stop. But it did not. Timeless nature does not know when to stop. Nothing paused. The dividing road. Your father’s dwindling health. The rains. July passed, August next, September, and by October, you were a wreck. You worked three jobs to help. Even with that, nothing changed. The day your father fainted for the first time, your bright spirit coiled inside as you let the same reason for his poor health carry him to the hospital. 

Lung failure. Painful breathing. Yet he never smoked. Yet he never did anything unhealthy. The doctor was smooth. Saying the obvious and yet not saying it. Your father never smoked, but he was smoked. You looked at the robust man who held your father down as they injected him with several medications. He was the reason your father was in this condition. This greedy, robust man. And yet he was holding your father. Mockery. He was mocking you, and it needed to stop. 

You lost control of everything when the rain poured down, and blood flowed. You dropped your guard completely, and that’s what was giving this man all the guts he had. The guts to look sad when he caused all this. You had to take back control. This was your father. A human being. Not a pet. Not a thing to be tossed around. So you sent him away. Get out. Get out before I create a scene. Get out and shut your doors. Shut them tightly because I’ll be coming back with a bang.  

What bang? What would you do if this claimed your father’s life? What can you do? You unemployed Nigerian youth. 

iii.

And your father died. 

And the rain ceased. 

They refused to participate in the green and red festivities. The divided roads remained. They looked pathetic as everyone went on, as if they had never happened. The world continued even as your father remained locked in the past. How dare they? There was one ability you didn’t appreciate in humans. The ability to move on. The ability to put aside terrible memories and create new ones. How dare they? How dare you? You want to say to the ugly robust man in front of you. 

He says he’s sorry for your loss. It’s a unique loss. On what was supposed to be a happy Christmas morning, you were mourning. How dare he? Why would he point that out? And who was he calling unfortunate? What does he know? You are not unfortunate. You’re not his subject of pity. Your father may have taken all this ugly man’s activities quietly, but you won’t. You won’t see him mock you like this. You slam the door in his face. You’re coming back with a bang. 

iv. 

When rain hits the ground, it pays homage to a soul as it ascends to the heavens. If it ascends at all. How come no one figured it out? Nothing. Keep going like that. Keep your vain thoughts up. Don’t stop them unless the hurt will flood your veins. 

You’re hunched over your phone. The screen’s asleep, but you can read what’s underneath that darkness. The rejection email from the fifteenth lawyer you were contacting. Can they smell your unfortunateness from the screen? They had all volunteered. 

Okay, initially, they all did. Okay, not all of them. Some of them. 

In fact, the first five of them contacted you themselves.

They had come, polished words of sympathy and civilian solidarity woven together with years of experience and the flair for Twitter reactions under your honest thread of injustice. But at the mention of the offender, the ugly, robust man, they recoiled. Then their recommendations recommended others until the number climbed to fifteen. Where do you go now? 

Hey! Hey, hey!

Think of other things fast. Your heart will really burst from your chest. Your burning eyes will really melt your eyelids. Think of something else, quick. 

v.

You should be tough. Why are you crying?

Those were the only words your father said to you over the phone when he learned you went to prison. Okay, it’s not a prison. But when you think about the dark walls, cold floor, and ugly wrinkled men-in-uniform, you cannot help but call it a prison. Schools have prisons, too— detention centers. A place to bury your guts. Shut up. Don’t challenge your lecturers. Don’t look them in the eye. Don’t know more than them. Don’t resist their power. That power is there for them to flaunt before you. 

It’s there for them to shove it down your throat. It’s there for them to gag you with it. How dare you resist it? What is power if it is not brandished? What is power if it is not splashed on the wall like paint? It must be shown, displayed, announced, and proclaimed because power is loud.

Power is power. You should seize it when you get it by birthing a child, by being in a higher class, by age, and by having plenty of money. Whatever form of power you have, wield it. And that’s what they did. 

It was the first and last time you raised your voice at anyone. The prison walls echoed your shaky, fact-flowered voice. It replayed your words, over and over again, until you cowered. Until you accepted that that voice should never get that loud again. It sounded stupid. You accepted your fate as a student, a Nigerian student, and a girl. A Nigerian girl. But. But. Your nerves were past their limit. 

Now, they swelled with new power. The power of revenge, anger, and injustice. Your father had been snatched from you because he was a poor man on the face of the earth. Your father, who did not smoke had been smoked by the robust man’s bread factory. Those fumes had snuffed out life from your dad. You remember how your handsome dad had gone back and forth with lawyers, trying to get the man to relocate. These same lawyers. They danced around the case. Adjournment after adjournment. 

You did not understand. You did not understand why he was so untouchable. Even now, he seemed so untouchable. He seemed like a god to these lawyers, but not to you. To you, he was a disgusting, greedy man. If he really had all those factories scattered around, why was it so hard to close the one that was causing problems for your family? His activities were killing people. His activities have killed your dad. You had power over him. 

Unlike those lawyers, you were not scared. You did not give a damn. He looked small in your eyes. You had nothing to lose. He had everything to lose. Until now, you have only complained with words on the internet. Now, you will use all your power to shake him up. He had no power over you. Instead, you had power. And you would splash it on this wall. You would shove it down this man’s throat. Take your cardboard, take your pen, take your courage, take your tears, take your power and go. Go and fight.  

vi.

You can feel your bones underneath your skin. They feel so delicate under your touch. Coffee. This woman was handing you a new life. Again, you were being pitied. Stop it while you can. Does life ever learn? Why can’t it change its course for the better? Especially for the helpless ones like you. Envelope. All your life tucked in-between flimsy paper. You have been defeated. Is this the end? Must it end this way? Documents. Is this what God did? Signing agreements with death to take someone when the universe decides it their time? 

Your dad would wince at your appearance. You never looked pretty from the beginning, but you never looked homeless. Who would believe that the internet sensation of three weeks ago was fleeing? Who would have thought that you would give up so quickly? Why did you give up? 

It’s not that you don’t know. You don’t want to believe it. You don’t want to believe that no one was really with you. Their mother had died shortly after your dad died. The same symptoms. The same reasons. Why did they turn away from you? Why did they not stick with you? You never paid any attention to your neighbors, and now you regret changing the status quo. 

You extended your growing voice. You extended your hand. You reached out. Something you never got. Something you craved. And then what did you get? Strange stares. Rejection. Denial. Lies. They turned against you and said nothing of the sort happened to their mum. She died of natural circumstances. And then it hits you. You are alone.  

These people, your neighbors, and the world around you lived for nothing. Passengers who did not care for the passage. You looked back at their strange stares, denial, and rejection, and you did not spit. Instead, you got the message. And you left. Like the separated road which had come to stay, your history in this place had come to an end. The separation of the road was the separation of your history with them.

It was time to forge ahead. To another point in this passage. The robust man had won. This part of the world still feared him, but your power remained. It is tamed now but never absent. Instead, you feel sad for them. You feel sad for your neighbors. You feel sad for your dad. He belonged to them, and you never did. You leave. House, history, power, course. You leave everything and give yourself to the painter. You would fall on new walls, new expressions. You would get a new life and a new meaning.

The world is in your palms now. A new power in your hand. You would proclaim it for all the world to see, except this one you were living behind. Your power over them would not let this new power slip into the picture. Power never lets go of power. Power trumps power. They should stay apart, independent of each other. They should bloom in their space and time. One power at a time. Have fun with this new power, this power tucked between flimsy paper.

Nwachukwu, Merit C. currently studies English and Literary Studies in the University of Nigeria Nsukka. She believes in God and the possibility of several selves. She is a writer.