There is always that something in your head, like the one Dr Obierika’s son had complained was telling him to do evil things – to smash his father’s phone, burn his mother’s wig, hide his sister’s make up kit, open the gas in the middle of the night, climb to the balcony on the roof of the house and jump into the swimming pool. He was 7 years old and he couldn’t possibly be taking drugs so you had told them he wasn’t getting enough rest. He should eat lots of fruits, drink water, sleep as early as possible and just before they left your office, you called them back and gave a laxative to him. A gift, you had said, wishing him sound mind and quick recovery. But they came back two weeks later; Nnamdi could hardly sleep at night and his afternoon naps were full of screams and sweats. They also complained he visited the toilet too often and then you remembered you didn’t check the expiry date before you gave him the drug. Nnamdi had a cut on his left wrist, he said the voice had told him to open his hand and bring out the long rope that tugged on his skin from beneath. Only then would it stop disturbing him. The family was taking breakfast when he heard it so he jumped quickly from the table, excited he would finally be normal.

Nothing will tell him, push him, compel him to dig his nails deep into Anita’s hand when he just wants to hold her and show her the flower he had picked for her on his way to school that morning. So he got up and ran into the kitchen. His mother, father and Ifeoma followed immediately, begging him to drop the knife he had picked up.

“Please, just let me do this, I’ll be fine. And I’ll never hear the voice again. That’s what he told me”, Mrs Obierika had narrated to you in tears. “I just started crying there. My son was about to kill himself and he didn’t know. Dr Afamefuna, this boy will kill himself one day if you don’t help us quickly”.

You had looked at her yellow face; pink now from the tears, convincing yourself she would not run mad before her son. You asked them to leave the room, Dr Obierika and his wife; Ifeoma had gone to school.

Nnamdi sat back on the chair and looked around the room. His eyes went from your photo on the wall to that of your wife and daughter lying side by side on the left side on your desk. Your desk was a little bit congested with many books you had read and decided you would not put in the shelf because they deserved a second reading, but you would not read them again because you would always find new books to read that deserved second reading and the number of books on your desk will continue to increase. His nose rose and fell in a manner that could make someone fear he was taking in too much air as he scanned the office with his eyes. You cleared your throat and his eyes darted to you.

“Tell me about your family. Do you like everyone in your family?”

He stared at you for seconds, minutes; this cold, blank stare and you tried hard to maintain eye contact because that was the professional thing to do – look them in the eye but don’t make it creepy; make your patients feel comfortable with you. But there was something in the way he peered into your eyes, like he was searching for something, that made you almost shake in your belief that there was nothing like demons. That Christians were right after all, some people were possessed by demons and Nnamdi needed to be taken to a prayer house and not sit here with you, a psychologist. Then you shook your head and he laughed.

“Are you scared of me too? Everyone is afraid of me now. Sometimes my mum looks at me and starts asking ‘Nnam, is it talking again?’ then she’ll start crying”

You leaned on your chair and remembered Chetachi, your 4 year old daughter. You remembered how you watch her at home communicate with her dolls, impressed that she could see beyond the fact that they could not hear or talk to her. Still she ordered them to arrange her scattered room when going to school and spanked them when she came back to meet it the same way she left it. You had told yourself while watching her that she would grow up to be intelligent like you and a psychologist unlike her mother who was a religious fanatic and could visit all the prayer houses in Lagos and pay huge amount of money to solve little problems that just need proper thinking and a bit of rationalism.

“Cheta m, what’s the name of this one?” you had asked once, pointing at one of the dolls.
“Chi”
“Just chi? Chi what?”
“Chi chi” she had said, laughing and running away.

You stroke your fingers on the table, bringing your attention back to Nnamdi.

“So, do you think they hate you now because you hear voices?”
He shook his head. “They are only afraid of me”
“When did you first hear the voice?”
“It was when mummy shouted at me for not answering her when she called me. She asked me if I was an ogbanje and I went to my room to cry. That was when that something in my head spoke to me. It told me mummy hates me but I know it’s not true”
“What about daddy?”
“I love daddy too but he won’t let me take peanuts because of my asthma. That was why I smashed his phone”

You grinned and asked his parents to come in. “Love him, pet him, pamper him, never shout at him, give him what he wants, let him be alone when he wants to be alone. He needs love from everyone especially his family”. You talked on and on explaining how Nnamdi was going through a period of depression and his mother started sobbing on hearing depression. You assumed she was one of those Nigerians who thought depression never existed and even if it did, it only happened to the oyibos. When they left that day, you sighed and called yourself foolish for thinking like your wife during one of your most tackling sessions. After about a month and you hadn’t heard from them again, you called their home to know how Nnamdi was doing. Dr Obierika answered. He told you a friend had advised him to handle Nnamdi’s case spiritually and they met a prophet who told them his junior brother in the village was manipulating Nnamdi so they had to carry out series of cleansing to restore his sanity. Before he hung up, he told you, “Dr Afam, I don’t know what to think. It seems like the cleansing is making him worse. I will bring him to you next week”. By Friday morning, Mrs Obierika called you, crying over the phone. Nnamdi had drowned himself.

**** **** ****
Your mother had complained that you were reading too much. She showed you a mad man on the next street and told you he was a professor of English but he ran mad because he was reading too much. You only nodded because it was the same man she had shown you when you were eleven and you asked her how she knew God was in heaven, how she knew heaven existed. “You know that mad man that always stays on the other street, God made him mad because he asks too much questions. If you ask too much questions you’ll be like him”. You had gotten scared and told your friends in school not to ask questions even in class. Now, you knew the mad man was only an object to instil fear in you so you read on until you met Kosi who fell in love with your “too much books”. You got married to her and had Chetachi after three years. Then she started complaining that you hardly had time for them, that you always locked yourself in your study, talking to yourself, feigning conversations with patients. That was where the little fights started that made her call you crazy for listening to everything your head told you. She told you your head had taken in too much it had become your god. She called you atheist and told you to seek God’s help if you didn’t want to rot in hell. You watched her change from the beautiful, cheerful lady you had married to a prayer warrior. At first, she woke up at midnight singing, crying and begging God to save her husband, save her marriage. Then she started to invite various pastors to the house. They anointed the house, sprinkled holy water, greeted you bless you, prayed on your picture that hung in the sitting room and once, when a particular pastor asked her what exactly she wanted God to do about you, she answered,
“Save him.”
“Save him from what?”
“There’s a demon inside my husband! He talks to himself always.”

Later, she asked you to drive her to a prophetess at Ajah. She told you she had a business appointment but you knew she was only trying to lure you. You watched the woman closely, following every of her movement from the way her hand scratched her head to the way her lips hardly parted as she spoke in tongues. You didn’t let your eyes leave her lips so you would pick when she wanted to swallow a word or say something different from what had come out of her throat but the woman would not shake or change her words or swallow her saliva. Then she stopped abruptly, looked at you and turned to your wife.
“There’s a spirit of death hovering around him”

You stood up and walked out after hearing what you had been waiting for – one of those clichés in the industry of fortune telling. Kosi refused to sleep in the same room with you after that day. She tried to pull Chetachi from you but she would not go. She had only learned to say daddy. She held series of vigils in the house, used anointing oil to wash your clothes, came back one afternoon and hung a wooden cross on the television settee and that morning when she called you “my husband” for the first time after dishing your food, you noticed her eyes were weak and sunken and she had ugly neck bones. But you did not tell her anything. You continued to lock yourself and talk to yourself because it was something you had learnt after your mother told you not to ask too many questions. You knew you could not run mad from asking but somehow you thought you will. At 15, you had named it Mikel, that something in your head. It had answers to every question and you didn’t even have to ask it out. It was Mikel who told you to go to the state library, read about madness, read about imaginary beings, look up the origin of God, change your course from industrial chemistry to psychology, write an essay on The Relationship between Colonialism and the Early Missionaries in Africa, stop going to Church, call Christians crazy beings, tell the world to stop being religious fools, that Christianity was a neo-colonial weapon, that God was a thing of the mind.

Kosi will wake up as usual one night but will not sing or cry or pray. She will come into the room, pack her things and by morning she will be gone. You will call her a week later, two weeks later, a month later, two months later but she will not answer or return your calls. So you will delete her number from your phone but you know you still have it in your diary where you will fetch it many years later after Chetachi is grown and will want to see her mum. Mrs Obierika will call you one evening to tell you they had found hard drugs in Nnamdi’s old school bag. They couldn’t tell how he had gotten them but it was obvious that the drugs were responsible for his death and not her husband’s younger brother. After hanging up, you will search for Kosi’s number and call her to tell her the new discovery. She will still not answer. You will search your room, hoping to somehow find hard drugs that will explain why you cannot think straight. You will tell Chetachi to call her mum and tell her that you miss her. She will laugh and call you okenye. The following weeks will be very lonely. You will complain over everything, talk about remarrying, ask Chetachi to get married; you needed grandchildren. You will slump one evening during one of your many nags but not before you have read a text from Chetachi: Dad, I have moved in with mum. Call me if you need anything. Lots of love. And Mikel will tell you that you have lost her too.

Okey-Onyema, Sharon Onyinyechukwu is a student of University of Nigeria, Nsukka and author of Hunting Tears (shortlisted for ANA 2017 Short Story of the Year Award). She believes writing is the reason she lives.