SHADOW ONE

The first time she died was for a torturously slow minute, laced with a hurried five worded "I don't want to die" prayer as she tried to get her spirit back into her body. Although it lasted for a minute, the turning of her spirit to look back at her body which laid still on the bed, and the prayer of forgiveness, the rememberance that she was still young, seemed like forever. What was even more fearful was when she tried to get her body and spirit back together, but stood up to see her body still unmoving on the bed. The prayer intensified. She tried again, when she stood up, she felt adrift, that wavery, floaty feeling of air and she didn't need to be told that she was still a spirit. The third time she laid on her body, fortunately, she woke up with a start, a questioning jerk, her heart hammering inside her chest, the sound almost audible. Sweats kissed her forehead, laying like evaporated water at the back of a cooking pot, her mouth panted the huffs of relief, she didn't die, she was alive.

    Later that evening, she wrote a poem about walking through the valley of shadow of death and coming out alive, that same evening, she told her friend.

    "You too? You now die and go to heaven to look for God and Jesus," Gaga was laughing, covering her mouth and laughing.

    "I'm serious, my spirit left my body."

    "Your soul nko? What did God tell you, that the world should repent because he is coming soon? Thank God you did not die forever o."

    "I'm serious!"

    "Ok. Did you tell your mother? Ehn, Ivie?"

    Ivie closed her eyes in frustration, it seemed telling her friend was as wrong as telling her mom, but she knew what happened, knew what she felt.

    "Forget I told you," she told her friend.

    "Dooh." Stifling a laughter, Gaga waved her hand. "Sha tell Fada Chibuike, he might understand you. It's not like you're lying o, just tell him."

    Definitely Ivie was going to tell Father Chibuike, but she had wanted somebody to hear her too since her mother saw her as delusional. Mass that evening floated through her, she heard but did not understand, even the communion bread tasted bland, although it had always tasted bland, but it irritated her, even the overhyped praise irritated her, the shouting and dancing did. Before her mother's belief in catholicism, she had thought things were very quiet in catholics, their Masses in an enviable decorum, the people calm and loveable. Maybe it was like that in other places, but definitely not in Benin. In Benin, all churches felt pentecostal, everybody behaved the same despite where or what they worshipped, and that was why she knew her encounter that morning should be kept to herself. But she would tell Father Chibuike, Father Chibuike was Igbo.

    "I died this morning in my sleep," she told him, when the service ended and members greeted members and clustered around to share gossips.

    Father Chibuike, dark skinned Father Chibuike who mothers happily gave their daughters to discipline at the same time watch from afar so that he will not put a finger inside, as her mother had said, because he was a handsome creation of God.

    "How did it feel?" Father Chibuike asked her and although she had expected it, she was taken aback by his belief in her story.

    "Scary." From afar she could see her mother smiling at her, a knowing smile. Her mother will ask her later, the smile replaced with a stern look, was she was asking Father Chibuike and she would think of a lie to say, but for now she smiled back.

    "What lie are you going to tell your mother today?" Father Chibuike asked, knowing.

    "You're suppose to be an advocate of Christ and tell me to stop telling lies." Ivie smiled shyly.

    "I have other things to worry about and young girls telling senseless lies to their mothers is not one of them. And now I even have an exorcism to worry about. Does she know?"

    "Deliverance," she said, "We call it deliverance. And no, she doesn't, you'll think we Bini people have unwavering faith in God with the way we're serious with church activities, but it'll shock you how easy it is for us to drop the bible." Outside the church edifice someone shouted, "Ogun go kill your Iye." Ivie added, "And it'll shock you how quick we are to swear Ogun."

    Father Chibuike laughed. "I know."

    "Gaga thinks I lied about having died, she thinks I'm crazy."

    "With a name like Gaga it's easy to know who is crazy. I have to go, Ivie, if it happens again do let me know. And please tell your mother, you don't expect me to come to your house with a crucifix and holy water to do deliverance without her knowing."

    "Thank you Father. And I will do that." She didn't want him to leave, she wanted to keep talking to him even if it meant they would talk about sand. She laughed, and when her mother, hours later, asked her what she had been talking about with Father Chibuike, smiling and laughing like that, she said they were talking about sand, how better it is than water in putting out fire. Of course, her mother did not believe her, but she hurried to her room, and as she closed the door behind her, she knew the spirit that came that morning had returned. It morphed from a shadow into a silhouette, then to a bright light before it merged with the darkness, turning back into a shadow. The shadow crept on the floor, filling the ground with darkness, then rose up slowly, and like she was in a trance, it consumed her.

That night she quickly took a book from her mini library and went to the parlour, her clothes unchanged, her body unclean. When her mother, her ever suspicious, asked her what she was doing, she raised the book up and said she had to finish it for church program, but the front of the book had near naked women she covered with a news paper and it wasn't for church program. She knew something was in her room, something evil, but what, she couldn't tell.

She opened the book and continued from where she stopped, it was the beginning of a sex scene and she loved to take her time going through the words, understanding the meaning and catching herself wet. Sometimes she would touch her underwear and wondered what it felt like to be the lady in the book, then she would think of Father Chibuike and feel embarrassed. She liked him, every young girl in church had a crush on him, she would not be a healthy normal girl if she didn't. She was still in her reverie when the candle light went off, the calm night suddenly turned breezy and the curtains, although the windows were closed, danced to the tune of the breeze. Ivie felt the chills, her pores straighten her hairs and in the darkness she saw the shadows. She was going to scream when the candle light suddenly brightened, the room returning to it's original state, as if it had all been in her head. She rose to her feet, and couldn't bear to switch off the candle, although her mother would chew off her ears the next morning, and went to her mother's room, tip toed quietly so she wouldn't disturb her peaceful loud snore, and laid on the bed, curled so that her body wouldn't touch her mother's. She didn't sleep that night in case the shadows came into her mother's room, she knew they wouldn't come, but she didn't sleep. She left her mother's room by six the next morning and scrubbed off the wax of the candle from the table, leaving no trace that she stayed up all night. But she would have to buy the candle for a perfect lie.

"Did you die yesterday too?" Gaga asked when they met that day. She glared at her friend, hard enough for Gaga to realize her joke was not funny. "Sorry," she apologized and then shared the latest gossip in the street. When she finished, and with her friend who was not listening, Gaga sighed defeatedly and asked, "What did Fada say?"

"I've not had the chance to really discuss with him, but he said I should keep him updated and I should tell Mummy."

"You should, seriously you have a strong mind o, going through that kind of horror. I would've screamed heaven and earth eh, if it was me. Iye o, what is this mumu wearing?"

Ivie raised her head to look and brought it down immediately to hide her laughter. The woman coming before them had her hair and face painted in different hues that does danger to the eye. Ivie knew she should hold her laughter better but it burst out of her before she could realized and she clutched Gaga's thigh, the side of her eyes glistening with tears, and faced her, as if she was laughing to her joke. Gaga on the other hand said an incoherent nonsense and laughed as she finished the words, the both of them hitting their palms. When they woman passed, they both greeted a laughter accompanied "kho Sister" and quickly averted their gaze from her.

When the laughter died down, Ivie said. "I'm going for confession tomorrow, I plan to tell Father then, if I'll be alive till then."

"You will not die, nothing will happen to you." Gaga placed a comforting hand on her shoulder and she wished nothing would really happen.