Child of god | book 1 ✅

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Ala-onwu which used to be the most cheerful village, blessed with most greeneries available and having such a small topography yet boosting economically, could not be facing such a sad event but there it was and there they were, its people, gathered to console the parents of the deceased.

In other towns, they may bury the child properly but that was not the case for Ala-ọnwụ where custom required that any young child, without children, be buried immediately after death so as to relieve the parents of anguish; for such a death was not to be celebrated, a burial ceremony was not to hold.

Kwento watched the procession of men and women, known and unknown, walking into the house to sympathize with the affected family. He was in the shadow, leaning against a tall barked tree, that had broad branches and whistling leaves. Surrounding him where similar trees, occasionally broken by palm trees placed so far from strategically.

The scene, so sad conjured a memory he thought immortality would have wiped away. A time, although quite ancient but bound to the present by similar emotions.

It was the stone age. The era when uncivilized men roamed the earth, dressed in hand-made clothing of animal skin and carrying wooden weapons of various shapes and intensity. The men of this generation were mostly hunters who fought for land and boundary and food, nothing more, nothing less, to the extent that they had to organize their own armies who would fight for them in times of need.

The entrance of a tent kept flapping as two people were seen inside, a male and  a female arguing in an ancient language.

“I really don’t want you to join the warriors Maduka! You could lose your life.”

“I understand darling, but there is no other option, please understand that no one can protect you and the children but us,” the man said, adjusting a few straps here and there, and gathering his weapons.

His wife still was not convinced, standing at a corner of the tent and having her arms crossed. The man had to drop his weapons and approach her.

“Okay Farmatha,” he said, hugging her. “I promise that I’d be back to see you smile as Nanu grows, okay?”

She nodded and smiled sadly, a few tears dropping from her eyes. “Okay,” she said, trying to prevent a snot from falling.

A horn was blown outside and the soldiers started bidding farewell to their families. As they proceeded in two files, Maduka looked behind him, eyes searching for his boy, and when he found young Nanu waving from a tree branch where he was hanging, he waved back with a smile and told him to behave and take care of his mother.

Kwento abalyzed the memory of his mother who smiled at him. That face; that smile— there was something familiar about it. Could it be that he had recently seen it? There was no way that could be possible! Kwento thought, immediately snapping out from the daydream.

Farmantha? His mother? How hadn’t he pieced it up?

He grabbed his necklace and within a flash he was in the throne room.

On his appearance he could immediately tell the tension in the room but he did not care.

“Mother! Mother!” he said in ancient Igbo, his legs taking him towards a kneeling Farmatha without thoughts. Hands immediately blocked his path, and he studied them for some second. Those hands, muscular and dressed in neatly pressed cop uniforms.