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Fiction
It Was Written in Blue
A short story
by
Emmanuel Iduma
There was no angel sent to monitor the
elections, or the events that followed, it was
purely a human affair. This was why the machetes
and clubs kept landing on him, dropping on his
head without musicality, like a marching band
grown weary. Perhaps if an angel was there to
monitor the elections, it would have been a
different affair, his life would have lasted a
little longer, his life would have ended more
ceremoniously, without machetes and clubs and a
torrent of voices chanting words he did not
understand.
When his mind went bare, threadbare and tired of
thinking, when he was finally dying and could
take the machetes and clubs no longer, he would
think of nothing else but the letter he had
written in blue ink to his brother. No one would
ever guess that he could do that; that he could
think of a letter in the midst of dying pain.
But he did.
He thought of a letter while he was dying.
That day when he wrote the letter, two weeks
before the machetes and clubs fell on him
without musicality, there was a pile of white
crumpled sheets beside his table, on the floor.
He had written twelve drafts in all, a dozen
drafts for more than a dozen things he wanted to
say. The thing with the things he wanted to say
was that they were like mad-running fluid,
gliding over his mind like overflowing water.
For it was one thing to want to write a
letter, it was another to write it, to
bring himself to the sudden realization that he
had wronged his brother.
But his brother’s mind would glide over the
letter, too, like mad-running fluid. He would
read it so quickly that it made more than a
dozen meanings to him, exactly as his brother
had intended. He would read it so quickly so
that he could forget the pain his brother had
caused; it was like looking at the sea and
thinking it was a white wall because it had
drowned someone he knew. To think that his
brother had written him in blue ink, four years
after he disappeared, was too much for him to
bear. This was why he read the letter so quickly
that he would have to reread it, later, when his
mind had stopped thinking the sea was a white
wall, when his anger had grown stale.
He would not know that the letter would become a
relic, a permanent keepsake, given to him as a
final souvenir from his brother.
How could he have known?
The prelude to the announcement of the election
results was a rehash of Louis Armstrong’s “What
a Wonderful World,” sung by a local musician, a
popular copycat of the masters. And then,
immediately, the election results began to
arrive. The change from the music to the results
was so rapid, so forced, that the man who was
listening got disinterested, and did not listen
to the results.
He should have listened, for it was on the
premise of the election results that he would be
killed. He did not, but picked his Bible, and
walked half a kilometer to the church; he was a
priest of an Anglican Church, a house was built
for him beside the church.
Just as he entered the church he heard his name,
“Reverend Obinna.” He turned, but could not
determine the person who called him; indeed, he
looked at the gate from where the voice had come
and saw not just one person, but more.
When the figures were clearer, it was Mr.
Chukwuma, a member of the Anglican Church, and
his four sons.
“Reverend,” he called again, when they were
inches apart. His sons were still behind.
“Brother Chukwuma,” Obinna said.
“They have started killing people. In Sabon-Gari.”
Obinna could only say, “What?”
“Yes. Immediately after the elections.”
Mr. Chukwuma’s sons had joined them; they seemed
like a pyramid when they stood together, their
ages were tied to their heights, the oldest was
thirteen, the youngest was seven.
Looking at them, the Reverend asked, “What can
we do?”
“Let’s stay here. They cannot come here.”
“That is a lie. You know it is a lie.”
When he said this, Obinna walked inside the
church. For some reason, he did not fully open
the door, but moved it slightly so that it could
accommodate his body. Mr. Chukwuma and his sons
followed this pattern. By following this
pattern, all six of them looked like Israelites
marching to captivity in Babylon, marching on a
straight line, with manacles tied from hand to
foot. None of them could have believed they’d
capture the Old Testament in living colour, so
perfectly, as though the Bible had worn a shirt,
a brightly-coloured shirt.
It seemed fear was soaked in a teabag and given
to them.
And they drank it.
Obinna’s brother, when he had read the letter a
second time, shook the anger away and decided to
surprise his brother with a visit, initiate the
path to peace. And again, this could have meant
something magnificent if an angel had been
assigned to monitor the elections, to ensure
that there was no inhumanity. But there was no
angel, and the forgiving step he took to meet
his brother in Jos was like the star that the
wise men must have seen.
Walking away.
Fleeting across the sky.
Ungraspable.
Later, he would remember that if he had driven
more quickly, more steadfastly, he would have
seen his brother as he had known him, complete
with all his body parts, without disfiguration
and discoloration. For when he drove for six
hours from Abuja to Jos, he played Michael
Bolton’s “Lean on Me,” fourteen times, and each
time he sang out the words, cars kept speeding
past his. His movement was slowed by music. If
this had not happened, he might have gotten to
his brother earlier, and met him in one piece.
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