'Drifting Shadows' by Uche Osita James

Surreptitiously, a new feeling is come – with its sensational magnitude threatening to overwhelm my sour senses - I live. You see, life and existence are contiguous and often overlap, at least for me it has for the past twelve years.

There are experiences that are intrinsically inexplicable and thoughts that defy verbal expression but most profoundly, I must say, there are feelings that transcend all known expressions and all depths of euphoria. And it all converges in a single term, whose vivid significance has etched itself intrusively on all my senses, conscious and subconscious – Prison.

I am Abdul Mohammed, a citizen of the Naira Republic and I am a prisoner.

Now you see, the recollection of the past or the vague memories of it I have are too numerous and without logic that I fear I might confuse, rather than enthuse you should I try to recollect, rather I would make strong effort not to remember for that is impossible, but to tell all that it behoves of my pen to say, for it and not I, remembers.

It remembers that I had a diary when I was twelve and that its kin wrote rigorously each day to fill its blank pages, one that decreased rapidly like the monumental bag of Garri Baba brought back on paydays.

It remembers the incomprehendable words and expressions that a little mind etched permanently on the many afore – blank pages that soon were drenched in ink war. It remembered also, the bouts of intuition that clouded ignorance for profound seconds and then dismay that greeted the subsequent loss of the intuition, the picturesque memory of childhood, the ram

Baba killed on salah occasions and the long cane he used to chastise Mama.

It recalled, though vividly, the innocence in my ignorance and confusions, the feelings I couldn’t explain about Aisha and the slight tingling sensation of warmth when she held my hands with its climax threatening to overwhelm my naïve soul, The first kiss we shared under the mango tree in Aunt Ramlat’s compound and the first time she allowed me to touch her.

The silent asking eyes, when I didn’t know what to do and the encouraging nod when I touched her breast again.

It remembered the cheetah like wave of time that clouded reality, vaguely Baba’s unceremonious death and the numb feeling I got whenever I set eyes on Aisha, Mujahed had turned the cards and he was my friend.

The day Mama declared with a hope filled voice that we were leaving; it remembered that the sun was smiling; as though in cheer of Mama’s bravery, the anxiety I felt about going to Port-Harcourt, for that was where Aunt Shetima lived and our new destination.

And So, the train we took puffed steams of hope from its round metal chimney and feverish children played excitedly, occasionally drowned by the inadvertent opening of a window by a callous hand, to rent the air with the sound riot beyond.

It recalled with diligence, the air at Aunt Shetima’s house, her tall dark husband and the crisp smell of lavender that pervaded the house, we were home.

It recalled the curfew that was implied once it was eight and the crimes that rent the night as if in praise to the dark’s great power, the circumstances too trivially painful to mention, the death of a mad man that seemed to obstruct an active armed robbery and my rootedness to the spot long  after the murder had passed.

It died, when the police man grabbed me from behind and hurled me a few feet from the

deceased where I unceremoniously met the mud puddle at the road – side.

It recalled – though in spirit - the inspector’s smirk when he asked me why I killed him and the calm silence that followed.

Uche Osita James is a final year law student at the University of Nigeria, he is the current president of the Nwokike literary club and has published his stories on lionspot, gleam glean, scriggler and okadabooks. He is a free lance writer and is currently working on his first novel. You can follow him on Twitter @UcheOsitaJames1 and read more of his works on www.ucheosita.blogspot.com

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