Opinion: The Child Who Did Not Cry

It was the day of my birth. I watched them silently as they hit me with great force. They slapped me on my chin, back and buttocks one after the other as an expert drummer would ram his konga drums, making sounds, unrhythymical.

I thought they were catching fun at my expense. I felt injury and pains. It was terrific. If this was how the sons of men were to treat me, then I would prefer to remain where I was accepted. The slaps increased.

I am a new born. At my birth, I had refused to drown in my own waters. Times before, I had visited here but left hurriedly; probably because I wanted to punish my family here or there, or wanted to check on this planet. There I was, a child of two worlds, I belonged to both.

I had lost count of times I'd journeyed through heaven and earth. This time, the midwives had slapped me over and over, making sure I cried to ascertain me alive. I refused to, I was not dead though. I looked into the eyes of the chief midwife... I was sure she was unfamiliar but could not saw if she was experienced or not- she must have seen the lines on my left foot.

Much wonder she knew little that I was an "ABIKU"

I am the child who did not cry
The one who did die
From thence till this while
I've given my mother much cry
I am not a still birthed child...
I am STILL BIRTH herself...

 

My first day on earth was terrible and the first week, hell, courtesy of every person I met from the occasion of my delivery. No thanks to them..

The medicine man placed the herb to the ground. He looked down into the small mirror placed opposite the bed where I laid. Then, He picked the local pencil in his left hand and a small knife in the right.

Loud cries proceeded from my mouth. He had made the first cut on my right cheek and rubbed the coaled ink off the pencil edge into the hole, drying up the blood and carefully making sure it dripped into a small calabash.
He soon made the second cut and another series of cries rolled out... I could not help it. Amidst tears, I watched him channel the drips of blood down to the small calabash.

“There are five things you need to know”, he told my mother. “Before we send him out into the world. Always remember them and never forget, and he will remain with you till the day he wishes to die”

The next thing I heard was silence...

I am the child who did not cry
The one who did die
Who gave my mother much cry
I am not a still birthed child...
I am STILL BIRTH herself...

Fifteen years later...
My past has been plagued, my present, blasted and the future, opaque and bleak. I had just been released from prison... No! Not what you think- the government prison. It was actually a family prison, personal; the prison of my heart, where I was caged by the raging claws of consanguinity...
As freedom is slavery, I just did not know that I had come into a new rope. Probably this would tie me down into hell. In the last fifteen years of my life, I have been made into a young boy, excelling greatly amidst my peers and a seeming family of five children, all males. There was this peculiarity- we came in succession and after the order of history.
Obviously, I was a mysterious child; only little did know and I neither bothered to tell any who seemed ignorant.

15th September
Culture is the spring that has it's bounce, the proverbial ball that goes up and surely lands on people- it's remote victms. Today, I had my initiation ceremony... Not into a cult but into manhood. This very day was my circumcision. I felt lifted. Little did I know that...
I am the child who did not cry
The one who did die
Who gave my mother much cry
I am not a still birthed child...
I am STILL BIRTH herself...