Emeka heard some feet dangerously pounding the space behind him as he strolled through the lonely footpath one sunny afternoon.

Two ferocious masquerades armed with thorny whips were madly after him. Their long whips were wriggling in their hands against the air over their heads and he, now frightened, unconsciously took to his heels. The chase was so fierce that he was heavily panting; he looked back after every three long strides.

At each look they seemed to approach nearer. He began shouting as he kept his pace when he saw that they were just three arms length to him.

The last moist dried up his hope’s pot when he, now, after two strides looked back. They were already at his heel. Determined to increase his pace, in such fear, he noticed he was no longer running on a plane ground.

It was getting sloppy and the wind cooler. His soul jumped off his skin as he stopped abruptly before an overflowing river. With a heavy roar at the dreadful, despairing sight and on seeing the masquerades armed arms over their heads he jumped up on his bed, the roar lingering to reality.

“Hey!! Hmm!” he puffed on his bed with his two hands crossed covering the position of the heart on his chest, breathing heavily.

The strains of the sound of the second cockcrow pierced through the silent chambers of the young dawn. The sound penetrated through Emeka’s ear reminding him of the young day.

The yellow rays of the jocund, lovely, morning sun was already standing tiptoed at the windowpane peeping through the little aperture on the window, which was tied with rope fastened to the bolt, in order not to slip from the grasp of the wooden lintel, into some dark corners of the room.

 He watched the windowpane as if it could tell him why the masquerades were chasing him in his dream.  

The rays cast some reflections on his eyes which made him rub them, roughly, with the back of his left palm.

He was shivering and at the same time sweating profusely. With the semi-circular back of his right thumb, he wiped the sweat on his forehead and flung it on the bed.

The bed was made of staked bamboo sticks into a rectangular shape and supported by four bottle-shaped branches hewn of Mahogany trunk. The mat spread on top of the bed is woven with raffia palm leaves with each of the dried raffia leaves interwoven in square shapes forming a long rectangular bedspread.

He sat on his bed, with his right first finger and thumb under his jaw, the elbow on the right thigh and the left hand akimbo, for some scores of eye blink shooting some confused and perturbed looks at his ceiling made of dried palm fronds that was attractively stitched to each other, gorgeous.

“Let me never be alive to see the lizards grow hairs, my enemies will never see my footprints,” he soliloquized thumb tapping both hands together as he stepped out of his bed.

The cold floor, though of smooth mud and clay, stung chilled ice into his legs and his entire body shivered the more; it was a cold harmattan morning of January. He flung himself, annoyingly, left and right with his arms taking the fore and his feet shifting a little from their position thus his waist making some cackling sound.

He stopped, abruptly, at the left and pondered a little,

“I have to tell my Chi before the spirits claim the properties of the humans.”

”But wait a little; how can two masquerades be chasing me in my dreams?” he asked aloud.

“I have two sons! My wife has only two surviving brothers! And my relationship with them has not been too cordial.” he said with his face wrinkled and bewildered and eyes wide open.

“Could they be my sons? …chasing me?” He asked with an inquisitive glare.

“No! They can’t be” he retorted nodding in unreserved negation.

“My own sons?” he asked again.

“The gods won’t accept that” he affirmed.

“My brothers-in-law? Could they be the masquerades?

“Where is my okwa-oji, first?” he asked searching around the room.

“I have to pour my morning libation first. The rat is always accused of virtually every evil intrigue by the cockroach. I don’t have to make such mistakes now.

“How can they be after my life? Or is there anything wrong in their sister accepting me to be her husband?” he asked as his eyes caught a glimpse of the okwa-oji.

His okwa-oji, a carved wooden plate with an elevated hole at the centre which contains a peppery sauce made of ground pepper and groundnut paste, is at its usual position.

He walked hurriedly to its position which is on top of the shelf made of seven interlocking palm branches fitted adjacently to the earthen wall. His jute bag lay beside the okwa-oji on the shelf; he took both of them and made for the door.

He pulled the woolen knob tied to a hole made on the door and at the door frame and it yawned open with some cracks due to age. He bent down and stooped through the door whose length is that of two hatchets put together.

As he stooped down out of the room, he stubbed his left foot on the frontage and nearly fell. He only gained his balance by a little forward run; meanwhile, holding, tenaciously, the jute bag and the okwa-oji. A loose dried blade of grass from the thatched roof fell on his back and he angrily shoved it off with a shrug of his broad shoulders as he moved towards the pavement.

 “Two masquerades chasing me…” he said tapping and holding his left smallest finger with the right index finger.

“My left leg, stubbed… in the morning?” he added tapping the finger just before the smallest with the right counting finger holding the counting and smallest finger raising it a bit.

“This is not ordinary; two evil omens in the morning!” he said flinging his head left and right in negation with his lips whined and face winced awkwardly in utter rejection and then releasing the finger.

The pavement was littered with some dollops of goat droppings by the she-goats tied at one of the columns of wood that supported the thatched roof and the he-kids jumping around the compound.

One of the goats was busy chewing the cud of the day before while the other was there,

“Dead or what?”  He asked, shocked.

He knew not.

Kicking the lying one aside with his left leg, a bit uncertain of what will happen. She couldn’t move a finger.

“Dead?” he shouted.

When he kicked harder again, it was the same story. The black tongue was slid out of the lips.

“This is no usual death.” He concluded.

“If it were her time, the tongue couldn’t have slid out.” He thought.

“Is it the meaning of the dream?” He asked.

“I guess no. This is too fair for such a ferocious, horrific dream.” He added.

“A dreadful dream?”

“A stub of the foot?”

“A dead goat?”

“Just in a morning?” he soliloquized.

“I can’t understand this” He said as he took the okwa-oji to the left with the bag and waved his right hand over his head three times with a thumb tap at each round. He flung his head, slightly bent, east and west, puzzled.

He moved over.

Now, at the other end of the hut with his okwa-oji on his right and the jute bag on the left, he took the broom which was made of a bundle of rabbit grasses. This particular broom is only for the exterior, there is a special one made of scrapped palm leaves knotted, at the end, for sweeping the interior.

He swept the corner, holding the okwa-oji and jute bag firmly on the left hand, by beating the broom repeatedly on the ground thus pushing the grasses that littered there away into the surrounding.

He gently bent down and kept the broom with the leaves pointing downwards and the stalk the opposite.

He hung the jute bag over his left shoulder and with both hands holding the okwa-oji he calmly kept the artifice on the swept ground,

“It will be uglier than a vulture and darker than the Njoku” He thought.

“If the okwa-oji, which I inherited from my father, and my father from his father and our fore fathers should slip off my hands and kiss the earth.”

“No, no no, that old rope won’t get cut while I held it; it’s not always hard for easy tasks to get hard.” Turned over in his mind, as he shrugged in sheer denial

He unhung one strap of the jute bag leaving the other. He turned with the eyes slightly bent leftwards; with the thumb and first finger holding a lip of the jute bag, he dipped his right hand into the bag.

The jute bag is made with goatskin skillfully stitched to the grasses into a rectangular carriage with two straps also of the same goatskin fastened artistically to the lips of the bag.

He took out a long mat made of leopard skin and spread it on the muddy pavement and gently sat down on it with his left armpit clinging to the lips of the jute bag raising his shoulder a few inch high in order to avoid a different story.

Carefully placing his right hand on the pavement, he sat down on the mat.

His legs were now eagle spread apart on the mat. He carefully took out the jute bag off his shoulder and dropped it in-between his legs.

There are five major items that are found in the jute bag of a well grown man: the mat (of any animal’s skin), the clumpy purple nzu, a wine calabash-cup, some pieces of kola nut and an ofo. He took the okwa-oji gently and placed it on the mat.

Then, he took the kola nut and broke it, in-between his fingers, into two unequal lobes. He dropped them immediately; they landed separately, wide apart, on the mat. He moved back, sharply, the upper part of his body throwing disbelieving looks at the ill-fated lobes.

“Chei!” he shouted as he drew back in shock.

He stood up sharply watching the two lobes.

“Bad omens follow each other at their heels!” he lamented and thumb-tapped, by the side, three times.

“Two lobes? Impossible! Abomination!” he added in disbelief still thumb tapping.

“What’s wrong?” he mumbled and breathed a sigh of painful retrospect.

“Two lobes signify a tragic portent.” He said in low tones.

“What sort of dream could this be and who or what could have sent such dreams?” he added.

“My Chi won’t permit things I don’t know to know.”

“What I’m not familiar with can’t have a glimpse of familiarity of me.”

The lobes of the kola nut lay dolefully on the goatskin mat. He sat down again, fearfully, just to accept his fate and took a lobe,

“Please, my ancestors, accept my morning oblation,” Emeka beseeched.

He looked up the sky with tears standing impatiently at the threshold of his eyes mumbling some non distinct incantations which,

“…my forefathers” was scarcely heard.

 “How did water droplet find its way through the stalk of the pumpkin leaf? What caused the roasted yam to shoot out, not just any sort of tendrils but tender ones?”

“What might this evil portent standing before me with rough clenched fists be?” he cleared his throat thoughtfully, caressing the lobe with an intent look as if he would see beyond its red flesh.

“Heavens! My hands are clean!” he said looking skywards, raising his hands with the kola nut fastened in between the right thumb and first finger.

“Earth! My armpits are hairless!” he added dusting his armpit in innocence with his left hand.

“My Chi, do not let the river flow beyond its banks, do not let the fragile egg, even that of the guinea fowl, crack a palm nut, not even a rotten one” he urged shaking the hand with the kola nut as if the prayers will be answered by compulsion.

“Do not let the goat bite the palm fronds while they are still on my head,” he commanded.

“ I know you are not the hunter’s arrow that goes on an errand and never returns on its own but the smoke sent to the gods of the skies that brings back good tidings…I’m in your hands” raising it higher.

He threw it to the ground about half a yard from him watching it as it fell carefully.

He took the second one dipped it into the peppery sauce inside the okwa-oji, took a reasonable quantity and threw it into his now open mouth, frowning like a child bitten by a stubborn ant, as he munched the substance thoughtfully.

As he was busy whining his mouth left, right and centre catching the sting of the sweet-bitter taste of the peppery sauce; he searched his bag and took out the half-moist nzu from the jute bag and drew four unequal lines on the ground saying,

 “Eke, Oye, Afo, Nkwo” on each respectively as he drew it with his right palm stained.

 “Accept the kola nut oo!” he added sputtering the entire chewed kola nut on the crooked, rugged, purple lines.

This he did to honour each day of the week saying,

“It shall be well with me and my family on Eke, on Oye, on Afor and on Nkwo.”

He dipped his right hand with left hand holding the upper lip of the jute bag to get the ofo, a leach branch, isosceles in shape, with the feathers of fowls fitted beautifully at the base of the cone.

The ofo is the symbol of justice and innocence. Raising the ofo a bit before his forehead and in a rather warning tone said,

“I have never incinerated any body’s fly; let no one incinerate mine. I have never sent disheartening wrinkles to anybody’s face; let no one do so to mine.”

He waved the ofo over his head three times, mumbling some indistinct incantations at each oscillation in which only,

“…let them die before me” could roughly be figured out.

He raised it up again with a clandestine, mischievous smile flashing through his bemused face. He puts it back into the jute bag.

Emeka took out the wine calabash-cup, examined and cross examined it to check for any leak. The neck of the cup was already getting rotten, so he rubbed his fingers around it to remove the dust.

“How can I be chasing rats and mice when my house is on fire?” he heaved a sigh of regret as he replaced the mug angrily, into the bag.

At this, his first daughter, Chinyere, was heading to the woolen knob of his door. She saw her father on the pavement and greeted, bending her knees in salute, in an infantile, lovely tone,

“Nice dawn, Papa!” she did this knowing that her father had already finished the Morning Prayer.

It was sacrilegious to distract a man in his morning meditation.

“Ehee! My daughter,” he answered hiding the sad wrinkles on his face with a cynic smile.

“I hope you slept well, my daughter?” he queried. 

“Yes Papa!” she returned.

“Are you going to sweep my room?” he asked.

“Yes papa” Chii Chii as she was fondly called replied.

“Remember to use that broom of scrapped palm leaves” he said. “Yes papa,” she replied.

She dashed into the room and dusted every nook and cranny in some scores of the eye blink, spat on the broom and arranged everything in their normal order.

“These children can’t even read the words on the strains of the sound of the twin metal gong of the town crier; I don’t blame her anyway,” he said nodding in negation.

“I hope you spat on the broom after you had dusted my bed” he asked her as she came out.

“Yes Papa,” was her reply.

“Please my dear, sit down let me ask you a question” he requested still with his hypocritical laughter.

She sat beside him with her succulent legs spread apart.

“Sit down well! Were you not well brought up by your mother? He asked angrily tapping his counting finger at the side of his head.

“Are you not aware you are a woman?” he roared nearly untying his knotted anger.

Some ice chill ran through her back bone as she comported herself becomingly, her legs now together facing the other side.

“Do you know the reason why you must spit on a broom after dusting a bed?” he said cuddling her now terrified daughter’s shoulder, with that decisive smile again, as she was fumbling with the sticks of the broom she had.

“Yes Papa,” she replied with laugh dimples forming contours on her cheek.

“Why is it so?” He asked anxiously.

“So that it won’t infect the next person that will sleep on it with measles.” she replied.

“You’re a true daughter of your father, you were born by your father. Our lineage is known for her extraordinary knowledge.” he concluded.

“You can go and help your mother in the kitchen and then prepare for the farm, “he added.

“Yes Papa,” she answered as she giggled away with her broom.

He watched her jumping up and down away and nodded in utter regret;

“She won’t understand” he soliloquized.

He packed all the items painstakingly into the jute bag and stood up with the jute bag hung over the left shoulder. He knotted his wrapper at the right side firmly; then bent down, carried the okwa-oji to the side and neatly folded the mat with his left hand. He replaced it into the jute bag, hung it over his left shoulder and carried the okwa-oji in both hands and made for the woolen knob of the door.

He yawned heavily covering his mouth with the back his left palm and replaced the jute bag and the okwa-oji one after the other on the shelf.

Now with his left hand akimbo and the right first finger tapping his head, he asked himself,

“When the palm fruit falls into a very narrow, dangerous pit, we consult the long-beaked birds,” he thought.  

“Do I have to go to farm or go and consult Ezeani, the Chief Priest, for an answer?” He asked himself.

“No! I have to go and consult Ezeani,” he answered punching his right palm downward making a sharp move for the cloth on his bed.

“I can’t be the foolish toad that runs away only when the fire must have slightly burnt its buttocks and not when the fire is still far,” he advised himself.

“I have to prepare and go, the dawn is already done.”

Nonso Oha.