Just Adachi

One thing no one tells you about the dead is that their smell lingers in your insides. Especially when they’re rotting. I don’t know why I insisted on going to see Auntie Carol. I still don’t know why, till today. It’s been two weeks, and her smell still hides inside me, and it's not something my perfume can handle. I’ve drowned my bathwater in Dettol and filled my room with air fresheners of all sorts. Yet the smell lingers. And the worst part is her face. Every moment, her darkened, swollen face flashes before my eyes, and it takes everything in me not to puke again. I'd vomited on the day I saw her. And again I ask myself: why did I go to Awka? Why didn’t I just wait at home like everyone else? Auntie Carol was the sweetest auntie. The life of the party. A breath of fresh air. The person you leaned on. Her smile made your day. Her singsong voice gave you sweet dreams whenever she said, "Night, night." The kindest, sweetest soul. So, when my mother called and said, ...

Item 1: A headline from a Pan-African news aggregator, dated March 12, 2031. “The United Nations General Assembly formally acknowledges the dissolution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, recognising the sovereign states of The Lower Niger Republic (LNR), The Western Federation, The Niger Delta Union (NDU) and The Central Sahel Republic (CSR). A spokespers on cited ‘the permanent cessation of viable state functions’ as the primary factor.” ...................................................... I read this three times. Not for the weight of it, that had already fallen years ago. I read it for the word ''formally''. Formality is a luxury. The debates are done, but the jokes just got amped. The think pieces have dried up. It means the mapmakers in Geneva can finally redraw the lines without hesitation, confident no one is going to argue about it next week. Nigeria did not end in a moment. It ended in installments. In headlines that stopped surprising people. In panel discu...

There are moments that never really leave you, no matter how much time has passed… and they creep up on you when you least expect it. Even now, I cannot decide whether I was wise or unwise to pack my bag and fly to São Tomé. But one thing I know: those pictures taken by Thompson broke me. The second I laid my eyes on those poor, dying children, I knew I had to try my best. No one deserves such suffering. I recall our flight from São Tomé to Biafra—chaotic. I was one of the many volunteers who had made the sober decision to lend a helping hand to the dying Biafrans. No one deserved the agony I had read about and seen in those photographs. From the moment we landed at the Uli airstrip, it became clear my life was hanging in the balance. One of the airline staff let it slip that a relief plane had been shot down the week before. In the dark of that airstrip, under a light rain, we crouched and slipped past into a waiting wagon, past the Biafrans offloading the relief goods in a frenzy. Ti...

We buried Ozo today—six feet down in the earth. His service of songs was as sober as the expression on his face when I went to have my last view of him. I had expected a face marked with the shock of betrayal but found one with a pensive look. If I hadn't been present in his last hours, I would have assumed he was asleep and was having a dream that left him thoughtful. His funeral had no fanfare, which was atypical for us. He had died young, so there was no need to celebrate his passing. The priest, I was told, had officiated out of compunction. Ozo's dad's money was the lifeline of that small parish. Another person who had no compunction about being at the graveside was his mother. I wonder if she stayed away because she had no tears for him; after all, it was her nod which had led us here. You see, Ozo died young but not unnecessarily. He was the son of one of our illustrious sons, so imagine our shock when a python gave birth to a cobra. As he blossomed in his teens and ...