Shadows on Empty Street.
30th of March 2020.
I hope when you read this, you remember what it felt like. Even if it’s just a little bit tingle.
I was born in 1999. Hence, I didn’t experience the Nigerian Biafra civil war. My knowledge of it is based on the pictures on the pages that I have seen and the mouth of one handed soldiers who have been compassionate enough to accommodate my own footsteps in their private memory lane. But I guess this is what it feels like. I remember the last day of 2019. I had gone to the crossover service organized by the church as a way of praying our way into the New Year. It is always the most glorious of service. People who have scars from the year, those who saw death and escaped its long claws always dance their way through the Thanksgiving service. Everyone thought 2020 was going to be a spectacular year. The digit itself was spectacular. Everyone had a New Year theme and resolution. I to. Who would have thought that the earth would stop breathing three month into 2020?
Schools are closed and now students count corona victims instead of the alphabet. Pastors preach from the safety of their bedrooms and priests count their rosaries behind locked temples. Shadows walk on Empty Street and the memory of the past is slowly merging into the future to present our grim situation. Markets are closed and now we count the days till our last grain will stare deep into our souls and acknowledge our terrible tears. Till they lose their potency to defeat the raging hunger that threaten to tear out through our bellies. Students have been visited by boredom and it has dragged their attention into the sinking holes of social media. The Government makes promises with inaudible voices. Just moving lips with no twitching ears. An echo that enters a room and leaves without being noticed. The other day, soldiers flogged old women who had refused the government’s order to close the market. The rules shouldn’t have applied since it was a food market. It didn’t stop the soldier’s whip. It only grew their ruthlessness.
The last few days came and left with interesting features. One of many was the controversy between the Nigerian president and the Imam of peace on Twitter. The imam of peace ridiculed the Nigerian government and its incompetency in handling terrorism and his unavailability to address the Nation on the order of things. The squabble forced the loyal government to address the president in a recorded video that was acclaimed a “Live" one.
I guess fear has always ruled my life. I am reminded of a time when I was younger and suffered from continuous nightmares. Some nights, I would lay in bed with open eyes. I was always so scared to look in the opposite direction even though I knew that demon that haunted me was my shadow and sounds of hungry rat. Once again, I have been crippled by fear and the government. The government has ordered a nationwide shutdown, putting a pause on my academic and social dreams. Fear that the situation will get extreme before it weakens. Days are now quiet because gathering have been blinded by the fear of the virus. Rumours fly around during the day and nightmares keep us awake at night. The days have now grown taller than me and walk too quickly that I have to run to keep up the pace. Days run into each other and it has made it difficult for me to keep track of time. As of the day that this entry is written, Nigeria has a case of 111 virus. Everyone’s concentration is on lockdown.
Shadows on Empty Street. It feels like the war. I know my emotions is heightened by exaggeration. It feels like I’m trapped in a semi war narrative where rumours thrive in the day and the pregnancy of these stories keep us awake at night.
There have been significant hike in the prices of foodstuffs, and there is an alarming increase in the rate of fear that dwell in people’s mind.
I dropped a pin yesterday and I heard the echo of my nostalgia. I assembled my confidence and watch them get massacred by my trembling fingers. I dreamt about school yesterday and I found ashes on the empty seats around me. The empty walls threatened to explode with memories of people, laughter and regret. I went to the market hungry. Empty stalls and living sands bade me no attention. I left, dragging my lifeless body behind me. Now silence scare me more than death itself. I heard God left his home and started to reside in people’s heart. I miss the days when we forgot to lock the gate and sleep off without praying. Memories of a time when we hugged in high spirit.
I dropped a pen yesterday and I heard the echoes of my nostalgia. I sleep on the sheet of memories when things were normal. But fear keeps pulling me out of bed. Sometimes, hunger does. All I do is pray and count the seconds with open eyes. Sometimes, I dream with eyes open. Dreaming of a time before and after this time, when all my fears and doubts will be a chapter in a dusty old book. Before we breathed life in rumours and worshipped fear more than our humanity. Before they were shadows on Empty Street.