“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity” – Edgar Allan Poe.He couldn’t believe it, how heavily he had fell from the perceived him he built, Reddish, hurting feeling ringing from his back brought back memories.

Yes, yes, yeeeeeeeees…..! That was the reason why I woke up all wet with buckets roving over me he recalled, as  he folded his hands but the distance between cuffs made that uncomfortable so returning back to bent knees in hugged hands like someone shy they were with no cloths.It was almost noon before they brought in his breakfast, the eba felt like stone and the soup had gotten thick been left opened for long. It was at times like this that he cried and called for his mother; she alone understood him, ‘that in a man, there’s also a boy’.

They told him it broke her heart when she heard it. That she kept screaming ‘they have done it, they have done it’. He didn’t believe it, for she had not visited and she was not the type to speak when shehad not seen. But it’s been three years already, it started by bringing in doctors (specialist) they call them. With their tablets and pills always putting him to sleep and poisoning him. Then came the priest, and pastors bounding and casting, those were long days for him kneeling down, standing up and hearing all they said while never listening to him.

Oh…. The prophets! Yes! This what got us here, with their bells and whips that torn into his flesh and he screams and admits demons were leaving him. Poor me he spat out ‘shaking his head as he looked out the basement window staring at the main house, he could see inside warm study the old skin bag still hung on the wall close to the racks of books and research works.  A world for the ‘dreaming mind’. He closed his eyes and smiled, for that moment he felt free.The basement echoed with his voice as he laughed out, it went for so long then entered a long ring of cough and laughter. The yellow curtain on the study window moved and he stood still, his face wore the look of eagerness like he knew what was coming next and suddenly it went blank, his eyes wet and shone: he spoke out her name, “munonye” but it came out as air; no sounds. She placed her little face on the glass looking around like it was for where and who the laughter came from.——————————————————–Three years ago he was one of the notable young men at the Princeton College in Ottawa, at 34 he was already a doctorate and becoming a professor in about an hour or two if we added formalities; He sat up and looked learned.

It changed it all that day.

But how? What was different that I did? Was I less learned? Or the gentle had wear and left man on me? Echoes of his laughter filled the basement again followed by a long ring of cough. He spat out this time and looked out the window.It was an innocent mistake. A rowdy dressing had made him forget to zip the trouser and as he made his speech and walk back to his seat, the claps and applaud pitched with roll of laughter.

Sitting next Adaku, he could see the shame she felt, it was all over her face. He had her hands under the table and asked ‘ what’s wrong?…‘It’s been one to many times Chikeobi’, she spat. ‘How easy is it for you not to notice?‘She was a proud woman. Motherhood hadn’t taken that from her but that night, it fled from her, she hung her shoulders broad to fill in the fallen within as she walked around greeting guest.

Till this day, no one knew exactly what happened, some said it was voodoo. Others the mind had gone through some breaking point and were overloaded. But to Chikeobi, he was still the man he was, though he came out the convenience bare-bottom leaving a gasp of horror on the faces on ladies and shock on the gents.

Everyone stood silent for a moment before heavier bodies pressed him down till paramedics came and shipped him off.

By Munonye