We sat beneath the cashew tree: Abeke and I.
‘So if you die will you appear back again?’
‘Yes.’ Abeke affirmed delightfully.
I retained peaceful. The evening breeze swayed the leaves gently over our heads.
‘You know am not your mate?’ She breaks the silence.
‘No, you are!’ I snap again.
‘Haven’t I explained to you this is my second time on earth? But do not worry, when I return you would be my elder brother, and you would acquire treatment of me. Will not you?’
I did not solution. We were being only young children. But how could she be expressing all these with impunity. My heart troubled as my close friend spoke of loss of life so easily.
‘When you die where will you go to?’
I queried. Abeke turned absent from me. She stared blankly at the dim soil, working her forefinger by way of it.
‘I will be a part of my spirit pals. We generally go to the village stream. At times, we even arrive here and sit on the branches of the cashew tree.’
A tinge of anxiety ran down my backbone. I stole a look at my mysterious pal with the corner of an eye.
“Glimpse-” She remarks gleefully. I gazed at her totally. “Seem at my spirit mates they are here, smiling down at us.”
Goodness! I sprang up. And I ran household as fast as my tiny legs could have me. “Abeke could opt for to die, but I would not make it possible for her spirit companions drag me into the unfamiliar.” I believed as I fled. Abeke begged me to wait around, screaming it was just a joke. I never ever waited. The devil can take the hindmost.
She died.
Abeke definitely died three times right after our past discussion. The information of her demise spread like a wild fireplace across the village. Rumours had it that she was Abiku: she was a mysterious boy or girl that could die and return at will.
Her burial rites took a important switch. The Native Physician experienced her smallest toes mutilated, just before she was eventually buried. He certain that her kindred spirits would reject her since of the stigma. So she would return and under no circumstances go back again again.
‘Abeke has returned.’
The message unfold across the village. 10 months experienced handed considering the fact that the demise of Abeke. Her mom had taken in later on and now shipped a child. Villagers who went to see the newborn explained it was Abeke that came again.
I laid my foot into the hut of late Abeke’s mother and father. The nursing mother was carrying a youngster. I turned question-struck by the look of the child. “Abeke had shrunk into a 7 days-outdated baby.”
Caught at the entrance, I peered closer at the returnee. Alas! The smallest toes of the youngster were being missing.
I turned close to and fled.