by Inegbenoise O. Osagie
Everything was happening again, same births, same deaths, same events, like a rhythm playing for the second time, like walking through a path again. Mama Dayo died last week, and her son would die this week. The worst part was nothing could be done to stop it. If I told papa Dayo not to spend all of his money burying his wife because he would need some for his son’s funeral, he would probably spit on me and load upon me all kinds of curses, and when his son eventually died, his entire family would run to our house and shout out my name, drag me to the village square and beat me like a witch. They would ask questions like how did I know his son would die if I had no hand in it.
Knowing what would happen before it did was nothing but torture—a torture that made me cry before everyone did or made me laugh before everyone else.