In my last life, I was called Osita. I didn’t much like the name, but hey, my then father said it was a tradition; a totem to be passed from first son to first son, like genes and expectations—you know the biology and psychology of it. But of the spiritual, what exactly do you know?
My last life was the best and the worst; it is by far the most gruesome way I have ever had to leave a body. But this story is not about me.
Osita. The name didn’t bother me much (they never do, to be honest, tradition be damned), because I knew what my real name was; I know what I am. I slipped in and out, year after year, from skin to skin skeleton to skeleton, and I’m pretty good at it. This is the reason for my existence.
There is something the Igbo people call obi; as in heart. I am an obi in a sense, but not in the physical realm as in the fleshy organ that pumps blood within the chest. No; but I am a representation of that. The heart of human consciousness. Obi. The center of aliveness. So you see why names don’t bother me much—this is not my first coming.
Assume there was a world where spirits were left to be and wander; to coexist with the fabric of the very womb of creation itself, before slipping into a second-old baby and triggering it to release its first cry. Assume that this world also, fictitious as it may sound, is where spirits go after their time in a body is ended, by the failed brake of a Mercedes 504, or a drunk who just wouldn’t call a cab. Or weakened bones and loose muscles—you get the gist. If you are crazed enough to believe that such a place exists, then you should know that is where I come from. You should also know that this is my story. But not of the current body I am inhabiting; the one before. The one I was forced out of. Osita. With his dark copper skin and five-foot nine frame, but that’s for a bit later.
I would tell you my name, but I made a deal with the ones who let me come here. If I am called by my first name (by first, I don’t mean those arrangements of the alphabet that come before your last name), I would cease to be a persistent twinkle of stardust—like a candle flame immune to a saliva lathered thumb. I would cease to be part-man-part-entity. I would be reabsorbed into nature’s belly and made into someone else. Or something else.
It sounds beautiful doesn’t it? You should also know: for me, that is death. For Osita, not so much.
It’s hard to say how or why I chose Osita and why he chose me. Even the concept of choice doesn’t feel real. Thinking about it now, the idea of choice is like one of Houdini’s illusions: there but not there. I don’t remember ever having any other options, even though logically speaking, I should have had millions. I mean thousands of babies are born every day. But things like this always happen when I slip into another body: I start to lose recollection of my past life.
All I know is that one day he was a body and I was a spirit, and another day I called him my body, and he called me his soul.
Every human is different; that much is true. But just how different is a scale which no one is yet to compound, disintegrate, and recouple? Did I mention Osita is my seventh rebirth? The one writing this story is my eighth. In human time, I am four hundred and thirty-two-years-old.
The world was crystal clear through Osita’s eyes. Then again, it always is with babies. Me, I like to glide through the organs of my fresh bodies, swimming from their pure blooded veins to their hearts and then to their lungs, filling them with a life force that their parents can rarely fathom. This is easy until they get to age six or seven. That’s when they start to demand for more space in their bodies.
With Osita, he came knocking at the age of four.
When the nurse offered a cooing Osita to Our mother, I hid behind his guiltless eyes and reveled in the shiny brownness of her skin. She looked like she could easily do better than the copper skinned man standing behind her, with bits of white in his stubble and a fear vibrating his Adam’s apple. I easily recognized the spirit of cowardice blooming inside his chest. But some people might say I am just a spirit. What the hell do I know about marriage or love?
Our mother cupped us tenderly, with her long arm acting as a second sturdy spinal cord, holding Osita in place as she smiled without holding back. I could see it in her face at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end. She prayed ceaselessly for Osita — for his coming. If she could see me now, I wonder if she would pray for me.
They say when humans are grieving, they sometimes feel so much that they could burst from the jarring loss, so that they turn their attention to the nearest flaw in sight and latch onto it; vomiting all the darkness into it.
“He will be called Osita,” said the man with his fingers placed on Our mother’s shoulder. “Osita Ozoemena.” He seemed too impatient to wait eight days for the official naming ceremony, as was the custom.
“Osita,” Our mother whispered as she turned to us with beads of sweat gathered around her brows. Then, she recited the name in its European-dressed meaning: From today onwards, it will be better, and I knew she had accepted it.
Our mother. It feels easy to write it down, like I too had come through her.
Just like that, a name was crested with invisible ink on our forehead. From that day, we were rarely ever an ‘Us’, but instead, mostly an ‘I’.
Our father wasn’t around much. But I did the best I could to flit away the dark shadow his absence threatened to cast. Well, Maleek and I, if I’m being honest. But Maleek didn’t show up until Osita turned five. By then, I was already creating enough space for both of us in Our body. But it was a slippery transition; that change from ‘Us’ to ‘I’. It had never been this easy to call a body ‘I’ or to call a human ‘Mother’. But with Osita, it felt natural. Everything did. Just as natural as it had been when Maleek stood up for Osita in sports period. Maleek was eleven then, but he had the courage of a man with something priceless to protect.
“I know how we can get back at him,” Maleek had said.
I looked up and I found a light skinned boy almost as tall as Osita looking down at Us with the most empathic eyes an eleven-year-old could have.
“What?” Osita muttered, hoping Maleek would walk away and leave his bruised temple to its reddening fate. I hate it when my humans are cowards.
“I know how we can get back at him. Abi you want to keep being on the receiving end?” Maleek asked with a tone that made Osita feel ashamed to be hiding in the corner, crying. Maleek was a rebel. I like a little rebellion every once in a while.
“I—” Osita opened his mouth, wondering what to say to this stranger who found Us when none of Osita’s other friends could, but I clipped his vocal cords shut. Strange, this odd fellow. I knew something was off when Maleek’s spirit wouldn’t reveal itself to me, but I let it go. Some spirits are reserved, even in all their divine power, but some are loud and destructive. Me, I stand at the center. I no like wahala.
“Follow me,” Maleek said with the grit of a giant, and something about treading carefully behind his small back made Osita feel safe. Years later, that back would belong to Our best friend, latched beside Osita all the time, like they were opposite-colored Siamese twins. Light skinned and copper skinned brothers, conjoined at their backs.
“There,” Maleek pointed to George, the big bully in Our class. He was alone, sad, if I remember correctly. But Maleek didn’t care. He raged like a snipped bull towards George and hopped onto his plump back. Even though he was twice his size, George couldn’t shake him off. Maleek just kept urging Osita on, in-between receiving blows, to join in.
Osita’s legs twitched, afraid of confrontation—afraid of breaking rules—but when I whispered to Osita’s bones, they gave and joined the fight. It cost a few other bruises, but George never bothered Us again after that day. That was what Maleek was to Osita. Even at ten years old, even with their untucked shirts and their missing buttons; he was an antidote to fear, an extra nudge to live.
The whole walk home, I could have thought about Our mother’s yelling, or Our father’s whooping, but all I could think about was this: every human is different. That much is true.
–
If you are crazed enough to believe in spirits living for four centuries and narrating the story of a past life in a present body, then you must believe this: bits and pieces of Osita come to me in trances, like peppered daydreams in my eyes, prickling my being, angering my light. All the bodies I inhabit often feel like they have lived before, but with this new body, Osita festers like a sullen, evergreen wound. Sometimes, the center of a page is the theatre I sew myself up. I have never been much of a poet, but some shit happens to you in this life (or the one before) and writing happens…through you, you know?
Infrared whirls my sight; I struggle to separate the smell of my flesh and hot burning rubber.
–
“You should be sharper na, my guy! Igbo boys no de dull o.”
Maleek’s voice was thickening quicker than everyone expected, curdling in his throat, giving birth to a convincing bass. There are things that happen to you in this life and you have to grow up faster than you imagined. For Maleek, it was the passing of his mother when we were in SS3. After his father moved back in, Maleek started to change. But me I am not here to judge anybody’s son. I am just here for duty.
That was a half lie. I am here because godly as I am, I love to wear human skin. And Osita was by far the best. Tailored to perfection, if I dare say.
I have to admit. It felt weird to hear Maleek speak in pidgin English, partly because it was hard for me to keep seeing the werey inside him, and also because his name sounded a bit like non-violence. Something about the glistening yellow of his skin said otherwise. Like he wasn’t supposed to be born in Nigeria. Even though his Igbo name was Lotanna, his father never let it stand. He found it ironic that his Igbo name meant Remember your father, and the man whose sperm he apparently manifested from didn’t give two shits about him. But this story is about Osita, not that bastard Maleek.
We were at the mall and Maleek was urging Us to “borrow something without paying”. Just like he had “borrowed” Our blue sneakers for over six months and how he “borrowed” Our mother’s jewelry “by mistake”.
“Guy, not today, abeg,” I said grudgingly, walking away from the entire conversation. Then I got angry at myself, realizing that I was making space for a future of more borrowing. If he didn’t want to today, would he want to tomorrow? “Not ever,” I added sternly, then headed for the exit.
“Fine, you’re such a kill joy, bro,” Maleek said as he slung his arm around Osita’s neck and rested it on his shoulders. “Somebody can’t even joke around with you.”
Twelve years after he made Osita’s knees give in and face his fear, he was still making Osita face more; sometimes the ones he effortlessly planted in place. Every time Maleek made Osita’s conscience waver, I felt it. It stressed me, and I don’t like stress. I know Maleek loved Osita sha. It’s just his way of showing love was different. Especially after his mother died. I tried to show Osita, but he shut me out.
What is love anyway? If every human is different, then can every form of love possibly be the same?
Osita smiled and let Maleek have that one. He would grow out of it, he was sure; he hoped. But me? I already knew. You know na; spirits have a sixth sense for these kinds of things. I just didn’t see why it had to keep me up at night. I couldn’t come and be drinking painkillers on top of Maleek’s headache. Besides, I was enjoying my space so much in Osita that I had little to complain about. Unlike Osita, two of my previous rebirths had been into very religious families. They kept calling me an impostor and insisted I be covered with the consuming fire of the Holy Ghost. But what did I do, apart from being a spiritual powerhouse for their children? If I up and left, don’t they know that their sons would have been in a coma after two minutes? They’re lucky it’s me sef. They’re lucky I am not the kind of spirit that makes people do crazy shit. I love peace of mind, even though I crave the occasional lust for life. But what spirit doesn’t? What human doesn’t?
–
There is no wall too thick or too high, and no dimension too slim for Osita to not get to me. I may have been the obi, but it takes more than a heart to make a human being (even the spiritual kind). Sadly, sometimes, that’s all it takes to end one.
Holy Ghost fire. Perhaps those prayers followed me to another life. My seventh life.
–
I possessed someone else to write my story. Our story (Mine and Osita’s). I know I am probably taking up more space than I should, but I am haunted. Every human is different; every spirit is different too. After Osita, something about leaving Our story untold itched under my skin like rabies. I will not leave this body without telling you about Osita’s last minutes. I cannot. In my four hundred years of existence, my body has never once ached for the comfort of a police cell, except on that day.
–
Things had begun to change around the time I helped Maleek get Chioma’s phone number. That’s when the spirit of pickpocketing reared its sly head inside Maleek—little bits here and there, at first. Osita would hate me if he read this, but I once made him dream about leaving Maleek. Sadly, it didn’t work. Besides, they were together when school was in session; they were together during the holidays. Goddamn Siamese twins!
One Wednesday evening, on our way to St. Bartholomew’s field, I caught an unfamiliar scent in the putrid air which hung around the local market. Everything around was choking, and there were little black pieces of burnt residue swirling in the air. I made Osita curious so he caught one and rubbed it between his fingers, but it blended into his fingertips like soft black dust.
“Maleek—” We turned around to see that he had stopped a few steps behind Us. Then, a group of young men zoomed past us with kegs of petrol spewing out their uncorked mouths. There was frenzy at the market place, but I knew it was about to get even more heated. So did Osita. So did Maleek. Me, I don’t like unnecessary wahala. So I sent goose bumps round Our body so that Osita would get the hint and move, but he wouldn’t budge.
“There,” Maleek said as he pointed to the crowd. There was a raging fire at the center of a mob and for the smallest moment, I could swear I heard a croaked cry, but it was dominated by the many emotions of the loud congregation. I knew that smell, so did Maleek, so did Osita. I turned to Maleek and he seemed to be caught in a web of his own imagination. Perhaps this is what he needed to be delivered. I walked back to him slowly, then I placed my hand on his shoulder, clapping him out of his trance. That day, I saw a glance of Maleek—not the man; the boy. But he was good at covering things up, so he did. Me, I just wanted to play ball with Osita’s body before going back for the second semester. So I guided Maleek and started walking.
“So how far Chioma now?” I asked, hoping to slingshot Maleek back into the present. He wasn’t the best at talking to women, but he seemed to have every concoction made to last for ten hours. “Una don…?” I smiled and bumped his shoulder with mine. The field was still a few minutes away. If Maleek wasn’t himself, he would get benched.
We walked for some seconds, with Maleek’s face to the ground.
“That can never be me,” Maleek said, almost in a whisper, to himself.
Alas, redemption. Hallelujah.
Like barbed wire around my throat unperturbed, these tires tight; circumcised of my hands— it is the hairs on my body that first betray; hungry for the strange orange heat.
–
When I got to the gates, I asked if it was too much for Them to send down a hailstorm, but They didn’t give me an answer. They just said I needed to prepare for my next rebirth and vanished.
If feeling this grief means I am becoming too human, then so be it.
–
That day, I begged Osita to stay at home; to pretend to be sick. Anything to not go out with Maleek, but some humans just have plain old coconut head. Because my begging was not in voiced wails and chants, nobody listened to me, abi? I even pleaded with the old, tired spirit in Our mother, but by then she had trusted Maleek to be the father that Osita never had; the father that needed to fuck his way through half of the estate before he would come full circle. And Maleek had trusted Osita to keep the secret of his father’s claws chaffing his insides, burrowing out his sense of self.
This was after the incident at the market, some three months after the Police had come too late. But nobody is surprised by The Nigerian Police at this point. They just come, pick up bloodied or charred remains, and go on their merry way.
It had rained all week, leaving Our mother no other option but to ask her son to fetch groceries for the house. But of course, nobody listened to the twisting in my gut. Nobody listens to their obi; nobody listens to their intuition. Osita had to move with his conjoined twin.
It was only fair that Osita held the polythene bag while we maneuvered through the grotesque market place. I’ve always loathed markets. Too many spirits packed together in frustrated bodies is never a good thing. Except of course, you’re also a spirit, and that’s what makes you tick. Like I said, I am not here to judge.
Maleek, ever the experience, was a joy to be with, I won’t lie. He always had that extraterrestrial ability to make anybody smile, even in the heated market of Ajah. He was a radiant being, that Maleek, and I’m sure that even at the bottom of a black hole, he would have been a beacon of yellow light. It’s just that his spirit, sometimes it took up too much space.
“We should get home before it rains again,” I turned to Maleek, who for some reason resorted to standing still. I swear I thought he had been struck by lightning or shot by a stroke. But it was none of those. His body went frigid and his eyes just trailed over Osita’s shoulders.
“Maleek,” I made Osita call out to him, but he still looked dazed. I swear I could hear Osita’s heart squelch under the surprise. “Maleek!” I made Osita call out again, this time a little louder, but his eyes avoided mine. If I didn’t know any better, I would have said he had been possessed by a powerful spirit. But I know better—it’s the same childlike spirit that was inside him; that either unafraid or drop dead frightened spirit. No in-between.
Osita turned around to meet the woman whose stall we were in. Her eyes were on us, like she was waiting for us to use our head, but how were We supposed to know Maleek had borrowed a pack of cookies and slipped them into Osita’s bag without intending to pay?
At that moment, looking into the woman’s eyes, I had the feeling that she didn’t want any trouble. Her eyes were saying one thing and one thing only: Use your head before someone sees you.
You see, because every human is different, I can beat my ghostly chest and say that not every human likes violence. For some, blood is like golden diluted honey; for others it tastes like the stubborn hands of dogoyaro climbing down the esophagus, clinging onto the walls of the throat. The woman was the dogoyaro kind of human. Her son inside the stall? Not so much. That one was a fine specimen for the blood-honey kind. He looked thirteen or fourteen years old; a few years younger than Osita’s brother would’ve been if Our mother’s pregnancy stayed.
“Tiff! Tiff! Oshi oooo!” he yelled, with a viciousness rolling the words out his mouth like a thorny red carpet.
Quickly, his mother, the woman before me, turned and pressed her coarse palm over her son’s mouth. He didn’t need to say any other thing as his mother forced the words back into his mouth. He had caught the attention of the right people who were now frantically searching for their next public example.
“Where e dey?!”
“Barbeque don set?!”
“Bring fueh! Bring fueh!“
Voices called out from different parts of the marketplace and within seconds there was an uncoordinated standstill; the kind you just do because everyone else is doing it and you are Nigerian: do what everyone else is doing and always follow who know road.
The market was growing quiet. And when a Nigerian market is quiet, you know there is a reckoning close by.
Up until that day, I had had reasonable control over Our body. But everything changed when the boy raised his finger in Our direction, despite the efforts of his mother.
You see, even me, a whole spirit, knew that this was a bad situation. Remember when I said families that had me in their children were fortunate? Well, the spirit in the woman’s son was the perfect depiction of Trobul dey sleep, yanga go wake am.
Thinking about it now, that might just have been a very unfortunate day. Because it seemed like every human in that market that day was out for blood. How quickly people turn on you. How easily hands grab at you. How quickly you become the center of attraction in a market place.
“Wait! Wait!” I made Osita yell as high as he could, chaffing his vocal cord open. If Our world spun around in circles before, then there was no shape and speed that could fathom how Our life was turning now. Pandora’s Box had been opened. Hell had broken loose.
I felt the woman from the stall grabbing at Osita’s shirt, trying to pull him to her side, but one versus the many isn’t always favorable when you’re the one. Especially if the many is a group of frustrated and angry Nigerians.
That day, I saw the worst side of humanity (and I’ve seen some pretty baaad shit). After that day, I didn’t want to be reincarnated as a human being again.
I felt Osita’s brain crunch under the thwack of a wooden plank. and after Osita staggered and fell to the concrete, boot after boot swung into the side of his ribs, restructuring, cracking, bursting. I tried to keep him conscious. I really did, but like I told you in the beginning, I am just a spirit.
As We were being dragged outside, I can’t say Osita was unconscious. Unconsciousness would have been a gift, a mercy. There were just many places that were supposed to be dry already filling with fluid. That’s why we could hear the angry mob in a far distance; like our head was half immersed in water. That’s also why We could feel Our clothes slide off Our skin until We were naked, and the cold mud pressed against Our back. It is also why We could hardly fight the vehicle tires fit over Us in bundles—like a collection of nooses, only for Our body, not Our neck.
It happened so fast. Too fast.
“Osita, wake up! Yell! Scream! Do something!” I yelled, and banged on the walls of our insides. But I am just a spirit!
Sometimes I wonder if I should have done more. I wonder if there was even more to be done. If there is one thing I will tell you in my four hundred years of living, it is this: time won’t let go of things you won’t. Grief is evergreen as long as it stays rooted in your garden of graves.
That day, I banged and banged on Osita’s brain, but everything stopped when I caught that particular smell. The same smell that congealed Maleek’s blood three months ago. Then it hit me, Maleek.
“Maleek,” I made Osita mutter, but his jaw wouldn’t open wide enough. And then, there was the yelling outside my head.
Please, Osita, please! Fight! Say something! I pleaded with everything inside me. That day, I wanted to be God. I wanted to send a flood to wash all of them into oblivion.
“Maleek,” I made Osita mutter again, as I felt the heat come closer to me. Christ, Osita! Don’t you go like this! Don’t you fucking go like this!
Till this day, there is no human I have ever wanted to save more than Osita, I swear.
Salt water leaking from my eyes, will you dry up any faster? Salt and open flesh are not the best of friends.
I could see Maleek in the crowd, punctured and perforated by fear and guilt. It had rained all day that week. Days before that Saturday. But the rain seemed to be coming a bit late that afternoon, teasing its way through the clouds. Of all the days to desire foreplay.
Maleek was so cloaked by fear; I could see it in his eyes, so could Osita, through his blurred vision, through the ringing in his head. But the rest of the clothed people, they were the blind ones.
You know what the funny thing is? I’m not even sure Osita would replace himself with Maleek in that melting pile of tires. He just wasn’t the kind of person who would do that. He was good. Walahi, he was good. Perhaps this was Osita showing Maleek the way this time. This time, it was Osita’s burning body that was the wide back that made Maleek feel safe. It’s more complicated than that, I know. It’s also not a fair trade, but there are good people, and then there are good people that get burnt.
When the screaming came, there was nothing I could do to stop it. All I could do was watch Osita’s body; the shiny copper of his skin and his high faded haircut turning to darkening cinders. All I could do was watch as Osita’s body released more space for me to occupy. All I could do was watch.
When Osita was twelve, he got into a long fight with Maleek. I can’t quite remember what it was about but I remember Our mother’s fingers twisting our ears and making us say “To forgive is divine. To err is human.”
I wonder, would she forgive this time?
When the screaming began to die down, I begged the wind to stop; to swallow itself into nonexistence, to remain still, lifeless, to pretend dead, but there was already so much petrol and rubber on Osita, it didn’t matter if the wind was half asleep. I honestly don’t know what I was trying to save. There was already enough smoke in Osita’s lungs to kill an elephant, and the tires were still wickedly hot. There was barely any Osita left to save.
I tried my best to keep Osita awake, but the wind wouldn’t fall asleep. In the end, letting him fall asleep was the best mercy I could offer.
When Maleek said it could never be him, I should have taken it to heart. I should have let myself see the scared little boy he was.
What happens when you are stuck in space, watching your body in a not so brief hellish fire?
I usually know when the time has come for the body I am harboring to give out. But this time, I didn’t notice. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention, maybe I didn’t want to. It didn’t feel like it was my time. It felt more like an exorcism. A hot crucifixion by a very very angry flame.
Holy Ghost fire.
About the Author:
Kelvin Ikechukwu Kaine is a Nigerian writer whose work centers on the ethereal. He is inspired by original African writing, history and mythology and infuses various African languages in his writing; most notably the Igbo language, of which culture he hails. When he isn’t visiting other worlds and playing with fire, he can be found on Instagram @kelvinkaine_ and X @thekelvinkaine
Isele Magazine 