Every four years during the Nigerian Presidential Elections the people burned. The patriots who still went out to vote burned with rage for their wasted ballots. The online prayer groups burned with the Holy Ghost as they prayed for “God’s Candidate” to be elected. The rest of the civilians burned beneath their pessimism and self-assigned hopelessness.

The people of Boma’s home of Rivers burned hotter than the rest. With incessant gang violence, non-gang violence and suspected gang affiliated governors, voting in Rivers was what Bomas father; Jeremiah called an “extreme sport”. Like most Nigerian Fathers, election day for Jeremiah meant a day off from work spent glued to the National News channel screaming at voter irregularities and the uselessness of the nation.

All three members of the family sat on the worn leather couches of the family living room and 6 eyes were glued to the TV screen. They watched as the news channel cut to multiple polling units in different states where citizens stood in ridiculously long lines gripping their last hopes in a small piece of paper. The volume of the TV was set to the maximum so that the family could hear the reporters above the rain that battered the zinc roofing of the Willis home.

“You see what they did there?” exclaimed Jeremiah suddenly. He glanced at the large grandfather clock that stood in the corner of the living room, “it’s just 1:23 PM, how has the result for Kano state come out already? How does a state with a population of six million have a total of seven million votes? These people are just playing the whole Nigeria in plain sight.” As Jeremiah spoke, he motioned dramatically with his arms. His chest and round belly heaved beneath his white vest. Jeremiah was a tall man with lined dark skin and a thick graying mustache. As his father ranted, Boma caught the smirk in his mother’s eyes. Jeremiah the activist was back in the Willis household, and he had been missed during his four-year sabbatical. Her smile quickly faded into a serious grimace when Jeremiah started another rant and turned to her for her opinion which she gave in an equally serious nod followed by a “you’re right, my husband.”

Orafiri was a typically stern woman with strong values. She’d raised Boma with a firm hand and practiced her Christianity with the same vigor. Her beauty was almost as intense as her personality. She had smooth skin the color of light caramel and beach sand and a gap between her two front teeth that struck the onlooker with awe when she gave her rare smile. Her thick tightly curled black hair was styled in tight plaits that ran the length of her head and dangled past her shoulders. Despite her outward severity she had a sense of humor similar to that of her son’s especially when it came to Jeremiah, the activist.

“I’m surprised the polling units in Rivers are still peaceful till now. No deaths, no shooting, not even a fight,” said Orafiri.

“Give them time mummy. Once this rain stops, they’ll start,” said Boma. This wasn’t just a pessimistic statement but a hopeful one. He sat in anticipation that the breaking news banner would display some terrible news related to Rivers. Something, anything to give him the Journalistic breakthrough he had been waiting for since his university graduation a year ago. A tiny bit of nepotism on his father’s side had gotten him a job in the Rivers Daily News and Magazine company but entire rivers of nepotism couldn’t get Mr. Williams to approve anything he wrote for the paper.

Despite his hopes the polling booths remained peaceful and so the household was peaceful. Their peace was interrupted by the choppy static melody of Orafiri’s Samsung Galaxy S4. She muttered an apology to Boma and Jeremiah and dug her phone out from the pocket of her worn house jeans. She squinted at the number on the screen before clicking the ignore button. The ringing stopped and the family turned their attention back to the news. A few seconds later it started again.

“Orafiri answer your phone please, I can’t hear what the reporter is saying,” said Jeremiah, his eyes still focused on the screen.

“I don’t know the number,” she said, retrieving her phone again. She clicked the decline button and switched off the phone.

“It’s probably scammers,” said Boma.

“Probably. Now that we’re on the topic, Jeremiah the network in the house has been terrible since the rains started.”

“I know. I called the service provider. They were supposed to come today but they are closed because of the elections. I will speak with them again tomorrow,” he said.

The family continued to watch the election unfold. Soon the sun set, and the sky burned with a vibrant orange. The rain had since stopped, and the polling lines became even longer. Boma curled his impressive height into a corner of the couch and slept. Jeremiah put on his glasses to read something on his phone and Orafiri got up to prepare their dinner. She watched the election unfurl from the adjoining dining room as she worked.

The sudden sound of the breaking news tune came in a loud blast, bouncing off the old yellow walls of the living room and jolting the entire family. A dark-skinned female reporter in a dark brown suit and black hair pulled tightly in a bun appeared on screen. She spoke in an overly phoneticized accent that would have been funny in any other circumstance but today.

“Now we’re getting reports from Diobu, Rivers State a mob has apprehended and killed a young man suspected of trying to steal ballots from the polling station. Police have arrived on scene to investigate but they suspect this could be the work of a neighborhood militia group known as the Diobu Anti Election Fraud Alliance. As of now there is no information about the victim’s identity except for videos and photos taken by witnesses. Warning, the following images are quite graphic.”

The photos displayed following the reporter’s disclaimer would be singed into Boma’s mind for a long time. Passive viewers from around the country were given a huge shock by the pure brutality of just two images. The first was a photo of the victim who appeared to be a middle-aged man. His face was swollen and blistered, and his mouth hung agape to show bleeding gums that were missing more than a few teeth. The image shown next could barely be recognized as the person in the first. It was a charred corpse against a mud-soaked floor surrounded by three equally charred tires.

The images faded and the reporter with the fake accent came back on. “As of now these are the only images released by the police. A curfew has been imposed on the state from 9 PM till 9 AM tomorrow. Stay tuned for more on this story and more on the Nigerian Presidential election. I’m Amina Lawal reporting for Channels news.”

There was silence in the house. Boma hated it. He wished that the rain would start or that his father would say something to end the silence. Something to relieve him from the guilt he felt for wishing for a headline.

“God save us,” said Jeremiah. There was a loud symphony of clashes and bangs as the plates Orafiri was carrying into the dining fell from her hands.

“Orafiri!” Jeremiah exclaimed and stood up to help his wife. 

“I’m fine, I’m fine I just tripped.” She was kneeling on the dining floor surrounded by broken china and wasted food. Jeremiah helped her get up and step over the mess.

“I’m sorry, I should have changed the channel. I forgot you don’t do too well with blood,” he said, giving her a hug.

She gave him a slight smile and nodded.

“Boma get your mother some water and a broom,” said Jeremiah.

His request broke the spell of guilt that trapped him. He got busy cleaning the mess on the white tiled floors. As he carefully picked through the broken dishes and wiped the food stains with a mop, he wrote drafts in his head. As sad as it was, this story was his breakthrough, and he couldn’t wait to get to work and grab it.

*

The next morning Boma drove to work as soon as the state-imposed curfew was lifted. The office was at its busiest by the time he got there. The phones were ringing repeatedly, the printers voiced their complaints as they strained to produce more copies of the heart wrenching headline. Workers tripped over their feet, the floor and each other as they attempted to move from office to office faster than the capacity of their legs.

Boma managed to make it through the disarray to Mr. Williams’ office. The other two writers were there already. His boss’s desk was covered in everything from a half-eaten bowl of cereal to papers of various shapes, sizes and identities. The boss himself was also on the table, hanging over it by one leg and screaming into his phone speaker. His tie was loose and his blue dress shirt was unbuttoned at the top. His bald middle patch glowed with sweat and his wired gray hair looked electric. As he spoke, he ran his free hand recklessly from his near absent hair to his full gray beard repeatedly. 

He nodded to Boma hovering in the doorway before saying, “My friend, I am offering you a deal. My paper was the first to run this story therefore I already have a monopoly over it. Anything you print at this point will be nothing but supplemental information, so you better consider a collaboration over the inevitable recession of that your two-bit paper. Goodbye.” He hung up even though the person on the other line was still speaking.

“Good morning all.”

“Good morning Mr. Williams,” said the two young writers in unison.

“I’m assuming you heard of the news yesterday. This is a very sensitive story and one of you will get the honor of covering it. Who wants it?”

Both of them raised their hands.

“Yes, Ryan.”

Ryan was Boma’s nemesis. This was a fact unknown to Ryan himself who always greeted everyone, including Boma, with a wide smile and dimpled cheeks. He was a good-natured person and an even better writer. So good in fact that he had gotten a spot in the paper 4 times, whereas Boma had gotten none. To add insult to injury, Ryan started working an entire month after Boma.

“We need to come from the side of the people. They are tired of election fraud and this was the last straw for them,” Ryan spoke without taking a breath. Despite his skill, his light brown skin was flushed.  Mr. Williams had that effect on most people.

“So, because the victim is a perpetrator of election fraud, he has no constitutional rights?”

“Err-” said Brian.

Mr. Williams shook his head. “Boma, give me something.”
“We can come from the point of view of the two parties. Yes, the people are angry but what about the victim? He didn’t go to steal ballots because he had a good job, livable salary and health insurance, he went because the same government that angered the people sent him there. This is a story about the neglect of the people of Diobu by the government and should be told from the perspective of someone who has experience with the area.”

“And I assume that someone is you?”

“Yes, Diobu is just 8 minutes from my house. I grew up there and I know those people. I can tell the story the people need to hear.”

“That’s a lot of big talk Boma,” said Mr. William scratching his beard in thought. “Alright you have 48 hours to give me some concrete investigative material.”

Boma nearly leapt for joy.

“Yes, sir!” he said. He left the office with the heat of Brian’s jealousy on the back of his neck.

*

Boma exaggerated when he said he knew the area. Yes, he lived nearby, but his parents had never let him enter Diobu. He had heard the worst stories about ritual killings and gun battles. Just by driving through the neighborhood, he could almost confirm they were true. His old 2003 Honda Accord leaped and burrowed through crater sized potholes and his rusty windshield wipers strained against the pouring rain.

The polling unit was located in the middle of an informal market made of tables of goods and worn umbrellas bearing the logos of different companies Dano Milk to the Etisalat cellular service provider. The untarred road and street had become a muddy slosh. He waited in his car for the rain to stop before he got out. Majority of the area was taped off and surrounded by tired looking policemen. He searched around for a familiar scarred face until he found it.

“The Inspector General himself,” said Boma jokingly saluting the one policeman not in uniform that was inside the yellow taped lines.

“Please, I’m just a detective,” said the man, reaching out to hug Boma over the tape. He was much taller and broader than Boma with a thick scar on his dark skin that ran down the part of his neck visible over his blue dress shirt and tie.

“It’s been too long, Chuka. How are you?”

“As well as one could be on a day like this,” said Chuka.

“Ah, I’m sure it’s bad. Especially with what happened yesterday,”

“It’s not even as bad as we bargained for. You heard what happened in Abuja?”

“Yes, I did. They had a whole riot, and in the capital for that matter.”

“God save us.”

“Amen,” said Boma.

“I suppose you’re here for information on what happened yesterday,”

“I’m hurt, can’t I just come all the way to Diobu and risk my life to see my old friend.”

“Come on, Boma, do I look stupid to you?”

“Of course not.”

“Just know you owe me for this,” said Chuka, pulling a small notepad from the pocket of his wet slacks.

“So far, we haven’t been able to identify the victim because our forensic department doesn’t have the equipment to analyze charred corpses. The only police department with that kind of equipment is in Lagos and they are backlogged right now because of the election. There was no form of identification on the body.  We interviewed civilian witnesses,  some members of the militia as well as some gang members, but no one claims to know him,”

Boma hurriedly wrote everything down in his notepad.

“Before the victim was beaten and set ablaze, he tried to run. Witnesses said that he kept fiddling with his phone like he was trying to call someone over and over,”

Boma’s face lit up for a moment before Chika dimmed it again with “No you cannot have the phone, it’s in evidence processing now.”

“Ah shit.”

“What I can do is give you the number he was calling. We haven’t been able to reach it and again the technology to trace the number is in Lagos and their office is–”

“–backlogged,” completed Boma.

“Yes, as is everything in this fucking country.” Chuka wrote the number in his notebook and ripped out the sheet and handed it to Boma.

“Chuka, thank you. Thank you. Lunch on me whenever you want,”

“Oga don’t make promises you can’t keep. I know they’re not paying you that much in the newspaper office,”

“I’m going to get you that lunch even if it’s the last of my cash I swear Chuka,”

“Make it two lunches and I will let you sit in when we interrogate the head of the militia later today.”

“Yes. Thank you, thank you.  I’ll buy you a whole market in fact,” said Boma.

“I’ll hold you to that,” said Chuka with a grin.

Boma was still yelling his thanks as made his way to his car as fast as he could without slipping in the mud.

As soon as he returned to his office he settled at his cluttered table and dialed the number Chuka gave him with his work phone. It rang once then stopped. He dialed it again three times before finally he heard a muffled “Hello.” It was a woman’s voice but that was all he could get. He cupped a hand around his mouth to make his voice clearer. “Hello, I’m calling from the Rivers State Daily News office, and I wanted to speak to you about the incident that happened yesterday during the election,”

There was no voice on the other end, just the static crackles of a poor connection.

“I want to be kept anonymous,” was what Boma heard.

“Yes, we can definitely keep this anonymous.”

“I would also prefer to communicate by text.”

“Yes, that’s fi–”

The static ended as the other line dropped. He immediately got out his Nokia flip phone with the battery compartment secured with a rubber band and texted the number. After a few back and forth texts they agreed to meet in front of Saint Paul’s church later that evening at 7 PM.

“Boma.”

Boma looked up to see Mr. Williams hovering over his table.

“Yes Sir,” he said, standing up quickly.

“What do you have on the investigation so far?”

“I have a sit-in during the interrogation of the militia head later today and I have the last called number from the victim’s phone. I’ve set up a meeting with the person today right after the police interrogation.”

Mr. Williams’ permanent scowled face could do nothing to hide the impressed look that curled his lips in the closest thing Boma had ever seen them get to a smile.

“48 hours, Willis,” said Mr. Williams as he turned and walked towards his office.

*

The head of the Diobu Anti Election Fraud Alliance was a middle aged man with a sharp fade on his gold dyed hair and a scarily calm demeanor called Theodore Ogan. Boma couldn’t tell if his calmness came from the impeccably dressed lawyer he’d brought with him or from a sense of justice from his actions. Boma hoped it was the former. After clauses of anonymity and immunity were obtained from the police, Mr. Ogan finally retold in gruesome detail the last few living minutes of the dead man.

“When we apprehended him, he had a cutlass in one hand and a jug of diesel in the other. We found him threatening the electoral officials to release the ballot boxes so he could destroy them. As you may know, destruction or rough handling of ballot boxes in a unit leads to expunction of the results of the unit per the rules of the National Electoral Committee. We the people of the Anti-Election Fraud Alliance could not allow that. So, we tried to stop him before he could hurt any civilians. He fought back and ran and tried to call someone repeatedly on his phone. Maybe his employer or his fellow anarchists, I don’t know. Eventually, we caught him and set him on fire with the very diesel he’d brought to burn the voices of the people.”

Boma’s hands shook with anger as he penned Mr. Ogan’s words in his notebook.

Chuka seemed unfazed but Boma caught a faint tremor in his voice as he spoke “Mr. Ogan, I am sure you know that these anarchists as you called them are nothing but gangsters employed by the government. They are nothing but wrinkled leaves on a rotten tree. Don’t you think your efforts should be tackling the problem at the root?”

Mr. Ogan smiled, displaying his kola-stained teeth. “This was just an example. There will come a time, Mr. Detective, where we will burn the root too.”

The sun had set by the time Boma’s worn car drove the distance between the Police station and Saint Paul’s church. He parked the car haphazardly in the empty gravel lot and pushed open the creaky doors of the impressive church building. There was no one inside. He walked to the altar up front, admiring the intricate designs of the gold studded cross that hung from the wall behind the altar. The church he and his parents attended was a short drive away and a lot less impressive. The creak of the front doors made him spin around. His heartbeat with anticipation.

“Mummy?” he said, a frown furrowed his thick brows. “What are you doing here? Are you trying to defect from our church?” he joked.

Orafiri’s face was tear stained, and her eyes were lined red. She wore the same black dress and scarf that she wore the day her sister died.

“Mummy, what’s wrong? Talk to me. Why are you here? How did you know I was here?” Realization dawned on Boma like the setting sun outside.

“Sit down, Boma. Please.” She sat on the pew in the front row and he sat beside her.

“When I got into the University of Lagos, I was like a newly freed bird. My father was a very strict man and I was miles away from him for the first time in my 17 years of life. I was beautiful and young and I had my fun. My fun got me pregnant. Abortion clinics were illegal at that time, and I feared the risk of doing it err-manually, like some other girls in my school at the time. A lot of them didn’t survive.

So, I stayed in Lagos and had the baby. I lied to my father that I couldn’t come home during breaks for different reasons. Exams, internships, no money for transportation, anything I could think of. All he cared about was the fact that I was in school so he didn’t bother me too much. After I delivered the baby, I snuck out at night and went back to my dorm, I just left him–” her voice dissolved into sobs.

“Does daddy know?”

“Boma I–”

“Does Daddy know?”

“No, your father doesn’t know! What type of man do you think would marry me if I told them what I did? No, I didn’t tell your daddy. Nobody knew I was pregnant except the doctors and the girls in my dorm.”

“Oh God,” said Boma, cupping his face in his hands.

“About a year ago when I went to Lagos I went to the hospital and did some investigating. The only thing I knew was the baby’s name, so it took a lot of searching. I traced his foster care placements till he turned 18. I found out that he went to prison at 21 for gang violence charges. I went to visit him about 12 years ago. You were still young. When he got out, I went to visit again. I gave him a phone with my number in it and told him to call but he never did. He said he wanted nothing to do with me–” She broke off into more sobs and retrieved a handkerchief from her purse to clean her face.

“I still tried to call him whenever I was in Lagos but I never got a hold of him. I didn’t even know he had moved here. He never called me until yesterday…”

“He was the one who called you while we were watching the news. He was calling because he knew you lived here. He was calling you, his mother, to come and help him. To save him and you ignored him. You ignored your son and now he’s dead.” Now Boma was crying. For much of his life, she had preached responsibility to him as a virtue and disciplined him when he did otherwise. He accepted it because he believed she was perfect but finding out she wasn’t challenged the framework on which he had built his moral code.

“What could I have done, Boma? I didn’t want your father to be suspicious. I was planning on calling him back later, but then I saw the news and I knew it was him. I’m sorry Boma, I’m sorry.”

“What was his name?”

“Miebaka.”

*

They drove home that night at a ten-minute interval so that Jeremiah wouldn’t suspect anything. Boma was getting home from work and Orafiri from a late church meeting. The dinner table was silent and the tension weighed heavy on Boma’s shoulders.

“What’s wrong with the both of you tonight?” said Jeremiah, dishing rice into his plate from the serving bowl. When no one answered he smiled and said, “Election has cut your tongues?”

“Ask Mummy,” muttered Boma.

“What do you mean by that, Boma?”

Once again no one answered. Orafiri’s eyes remained fixed to the plate in front of her.

“What did you just say about your mother, Boma? You’re not too old for me to get out my cane,” Jeremiah said. His tone was far from the joking note it had a few moments ago.

“I said ask mummy why we’re so quiet,” said Boma.

“What is he talking about Orafiri?”

“I’m going to my room,” Boma said, pushing his seat out so roughly it shook the entire table. “Boma Ibifubara Willis, would you come back and sit down right now!”

“Let him go, Jerry,” said Orafiri. She turned to her husband with teary eyes. Her trembling voice faded as Boma walked upstairs to his room.

“Orafiri what is going on here?”

“Jerry, sit down first and I will tell you. Please just calm down.” 

Jeremiah did not remain calm for the rest of the conversation. That night, as his parents argued he drowned their voices with music from his iPod, opened his Lenovo laptop and typed. The clattering of his keyboard sung far into the night. Before he could change his mind, he emailed his work to Mr. Williams. When he took out his earplugs, his parents’ voices were silent. He tiptoed downstairs for a sip of water and heard the clear treble of his father’s snores from the dark living room.

The next morning, he was out of the house before either of his parents woke up. At work he kept his head down until noon when Mr. Williams called him to his office.

“Boma, are you sure you want this printed?” Mr. Williams said with a look Boma could only interpret as empathy.

“Yes, sir,” said Boma.

Mr. Williams sighed. “Alright, head over to editing. Esther will help you go over it for printing tomorrow.”

He nodded and left the messy office.

The next day two things happened: Boma’s story, “POV from a Victim of Mob Violence” was the talk of the entire state and was trending online. The second was that the current president who was running for a second term was announced to have won the election to most of the country’s dismay but to no one’s surprise.

In the week that followed, the views of the general population on Miebaka’s death had shifted from well deserved to a social justice outcry. With the aid of many activists and verified retweets on Twitter, a burial service had been planned for Miebaka that week. Most people planned on attending to show their sincere remorse. But many came to update their gossip blogs, hoping to discover the identity of the anonymous mother.

Boma kept up to date with the news but he did not add or say anything. His reputation in the office had expanded past his wildest dreams. So much, that Mr. Williams suggested that he had a recurring segment in the newspaper about mob violence in the state. In response Boma had said, “I’ll think about it” and avoided Mr. Williams in the office after that.

The office drained him but home drained him even more. His father didn’t speak to anyone and still slept in the living room. He was out of the house long before breakfast and came back later than usual. His mother was silent as well. She had put a permanent closed sign on the small kiosk she ran where she sold school materials and only left the house to go to church for her prayer meetings. Conveniently she left home for those prayer meetings right when Boma arrived from work.

That evening Boma made up his mind that the silence was enough. When he drove home, he sat in the car outside and waited for his father’s blue Honda Accord to pull up behind him. He got out of the car and knocked on the driver window.

“Good evening daddy.”

“Good evening Boma. Er…you just got back from work. Its late.”

“No, I’ve been waiting for you daddy. We need to talk.”

They walked into the house in silence. Orafiri was already dressed in her ankle length dress and her flowery head scarf. She grabbed her keys from the rack beside the front door and proceeded to walk past them.

“There’s dinner in the pot on the stove. If you want more it’s in the fridge,” she said as she hurried to walk past them to the door.

“No mummy, we all have to talk. Please,” said Boma.

She looked between her son and her husband. Jeremiah nodded and in a gruff, slightly reluctant voice said, “yes. He is right,”

The family walked on the same worn sofa where they watched Miebaka’s corpse on the screen barely four days ago. The silence was thin. Orafiri shifted in her seat, which was a notable distance from Jeremiah. Boma fiddled with his brown striped tie.

“Okay, so Orafiri. I am sorry for the things I said two nights ago. Some of what I said was unfair. I was angry but you are my wife, and I should not have spoken to you in such a way.”

Orafiri opened her mouth to speak but Boma interrupted. “I also want to apologize, mummy, for the things I said in the church. I’m sorry.”

Orafiri nodded. “I am sorry as well to you both. I–it’s been very hard bearing this secret and keeping it from both of you, especially you, Jeremiah. It is unforgivable.” Her shoulders shook as tears welled up in her eyes.

Jeremiah closed the gap between them and held her shoulders. “My dear, don’t talk like that. Please. If God can forgive all things, then who am I? It will be hard for a time, but we will not let this break us. We won’t.” He took her hand and kissed the palm of it.

“Yes mummy. Now we should focus on helping you. You have lost more than both of us combined. How should we help you?” said Boma.

“I think I just need time to process what happened. Because of your article people no longer think he deserved to die the way he did. So thank you, my son. I’m very proud of you.”

“They’re actually holding a burial service for him tomorrow. I can go with you if you want too. It’s in St Paul’s church” said Boma.

“A burial? I didn’t know that I haven’t really been keeping up with the news since. Yes, I want to go. Jeremiah?” They both turned to Jeremiah who had a pensive look in his eyes.

“I will come,” he said. He nodded fiercely as if he needed to reaffirm the statement to himself.

*

The next day they went to Saint Paul’s church for the funeral service. Boma drove on the agreement that Jeremiah would drive back after the service. The sunset streaked the sky in various shades of pinks and oranges and the clouds were lined in all ranges of symmetry. The air was warm, the grass and trees were refreshed from the rain earlier that day.

Beneath the beautiful sky, the already stunning infrastructure of Saint Paul’s looked even more decadent. The church was packed with all sorts of people. Activists who came to show their solidarity for the victim and mothers who came in support of the anonymous woman whose son’s corpse had been displayed for the whole country to see. There were cameras from national and local news channels present as well.

Boma and his family sat in the 6th row, on the left side of the altar. In the middle of the altar stood Miebaka’s casket. It was simple and white with gold spirals along the sides. Open caskets were traditionally done for those with loved ones who had died in prettier circumstances so Miebaka was closed shut.

The Bishop of Saint Paul’s was a large man with a pot belly that Boma assumed was as a result of generous church offerings. He was draped in heavy white robes and gold and red cords hung from his neck. The collar of his vest clung to the sweat on his tiered neck. He gave the sermon without the slightest bit of haste, as if he could not notice the growing impatience of the attendees. People fanned themselves and shifted in their seats. Finally, the Bishop closed his large bible and looked up.

“Before we begin to march outside to lay the dead to rest, is there anyone who wishes to say some words,” said the Bishop.

The air became tense. The news crews stood straighter and tightened their palms around their devices.

“I will,” said a voice in the front. It was a tall woman dressed in all black like the rest of the attendees. She wore leather pants and a t-shirt with the words “End Mob Violence” written across in bold red letters. She walked to the front and took the microphone from the Bishop.

“My name is Regina Folake, and I am the Vice President of the Youths for Change Alliance. I just want to say to Miebaka–” she turned to look at the coffin “–we will not rest until we bring your murderers to justice. You were a victim of society. A child abandoned by his own mother–” She broke off and wiped her dry eyes with the back of her hand for dramatic effect before continuing her speech. “You are not the villain in this story, and we will make sure the true villains are punished for their crimes!”

There was a stream of murmurs in the crowd. Boma gripped his mother’s sweaty, shaking hand. After Regina spoke, the burial became a cock-off contest for the various activist groups present. Each group promised justice to the dead man like it was a currency he could use in the afterlife. Eventually the Bishop got tired of the shenanigans and ended the sermon. Six men lifted the coffin on their shoulders and the congregation marched behind them to the back of the church.

Miebaka’s coffin was lowered to the sounds of the Bishop’s prayers and camera clicks. People reached for handkerchiefs to wipe their faces, but no one cried except Orafiri who muffled her sobs in Jeremiah’s suit jacket.  

The drive home that day was silent but the air was a little lighter. Boma sat in the back, looking out the window and counting the stars as he did when he was a child. Jeremiah drove with one hand on the steering wheel and one hand clasped tightly around Orafiri’s.

About the Author:

Orabelema Tonye-Abere is a Microbiology graduate with a minor in Creative writing and she currently works in research. She started writing at 11 years old in a strict no technology boarding school, so all her first creations were written on paper. Currently, she is working on a short story compilation as well as a fantasy novel. Apart from writing and reading her hobbies include conversing with herself, criticizing films, and watching TikTok for an unhealthy amount of time. https://medium.com/@belematabere

*Feature image by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash