Millipede Chasing - Part 6

MILLIPEDE CHASING

This story is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

PART SIX

Chomp, chomp, chomp

“There it is! There is that sound again!” Emenanjo was now very curious. Since the chase had ensued he had bravely resisted the urge to turn back to look, but now the sound was compelling him to look back after all. He felt the Lord has been warning him since, “Emenanjo! Flee for your life! Don’t look back.” The poor curious man wondered if he would turn into a pillar of salt, like Lot’s wife, if he disobeyed. But that sound was absolutely irresistible to him and he simply had to look back. “What on earth?”

He sat crouched between two buildings in the baking sun which dried out his throat and eyes. It was pleasant when it was warm, but now it just made his thirst so much worse. Slowly he looked around the corner, careful not to be detected. There they were, his pursuers. They were all munching on plantain chips and pure water packaged in a food hamper. It appeared that the pastor had bought the food from two street vendors carrying baskets of food on their heads. Dying for some of what they were eating, the hungry Emenanjo licked his lips as he watched brother Sunday sitting on the very chair he was carrying all morning, placed now at the side of the road. He was eating an udara fruit he had bought for himself. From the looks of it he had about five of them in a food bag. Of course! He still had his share of Pastor Obinna’s free plantain chips and pure water too. As greedy as a pig as he was, he didn’t care to share his udaras with anyone. Now he was more focused on the food and not so much bothered with the pursuit anymore. Emenanjo lapped his tongue over his lips and immediately realised just how ravenous he was. Udara was his favourite fruit of all. He stood there, spellbound, and imagined the delectable taste of the udara in his mouth. With desperation he licked his lips and looked back once more to all his enemies, munching away on their delicious food with such joy. How could they? There should be no joy in eating while another man starves right before you.

“I am not my brother’s keeper,” they would probably say to God. Thinking upon all these things he suddenly remembered the best Jamboree he had ever attended. His thoughts floated back among the sweet odour of the unobtainable food he smelled and his memory served him with a wonderful reminiscence.

*****

“Can you hear the noise?” Okafor , Emenanjo’s best friend, asked and climbed down from the double bunk bed in their small room. He jumped down to the floor and came to sit on his friend’s bed underneath.

“It sounds like a party,” remarked the 7 year-old Emenanjo excitedly.

It was 12:15 p.m. The two seven–year-old boys had slept the entire morning after being punished by the governess in charge of the Orphanage the night before. It was their permanent residence, where they had spent their entire lives since they were three years old. The two friends were among the unlucky ones who were never adopted, regardless of the hope to belong to a family, which dramatically increased when they turned three. At three years old they were moved to another orphanage where they were forced to grow up quickly, as they were doing housework, selling food on the streets and growing food at their orphanage’s farm. But they could not complain much. At least they got to eat three times a day and they had a safe and generally warm place to sleep every night.

But the food was mostly the traditional meal of eba and vegetable soup with dried fish, yam and palm-oil with pepper. They would have this for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, although they also had fruit in-between meals. Fruit that is, which they normally stole from the trees of the neighbourhood village just two miles from town. Every Saturday afternoon they would have rice and palm-oil stew with a good helping of boiled goat meat. They both loved rice with palm-oil stew. They always described eating it as going to straight heaven while chewing. “Don’t talk to me, I am in heaven now,” was a very familiar statement known to all the boys. Food was like gold for them. Maybe it was because they never got to feast like rich people, but they liked to spend their conversations discussing their favourite types of food to the detail, imagining that they could have it any time.

It was not as if the boys preferred rice to their traditional food, but they especially loved it because they had it less often, so most perceived it as something special. The only problem was that the food always finished too quickly and no matter how they wanted more, they never got more. Second helpings were unheard-of.

Now they were both awake, but they had missed both breakfast and lunch because they were still asleep from the punishment Madam gave them. She had punished them harshly for breaking two plates in the kitchen while they were playing. Recklessness was something she did not tolerate and she could never understand that boys needed to play rough, to wrestle and have fun. Madam made them wash all her dresses and clothing, including other clothing which belonged to one of her three children. She forced the two boys to wash five large loads of clothes before they were allowed to sleep. The boys washed the heap of clothes with their bare hands, just using soap. It felt as if they were going to take forever to finish their chore, like a prison sentence at night. It was past 3 a.m. when they finally finished. Their hands were as white as snow, their eyes were as red as blood and their mouths were as grey as grey could be. They were totally knackered.