ONCE UPON A TIME

ONCE UPON A TIME...

I have always been like this. No one really told me how I was born but I know exactly how I was born. Well, not entirely. There are fragments of my birth story which, like shards of broken glass, would forever remain embedded in the sand. Like how when the doctor told my mother that I had congenital hydrocephalus, which he so wittily explained as water being stuck in my head, Mother lost control of her inner beast and went about the hospital cursing her family witches who had, in her words, urinated into my brain. It’s even funny when I think of it. Whatever happened that night, I turned out fine. Except for the fact that I am too curious, which my mother still thinks it’s a curse left on me after my surgery.

They say that even before I was given both water and wine at my naming ceremony, I already knew the truth from lies. Although it wasn’t until I turned ten that I started asking a lot of questions. Too many questions that my dad left very early for work and intentionally came home late every day. As for my mother, she still held on to that faith that one day the curse on me would leave. Meanwhile, I wished it didn’t.

Growing up, I had heard so many things from people especially my grandmother, Nana, which I didn’t really believe. I don’t know whether I was too intelligent for a kid my age or that as Nana would say, I am but a mere reincarnation of my grandfather, who died an hour before I was born, as I was told. Nana liked to scare her grandchildren with her stories. Every Saturday evening, she would gather us under the Neem tree in front of the family house and tell us horrifying stories.

One of her stories explained how Sasabonsam dissected the gut of his demon servant who upon being sent to destroy a very nice gentleman, fell in love with him. While her stories frightened my siblings and cousins, I sat there looking at her face with the delight of a moth drawn to a flame, transfixed by the magic of her storytelling, even as the shadows of darkness danced on the branches of the tree.

As far as I could remember, there wasn’t a single taboo that my grandmother mentioned that I believed, yet I nonetheless reacted in ways she thought I did. Though I knew by instincts they would most likely not be true, I still went on to investigate, as inquisitive as I’ve always been. Once, Nana had said to me not to whistle in the evening. “Why Nana,” I would then go on to ask. “Don’t you know that whistling under the moon calls in evil spirits” I would pause for a second and think about how whistling would call evil spirits but no other form of noise would. I grew up and realized that the taboo was only meant to stop people from making noises to disturb older people in the night when they are asleep. As a child, when I’m being told not to whistle in the night, I’d question that. But when evil spirits are attached, the narrative changes. Not that it did me any change…

I was only eight when my uncle came to the village. It was the first time I had seen my uncle in many years. And although there wasn’t anything peculiar about the somewhat quick-tempered man, I was glad I had met him. Wofa Agyekum had a less charismatic tone than Nana, which explains why they didn’t get on so well. He had lived most of his life in Accra, and when he had his pocket filled with gold, he forgot to look back and help his roots. He even forgot his own stupid mother who passed on the chance to abort him when a nice quack doctor wanted to do it free for her and conceived such an abnormality of nature as him in her belly for nine hurtful months, as Nana would dramatically put it. Yet when his wife divorced him and took half of his property and after he himself squandering the other half on whores in the city, he had now understood the meaning of the Sankofa symbol and has come back to his mother’s family house. Surely the elders didn’t place fallacy on the tongues of history when they said that ‘Kuntu whaen a ne nkyi a na eko.’

Wofa has a quite interesting personality. He was very prayerful and went to church every Sunday, I had noticed. Right after Sunday service he would pass by a drinking spot and get some few ‘tots’ before he would come home, or so he thinks. Most often than the many times a rat would come out of his hole on a bright afternoon, Wofa would drink himself to death, even to the point where people would carry him across the street to the family house. The next morning, he would come out and stand in front of the house, demanding that Mena Yaa, my sharp-witted aunt would give him food to eat. As it always happened, Mena Yaa would give him food, but before a morsel of whatever dish would touch Wofa’s mouth, the insults he would have received from her would be enough to satisfy his hunger for three days. Wofa being Wofa, would then curse and blame his family witches for steering his life into destruction. I always didn’t like it when Wofa talked like that. I knew more than anything that Wofa’s only family was us. And so for him to say that his family witches had made him a drunkard and a failure in life, sounded very offensive to even me, who would be the least to hurt Wofa with my witchcraft, if I had one. Perhaps that was the only thing I didn’t like about him apart from the fact that he talked too much, ate too much, drank too much and liked women too much.

To my little brain’ Wofa was two things. He was either confused or confusing. Now you tell me, how could someone who believed in God so much and prayed as if his life depended on it believe in taboos. Wofa told me that if I ever washed my face with water that is placed in a mortar and placed there overnight, I would see ghosts. Of course I didn’t believe. But that didn’t stop me from trying, did it? I had to do it anyway because if Wofa was right, I’d get an opportunity to see my dead grandfather who I resemble so much apparently, and if he was wrong, I would see for myself, which would be a good thing on my part. The next morning. I woke up before anyone did. I rushed to the kitchen and poured out the water from the mortar that Maame left there yesterday into a bowl and went out quietly with it. After washing my face with it, I fantasized I saw something and then I opened my eyes really well and I saw a woman dressed in all white with a beautiful cap on her head hand out water and what I soon came to realize was medicine to me. I had passed out and had been admitted to the community health centre in a nearby town, Odumase, for three days!

After my incident, Maame and Wofa never got on really well. But who said they were friends before? It is just that this time, they made it known to the whole compound that they are in a cold silent tug of war. My mother had always been like that. She never let anything slide, and against someone like Wofa Agyekum, she was ready to hold grudges till her death. I was disturbed. I knew that it was all my fault. But being disturbed didn’t mean I cared…

Wofa Agyekum liked women a lot, that I knew. But he never had any luck with any. And to think that would stop him from going after women would be a complete self-obstruction of one’s sense of judgment. He always brought in young women of all size and colour, one by one, into the house on weekends and they would leave the next Monday. My mother and Wofa’s sister, as nosy as she has always been, always had an issue with Wofa’s behaviour. I mean, who wouldn’t?

In life, when you play with destiny, it plays with you. Wofa knew exactly what his problems were yet he was not ready to change. He was getting worse. It even so happened that on one faithful Friday evening, when Wofa was out probably drinking at some spot, a beautiful lady found herself at our doorsteps. She was with a child of about a year or two who she claimed to be a child from Wofa’s loins. It wasn’t soon after that Wofa came home, drunk. Wofa said that he didn’t know her from anywhere. But the woman wasn’t a soft one. Wofa had played with fire and now she was ready to bite off his head. She threatened that if my uncle didn’t tell the truth, she would put a death curse on Wofa, his relatives, and his descendants. My uncle dared her to kill us, and she left the house at an instant.

When that happened, Maame was not at home. When she came, Mena Osowaa told her what had happened. First, she was angry at Osowaa for letting an abomination such happen in our house under her watch. She was also extremely angry at Wofa for bringing his curse onto our family. I didn’t believe in curses. But that didn’t make curses any less unreal. My mother, Agyiewaa Kodie, or Maame as I called her, on the other hand, believed in curses enough to fear them. She insisted that Wofa went to beg the mysterious lady who’s name Wofa could not recall and even if he did, would not mention it as he had so allegedly said that he knew her from nowhere.

A bigger trouble we would face in trying to evade the curse was looking for the mysterious lady who had vanished from the village within the hour. We were all so devasted. Nana, looking forward to her death, since she was already tired of living, nonetheless called me to hear one final story before we all died. My mother, shockingly was busily going about her chores, as if nothing had happened. For Wofa, all he wanted to do was to drink himself to death, for so had been his wish from the day he was born. Mena Osowaa was crying… I didn’t know what to do, and for the first time in my little life, I felt what it meant to fear: to fear evil spirits coming in at night; to be shaped by the thought of demons that will come after you when you sweep your room in the night; the doom that will come to your household when an owl rests on your roof; and the beauty in all our taboos that shaped our society and directed us on a bright and hopeful future.

Now only fool would think that even a person as confused as Wofa would want to die. That evening, no one in the family house ate, knowing very much that we were about to die. What would food do us anyway? Sorry, no one except one. But you already know who that is-Maame. She threw herself a feast, and with her not having to worry about what we would eat, I think she outdid herself. The next morning, death had not come for us, but the woman appeared with her child again. The moment Wofa saw them, he jumped unto his feet and went to meet them. He said, “Now I have remembered you, my dear. Please reverse the curse and I promise to take care of you and our daughter.” The Lady just said with her mouth that “I reverse the death I put on this family, O Nananom eduoson-esoun”. And just like that our fate had been reversed and my uncle had come back to his senses. And to think taboos aren’t important, I must have deceived myself.

I had learnt a lot of things the past few days. But my curious self would not let me rest on one final question. So, I reached out to the only person in the family who gave direct answers-Maame. I saw her at the kitchen, smoke coming out of her eyes like a rat in the burrow, while she was trying to rekindle the fire she intentionally put out yesterday. I asked in a gentle tone, “Maame, how was the lady able to reverse the death curse so easily.” There was silence, a stillness I had not felt around her before. Then she broke into a hysterical laugh like a madman and with paced breath, she said in her somewhat maniac voice, “There wasn’t any curse, to begin with!... Hahaha… Children can be so hilarious and naïve…”

Written By

Nana Kwesi Arthur

About the Author

Nana Kwesi Arthur is a Ghanaian writer exploring fiction, non-fiction, sci-fi, romance, comedy, myths and legend and a whole lot of genres through poems, novels, flash-fiction and plays.

He is currently a student of Mfantsipim School, offering General Science. Very idiosyncratic of him, he is often seen to base his works on real life experiences mainly from observation and stories from his grandmother. The prose, Once Upon a Time resonate his love for traditions and beliefs that bind the reality of our society. Through the eyes of a young boy who naively understands society in his own way, and the drama associated with his family, we see the power and influence of societal norms and beliefs in our lives, a message which the author so dearly wishes to communicate through his works. This story, as he says, is just an origin story of a writer who wishes to use his gift to make the world a better place.