Ozor

Ozor lay on his hammock in his hut, right leg casually swinging as he hummed a tune that scarcely resembled the song the village warriors usually chanted during their weekly training sessions in the village square. He’d always wondered what it would be like to join them when they went into battle in the defense of their proud hamlet. Each time he made up his mind to join, he always made some silly excuse as to why he couldn’t, the latest of which being that he did not know how to whistle and everybody else in the group could. What kind of warrior would he be if he couldn’t whistle the morale building songs that the other warriors did so effortlessly?

As he lay there, day dreaming of distant strange worlds where fantasies came through as often as the sunrise and sunset, Chiege burst in to the hut, breathless, she tried to speak but the words that came out of her mouth were incoherent. Ozor jumped up and dashed across the tiny hut in one broad stride and put two hands on her shoulders and urged her to calm down.

“Chi, calm down eh, what is wrong?”

She struggled to catch her breath, “Your sister, A… Amaka… we went to the stream to fetch water…”

She was sobbing now. Ozor tried to comfort her, tried to get her to speak. Worry lines started to crease his forehead. He felt like he knew what was coming. “Chi, what?! What happened??”

“She’s… she’s dead…” The words came out of her mouth quickly followed by a loud wailing sound that just as well could have come from a wounded animal. Chiege broke down in tears as Ozor bolted out of the hut and made a beeline towards the stream, bare feet throbbing as he ran through the bush, ignoring the cleared path. He had to get there quickly, he had to get there before… Before what? She was already dead, why was he running? He couldn’t stop, didn’t stop until he burst out of the lightly wooded area into a clearing that housed the village’s only source of clean water. There was a crowd, they appeared to have gathered around something, something that had apparently been interesting enough to have everyone leave their water containers and loin cloths unattended. His heart was beating rapidly, threatening to force its way out of his rib cage and through his chest. He pushed his way through the crowd, and there she was, lying there, lifeless. His lips quivered as he slowly descended to his knees, as if scared to wake her from a restful sleep. He put a hand on her cheek, and then another. Her skin felt damp and strange. She wasn’t there anymore. Amaka was gone. He rested his head on her bosom and sobbed for what seemed like an eternity, then he raised his head and let out a loud sound. It was strange, neither a yell nor a scream, neither a roar nor a cry. It was just a sound, a sound so permeated with pain and grief that it caused everyone that stood around him to breakout in tears and screams.

Anguish quickly gave way to rage. He rose to his feet as slowly as he had descended and turned around to face the crowd. The number appeared to have grown in the brief moment his back was turned. Chiege had joined the crowd, she stood, still sobbing heavily, eyes glued to the corpse that lay behind Ozor. He scanned the crowd, face after face, not really seeing them rage pouring out of his teary, yet steely eyes…

“What happened?!”, He asked, teeth clenched, directing the question at no one in particular. Silence.

Chiege wiped the tears and snot from her face with the back of her palms and steeled herself as she spoke…

“Amaka and I got up early to go to the stream to fetch water like we always do. On our way back from our first trip, we ran into Amadi…” she said gesturing with a jut of her chin towards the stout, well-built young man that stood to at the left side of the rapidly growing crowd. She paused for a second to wipe her face again, then continued…

“Amaka asked me to go on ahead of her, that she’d catch up with me. I got home and emptied the water into the big clay pot, came straight back to the stream to get more water. I expected to see Amaka on the way but I didn’t. I assumed she must have run off with Amadi somewhere, she did that sometimes. On my fourth trip to the stream, I ran into Amadi again and asked him where Amaka was. He said he had left her a while ago and maybe she went home. He walked me to the stream and that’s when I saw Chizoba and Adaobi, screaming, dragging something out of the stream. It was Amaka’s body…” and with that, the flood gates burst open again and she broke out into loud, breathy sobs.

In a flash, Ozor leaped on Amadi, both of them crashing hard into the ground.

“What did you do to my sister?” He screamed “You killed her! You killed Amaka!”

In a swift, practiced move, Amadi turned the tables and was now on top of Ozor, urging him to calm down. It was a mismatch, Amadi was a member of the village warriors group and clearly outweighed Ozor.

“I didn’t do anything…” Amadi said, pleadingly. “I swear”

Two muscular men from the crowd separated them and held on to Amadi.

“Hold him!” Ozor screamed, “He killed my sister… He… killed her…” He broke down, sobbing loudly.