Afolalu Akindele Anthony

 The reality that often knock men off their hollow wagon and birth into their mild and decelerate mind a sought of emergence into the light often comes after years of bathing and playing in the rain pervasively naked, sleeping in their sweats and emitting a ginormous measure of body odour at eighteen and if I may add, with no Iota of shame nor a moment of tranquility into why they seem not to increase like us not just physically but most especially way up there in their head. I would sit down and pounder over this unfairness which life had thrown at me without asking me first. It seems quite obvious that while these people had been from birth, granted the permission to grow at their own pace and have a long shot at been naive, childish and even conspicuously ignorant about what goes around them. We at other end of my side kind of missed the memo because my life naturally became complex as I heard the nurse or midwife, or doctor announced to my mother, “Obirin ni” .It’s a girl. Please spare me the correction, I had no idea which one. I was a day old for crying out loud. And for the record, figuratively and literarily; the cry was loud. It was hard to even breathe through the deafening and pentatonic vibrations of my own noise. “Awwww, Ewo Enu e. wo bounse ke” Look at her mouth. Yes I remember that one too. I was acting out the normal routine we were taught up there. You know the whole baby must cry thing to show it’s alive. Gabriel must have repeated it a million times. “When you finally get out. Make a loud cry so your mother can be at peace okay”. Gabriel had told us that trying to understand the complexness in the irony by which people of the world defines peace and happiness is like trying to find out why God is God. He would follow this statement with the same examples every time. “Expensive clothing are worn to impress the enemy who is not looking. They will rather buy you a drink than give you the exact amount. Kim Kardashian has more followers on Instagram than Mitchel Obama, and Orange is the new black. He would say all these to get us off his wings but not me. I must press my Inquiry button. “We must cry to bring peace? And why do they refer to us as it? I though that’s what they use for those things, what do they call them? Umh Animals. And why do they call themselves higher animals. I don’t understand these people. You mean when we get out, we are to become higher animals too? As usual, Gabriel will roll his eyes, spread his wings and leave our class. I am sure he was finally glad to get rid of me and deliver me to my mother. I was a thorn in the guy’s wings. Wait, He is a guy? I honestly do not know right now. I can’t remember. I tried opening my eyes to look around but that thing that keeps rolling round at one spot kept distracting me. I later heard someone call “it” a fan. An “it” like me too. I remember Gabriel telling us that babies pretending they cannot see for weeks after their arrival was no longer in vogue. It’s the year 2000. So I opened my two eyes immediately. I noticed another woman had brought one of us to life. They kept shouting “Okunrin ni. “It’s a boy!” The man Sited beside the mother of the new arrival kept caressing her. It was as though she had done something more specular than what my mother did. The look on his face and that of his well-wishers was as that of a person who died but not only made heaven but had heard gossips that there are thousands of crowns in his name. He was the father. I do not understand. I know I said it before. I still do not. It’s a baby like me who has another shape. He came through the same place, well maybe from another body. We were even class mates in Gabriel’s class. The father had something that looks like a white lamp in his hand. He kept talking to different people through it. ”It’s a boy”. He would shout that out first to whoever he was talking to. Then he would add: “My wife just put to bed.” I kept wondering what the big deal was about this whole “it’s a boy charade”. Then where is my father, why isn’t here to make such calls. I just don’t want to be a girl though.