Inside a fool’s dictionary by Jill Okpalugo-Nwajiaku
Last December, I saw Nonyelum and a world of difference between reality and ideality. Whereas the ideal is the very standard of perfection imagined by the mind, the real is the true character of things our minds refuse to accept. Inside a fool’s dictionary is the word idealism that reminds my older cousin Azuka of fools like me that imagine men like Obika to be perfect effigies; the princes of our youthful innocence smoothly wrought into gods by our covetousness appetites.
One thing I have gladly suffered in this life is competition. For thirty years, I vacillated to marry because I had never met a man that rivalled Obika’s durability. Even with my efforts in academics, (a bachelor in Science and two Master of plate tectonics) I could go no-where. Once, I almost drained my whole life savings in an American university where I hoped to take a PhD in cognitive science and marry someone handsomer than he. But Azuka gave me a good looking, dusted my CV, and applied for consultancy in three oil companies in Port Harcourt city.
Now before I became Nonyelum’s illusory contender, I called her my sister even though she is my childhood playmate. We had built and pushed down our sand houses in the village arena under the watchful eyes of the comely maidens whose broad hips attracted the older men seeking new wives. As we grew older, we ran about naked and potbellied through the tepid rainwater splashing down the dusty zinc roofs onto the rocky ground. And as more years passed, she became the essence of my sick state of mind; and often I filmed her life with Obika in my mental camera- the real and imagined.
Nonyelum lost her father at infancy and her mother before her breasts were fully formed. Her intense beauty that was freshly plucked spinach pushed her into an early marriage to Obika whom we supposed was moneyed because he lived in America. I had believed Obika owned the world too. The day she set out for America; she being the first female in our village to attain such a feat akin to feasting with the grand masquerader of Osisha, our chi or god; even the rocks and coconut trees swayed as we wept and heaped our bulky gifts on the soft earth- sculptures presented to commemorate us overseas, and remind her to send us the new money called dollar.
Azuka had looked over the large expanse of land filled with gifts, then into her camera. “She won’t send you dollar,” she said walking away with threaded eyebrows.
I lost my line of argument, watched the climbing smoke and well wishers that resembled a gray charcoal wedge from where I stood. Then I raced down the sparse valley, joined the queue, and handed Nonyelum my beloved box of crayons.
“Look at you, child,” Azuka said the day we met Nonyelum in December. Dust raced in circles as harmattan dried the earth to an uncanny unevenness. Nonyelum’s face was marked with tears, like a sofa covered with dust. She looked thin and unhappy with eyes like the paleness of a half moon in cloudy skies.
We stuck together like compound leaves and talked for minutes, studying the aftermath of an awful marriage on her features. And on seeing the dewdrops on the waist of a broad leaf, I called her a changed city.
“It’s such a pity that Obika turned out a looser that left you sick and tending three mouths,” Azuka said with an unhappy look. Slowly, she turned to me. “I’m sorry for you too.”
The body of the message was short. And it made my eyes water. Like it did whenever I peeled fresh onions.
Jill is published in Snap online literary journal, Identity Theory and P&W journals.
