This is the chapter one of my novel, up coming one, please let me know what you think, you can go to my blog and read more cisse7575..com
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1
It is July 17, 1994; my country Nigeria is in a state of turmoil as Moshood Abiola has declared himself president post a controversial election. Tension fills the atmosphere yet people scampering amidst the hustle remains the order of the day. Such is not the case in my world, on this day in the city of Otta, Ogun state. Hastily she emerges from the back yard with the medicine man, her eyes unfocused, somewhat in slumber. She stops in front of me, slowly lifting her eye gaze from my dislocated right knee before fixing it on mine. In her eyes, I try to find meaning but the blank stare from her, my mother provides the final answer.
The medicine man stands behind us, staring at Mom more than me. Moving closer to her, he utters, “I’m sorry. I’m just telling you the gospel truth. The brutal truth about your son.”
Gazing up, I notice the gloomy sky, the drizzle starting to fall, only this time the source are my mother’s eyes as she glowers at me again, and I do not know whether or not she is listening to this man.
“Oh, my God, what is happening?” she says, even as she gestures to me to follow her, only adding more confusion to an already perplexed situation. The medicine man stares at me, his thoughts a mystery to decipher. He is a man of forty-something years, the rays of the sun appear to have darkened his skin to resemble coal, reminiscent of the ancient Ogun warrior, the chief of all, huge, with a spherical head and a rough moustache. His ears are set closely to his head, and his close-set eyes seem to be red.
“You,” he verbalizes to me, “God will heal you,” he adds wearily.
“Amen,” I say.
I stand up. With my staff in my right hand, I hop behind Mom like someone whose right leg has been amputated. Lingering thoughts stay on my mind as I wonder why she wants me to go away without being attended to by the medicine man. The sharp pain brings me back to reality as I hope I am being taken to another place, to another medicine man.
She walks as if she is in daze, almost falling. We amble out of the medicine man’s house to his compound, which is surrounded by green grass. The grass is moist because the dew is still on it; maybe it too feels sorry for Mom, offering its appealing look in exchange for her tears. The dust-covered road begs to differ even as we embark home unfulfilled.
We leave the compound and face the tarred road, which resembles the overfilled public incinerators that we see in the city. Mom trudges oblivious to the smell and not covering her nose in her usual manner. The monotonous rain of the past few days had made the road muddy, making everyone walk more slowly. Our irritation at the muddy roads pales in comparison to the normal extreme heat of the sun that makes every house an oven.
My mother is born 43 years ago in a village called Seriki in Ogun State. Fair complexion with a round face, deep brown eyes, and hair the color of charcoal, she stood tall, like the architect she is trained to be. She didn’t graduate with an architectural engineering degree from a university in Lagos, she learned it under a company, but since Nigeria freed itself from colonization, the architectural work she learned is not lucrative and she had to pick up a trade for income.
She is raised by her parents to believe that there is nothing more important than children. Nothing else she can count on, nothing else she can trust more than her children. She learned from her mother that the one who suckles your breast from infanthood is the one to lay your trust in, and so she should not trust any man the way she trusts her children.
She had started suffering with her children twenty-two years ago, when she had her first child, my sister Fatima. Mine appears to surpass it all, the suffering of this big-headed boy of fifteen, the boy she had wished to help her in her shop three years ago is now feeble to work.
I’m still unaware of what is happening, not quite sure where we are going. Should I ask her what the medicine man has told her? Oh, no, I mustn’t. She won’t answer, and this is not the right time to ask.
We finally reach the tarred road and stand quite still in our usual manner, waiting anxiously to no avail for a commercial bike to take us to Sango, the nearest city, where we can get a bus to take us home.
“Can you walk?” she asks wearily, at last.
Here is the opportunity I had been waiting for to ask her what just happened.
“What is happening, Mama?”
She gapes at my eyes, then down at my knee. She turns around, starring behind us at the medicine man’s compound. He is still standing there, looking at us. Almost immediately, Mom turns her eyes away from him and closes them in defiance. “I don’t want to see him again,” she declares.
“But, Mom,” I say, “what is happening?”
She doesn’t speak, slowly gesturing with the index finger of her right hand that we must be going.
Is it that she doesn’t want us to stand where the medicine man can spot us? Am I going to toddle that long distance?
The rain continues as the tears are still streaming down her face. The passers-by gaze at us, looking at me more than at her, gazing at my knee more than other parts of my body. Mom holds her breasts, her mouth ajar, but words appear incomprehensible. The movement of her lips seems to indicate that she is praying but to whom or for what is a mystery.

The journey continues as we keep meandering, the clock’s minute hand shows ten minutes has passed. The sun is playing hide and seek from behind the clouds, somewhat eager to start its daily duties. The normal hustle and bustle is happening as everyone is heading back to their respective homes or offices. The bike riders will soon stop riding to avoid the glistening rays from the sun, which I wish my mother will also suggest we do instead of having us turn to akara, our local fried delicacy made from beans, in this oven. It seems like we have been walking for ages, yet the medicine man lurks behind us, even as we are still within view of his house. I wish I can walk faster instead of these frog-like hops I can only manage to take.
Still trekking, still hoping, she is still whining, and I’m still wondering. Her bemoaning is scaring me. I’m thinking… What is going to happen?
To whom will it happen?
When?
Where?
What is the bad thing that will happen?
Why would this happen?
How?
Now I am thinking maybe it has already happened. I do not know what to think. All I know is that very soon it will be over and I will be out of this suspense and her out of her misery.
I begin to feel fatigued. The pain and the stress are terrible. I wish I could whimper but remember it might only upset Mom even more. I wish Mom would let us have some rest. This hopping may have caused another problem in my wounded leg.
As the pain worsens, anger starts to develop within me; doesn’t Mom know I must rest? Why is she not talking to me? Why are we taking this long trek? Sometimes the anger in me seems to win over the pain, but the pain in my knee always wins because of this non-stop hopping.
I wonder what she is s declaring that is keeping her lips so busy. She is ignoring me and seems oblivious to my pain. I wish she would look at me so she would see what I’m going through. Like an answer from God, suddenly she gazes at me.
“Shall we rest?” she verbalizes.
“Mom,” I respond, “what is happening?”
“Let’s have some rest here,” is all she says.
Though we remain within sight of the medicine man, we are now far away from him.
Almost immediately, a commercial bike with no passengers approaches. Waving her right index finger, Mom stops him. Bike drivers have been acclimatized to people just gesturing with their fingers to stop them, but when passengers are on the bike, they talk.
“Are you going to Sango?” the bike man asks.
Mom nods her head. “Yes.”
“I said Sango,” the bike man says, “because I have taken you there one or two times before.”
Given the dismal amount of customers on the street, the bike man is probably ready to take us to Timbuktu if we ask him. I hop onto the seat awkwardly right in the middle, and Mom sits behind me. She pays the bike man as soon as we arrive at Sango. We get down and start to move to where the commercial buses are. She is still using her fingers to communicate.
As we are going, the bike man calls, “Madam!”
Mom looks back. She decides to pay the bike man. “Sorry,” she says wearily. She is reaching for her bag, bringing out some cash and saying again, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that I hadn’t paid the fare.”
She takes out a Naira Note, which she begins to give to the bike man.
“But, Madam,” he says, “I’m just calling you for your change. You’ve paid, but you did not collect your change.”
She takes the change. “Thank you,” she says, her mind obviously everywhere else but here.
The bike man pulls away, and I stand still, wondering and surprised that such a nice man still exists.
We stand there, ready to board a motor vehicle to go back home. Mom stands with tears in her eyes, and she glowers to heaven with her brown eyes, as if to curse it.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” she addresses heaven. “So whether or not they amputate him, he’s dying soon? So am I losing him soon?”
“Huh!” I say. I do not know whether or not I heard her correctly.
She suddenly looks at me. She is terribly shocked. She grins quickly. “I am just saying something else.” She takes a longer breath, then continues, “I’m not talking to you.”
I do not speak. I do not need to talk because I know what is going to happen. I know it. I’m going to have my leg amputated.
I am afraid of amputation. I picture being strapped on a bed. Or am I going to be on the ground again with huge men holding me down? Will I be hooked up to an assortment of knives that will do the cutting on my knee? Or is it not going to be a knife? It could be one of those local cutlasses, right? What are they going to use? A white man’s machine that makes the loud noise as it slices right through maybe? Where are they going to cut my leg? Below the knee or above the knee? It will surely be above the knee. Then what will happen? Will I have to use two staffs to toddle? Then I will look like a toddling dead man. Maybe I'll be too weak to use a staff at all. Then I will be left to sit put for the rest of my life until my hair becomes gray.
I will have to live in pain for another couple of months, if not longer. I know the treatment will take days. It will hurt. There will be a lot of bandages where my leg will be amputated. My friends won't recognize me. And I won't like myself. I won't be able to concentrate on anything in this world again. My life will become a blur, one throbbing moment after another. What am I waiting for? I must run very far away from home today. But must I run away? It seems that she said I will die soon. I’d better die where they will see my corpse; at least that is better than dying in a strange land. This might as well be the end of my life as I know it because in my head, I am like a goat being led to the slaughter house.

Our family story starts many years ago in the little Yoruba village called Areta.
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What ya think?

I hope this doesn't sound too cold, but you need to improve your punctuation.