C2 I Meet My Maker

Nobody believed me when I told them what happened. The matrons and the guards just shook their heads and lead me gently away. "He's in shock," said one to the other when I described how Mr Ohia had turned into a rhinoceros and attacked. Most of the officials thought it was my usual madness acting up, while the more sympathetic ones believed it was some sort of head trauma. I got the full details a few days later when a particularly chatty nurse bandaged my foot.

"Matron Ada and most of the guards think you're insane... more than usual at least," she informed me cheerfully. "Others are insisting you must have knocked your head on something to have brought on such powerful hallucinations."

She opened a jar containing some weird smelling concoction and began to rub it gingerly on my sore ribs. Turns out I'd only bruised them, but it still felt like they were on fire any time I brushed it against something.

"So what's the official story?" I asked. The nurse frowned at my choice of words, then let it go with a sympathetic nod. Apparently, she was in the head trauma group.

"You were very lucky," she said gently, like she was afraid I might snap and attack her. "That lightning bolt could have killed you."

And that was the end of the matter. I was released two days later and was immediately engulfed in a bone-crushing hug by my friends. My sides stung a little because of it, but I didn't mind.

"Can you imagine that they wouldn't let us in to see you?" Kosi asked in outrage. Beside her, looking around warily was I.K. They were dressed in their usual outfits, but I couldn't help but notice the deep bags under their eyes.

"How long have you been here?" I asked.

"Since last night more or less," I.K whispered. "Kosi wouldn't leave when the matrons told him we wouldn't be allowed to see you."

I shook my head, grinning widely. That sounded exactly like what Kosi would do. Then I noticed the pronoun I.K had used.

I raised an eyebrow. "He?" Then my gaze fell on the braids Kosi had in a tight ponytail and I remembered. "Ah. You’re a boy today."

He nodded, then made a face. "Yeah. Thank God they allow us to wear trousers regardless of gender. I don't ever want to go back to the medical centre again."

"But we are in the medical centre," I pointed out.

"You know what I mean," Kosi snapped irritably. "The psycho ward where they shove us incorrigible cases." He waved a hand dismissively. "But that's by the way. What happened to you? People are saying you were struck by lightning."

"They're not all that wrong," I replied and told them the story. For a moment, the two of them said nothing and just stared at me. Even I.K was too shocked to be his usual timid self.

"That's quite a story," I.K said finally. He frowned and placed the back of his hand against my forehead. "Are you sure you didn't hit your head?"

"Listen, I'm very serious," I said, moving away from I. K's hand. "In the two months that we've known each other have I ever made up a story?"

"No," Kosi allowed. "But you screamed in the library. I thought that that was gone." I sighed and shrugged.

"I thought so too. I don't know why it came back but I swear I'm not making this up."

Kosi opened his mouth to say something but I.K quickly interrupted. "How about we walk and talk at the same?" he begged. "That matron is giving us the evil eye." I turned to see the old crone stalking towards us, a scowl on her face.

"Great idea," I said and we quickly left the lobby. The sky outside was dark with grey clouds. Lightning flashed in the distance, giving me a strong sense of déjà vu. My friends looked surprised.

"It's still cloudy?" Kosi asked in disbelief.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"It been cloudy since the day you got fried," I.K complained. "But it never actually rains."

"It still doesn't mean that you're correct," Kosi chipped in, having caught sight of the hopeful look on my face. "It could just be the weather."

I opened my mouth to tell them exactly what I thought of that theory, but then the bell for the refectory rang and more important thoughts shoved that out of the way. The days that followed were frustrating, to say the least. Kosi and I.K blatantly refused to believe me, convinced I'd hallucinated the whole thing.

"It's not your fault, these things happen," I.K had said, his face creased with concern. "The lightning was just a freak weather condition."

Several things also happened that lent weight to that conclusion. Eventually, the storm clouds dissipated, but it was quickly replaced by the harshest sunlight in living memory. We didn't have access to television – the wards at least – but the matrons' loud gossip sessions meant we knew that the crazy weather wasn't just isolated in our part of Nigeria.

"There was an earthquake in Jos and snow's been falling in Ghana for three days now," Kosi said. She (she was a girl today) and I.K were in my room and while it was technically illegal for a girl to be in a guy's room and vice-versa, Kosi had blackmailed the guards into letting her pass. I'd asked her countless times, but she wouldn't tell me the dirt she had on them.

"And it's spreading," I.K continued after her. "The matrons are saying that meteorologists claim that the entire continent could be affected in a month."

"See," I said. "I'm not crazy. This proves that..."

"Nobody's saying that you're crazy," Kosi began in a tone that meant that that was exactly what she was saying. "But scientists have been working on this thing and they believe that they are close to figuring it out. Some think it's just a weather system that has never been documented before."

I just huffed in annoyance. "I don't know why you guys are my friends."

"We love you too," I.K replied smiling.

They kept at me with their logic and theories, and after a while, they started to wear me down. Maybe I had hallucinated the whole thing. I did hit my head pretty hard after all. Maybe it was a new side effect of my emotional instability. Fast forward to two weeks later and I had almost managed to convince myself that it was all a bad dream.

So naturally, I woke up the next morning to find an unearthly being a few inches from my face.

"AAAAAHH!" I screamed and tumbled out of bed. Not for the first time, I cursed the facility for making us wear these straitjackets to bed. Now I was going to be murdered because of it. The thing picked me up effortlessly and placed me on the bed. I opened my eyes, determined that if I was going to die I would at least get a good look at my killer so I could haunt them from beyond the grave.

It was like staring into a mirror. The thing looked exactly like me. It had the same pointed nose, firm jaw, broad shoulders and embarrassingly large ears that had made everyone in school call me Dumbo. We were even dressed the same. The only difference was whereas my skin was a sandy brown; the creature's was a chalky white. It cocked its head at me.

"What... what are you?" I stammered.

The creature frowned. "What do you mean by 'what'?" it asked. "I am a who!" I had been expecting it to have my voice so I nearly fainted when a deep, macho male's voice poured out from its mouth. Was that how I was going to sound when I got older? Heavens, save me.

"Who are you then?" I asked when I managed to get over its sudden appearance. It scowled, still smarting from the 'insult'.

"I am Iboma," it said finally. "I am your chi."

My face stayed blank.

"Chi!" it repeated, growing more and more outraged when it was obvious I didn't have a clue what it was talking about. "I am your chi. You know, personal god, guardian, protector of life etc."

"Wait... what?"

It sighed, pinching its nose. "They warned me about this," he said to no one in particular. "They told me this might be difficult. But I thought that anyone capable of fighting off the Lord of Rhinos, even with help would know something!" It frowned at me. "Didn't your grandfather teach you anything?"

"Well, he did tell me some things... wait a minute. You know my grandfather?"

"Of course I know your grandfather," it replied like this was the silliest question ever. "Just my luck," it moaned. "I get saddled with the useless life. How can the world's fate hinge on such blatant incompetence?"

"Listen, Iboma, whatever you are... I don't know what is going on and..."

"Shush," my chi said irritably. "It's even worse than I thought. And with you knowing nothing..." it stared at me, then seemed to come to a decision. "Pack your things," it commanded. "We're leaving."

"Why..."

"I helped make you," Iboma snapped. "So you will do whatever I tell you." It snapped its fingers and the straitjacket vanished. I thought it wiser to obey and ask questions later so I hurried around and threw my underwear and other clothes into a bag. My creepy twin watched me with an impatient look on its face, occasionally glancing nervously at the bright sky.

"I'm ready," I announced a couple of minutes later. All my worldly belongings were packed into a bag the size of a small baby. I tried not to think of how sad that must look.

"Finally," my chi muttered. It raised a hand.

"Wait," I said. "I... I want to tell my friends goodbye."

"Your friends," it frowned, then slapped a hand against its forehead. "I can't believe I almost forgot them. Hang on." It snapped its fingers and the world turned upside down. I had the weird sensation of falling sideways and heard an odd chanting before we slammed down on Kosi's room. She stared at us, frozen in the act of folding her clothes.

"What..." she began, but the rest of her words were lost as we vanished again. This time I.K screamed when we appeared and simultaneously let fly a pillow at us. The pillow bounced harmlessly off my head and hit the floor. The boy was hyperventilating, his eyes looking like they were trying to escape from his head.

"Relax," I said gently. "This is Iboma. He is my chi."

I.K stopped panicking at once. "No way!" he said staring at my twin like he was a miracle. "I don't think chi ever show themselves to mortals."

"Finally, someone that knows something. And observant too," Iboma made a satisfied sound. "You'll make an excellent dibia child."

"What?" Kosi asked. "I..."

"We don't have much time," my chi interrupted. "I'll explain everything but we need to get out of here first."

"Can't just teleport us out?" I asked.

"No. I've already used it twice on you. Trying it again means increasing the chance that you'll spontaneously combust."

"English please," Kosi asked.

"He'll burst into flames and die. Quite painfully in fact." Iboma snapped his fingers and two bags appeared in my friends' hands. "Now come on."

I exchanged a look with them. I.K nodded eagerly while Kosi just shrugged. We followed the god.

The guards yelled in alarm when they saw us trying to escape but Iboma just flicked his hand, like he was trying to shoo away a fly, and they dropped like sacks. The sun glared down harshly at us when we came to the courtyard, but Iboma whistled happily as he walked, oblivious to our hisses of pain and pitiful attempts to shield ourselves with our bags.

The white gates burst open at our approach and when the security guards manning it tried to stop us they slipped and fell. They frowned and tried to get up, but they kept on slipping as if they were on ice.

"What was that?" I asked.

"I convinced their chi to take a temporary break," Iboma replied. "Shocking, how few of those we get."

"Okay," Kosi began. "Now that we're out of the facility can you please explain what's going on?"

"First of all, I am Amobi's chi; his personal god and guardian," said my twin. "It's my job to protect him from harm and other unfortunate events."

"Well, you went very helpful when I was attacked by a deranged rhino," I snapped.

"I was busy," Iboma frowned. "Do you know how close humans come to dying every day? We remove threats that you don't even know about. Like that fence that's about to collapse and kill those people."

"What fence..." I started, then stared at the direction he was pointing at. Sure enough, the fence crumbled and fell, missing the pedestrians walking beside it by a hair's breadth.

"What you call luck is actually the influence of your chi. Did you know that you could have slipped on the church steps, cut your lip and died of a severe infection?" he asked. "We are too busy saving you from the little things to always notice the big things. It's not my fault that you attract big things towards you. That's why I'm here. To make sure that you get to the House of Life in one piece."

"Isn't that the name of a cult?" I.K asked, looking worried.

Iboma swelled. "The House of Life is a noble institution that is older than some countries. It is part of a wider network of guardian locales responsible for maintaining balance in the world. It is most definitely not a cult. There are dibias that would tear out your tongue for saying such."

I.K gulped.

"How far is it?" Kosi whined. Her scowl got deeper. "I don't know how much longer I can tolerate this sunlight. It's melting my insides."

"Not far. We just have to make a turn at the next intersection."

Kosi fell silent, idly looking around. The tarred road had changed into a dusty path and a few clumps of weeds stood guard on one side of it. The other held patchy looking stores made from corrugated zinc and strips of wood. The owners were as worn and dusty as their stores and they stared suspiciously at us as we passed. Even these people knew about St. Gregory's and their wards.

We turned left at the promised intersection and the road dropped all the pretence and turned into a tiny trail. Thick bushes and trees lined the trail on all sides now, blocking out most of the sunlight. I frowned as we ventured deeper into the foreboding scene. I didn't remember seeing this place when I first came to St. Gregory's.

"Where are we?" Kosi whispered, echoing my thoughts. "This wasn't here before." Beside me I.K shivered slightly, all excitement gone in the face of the dark forest we'd just walked into. Iboma didn't answer and just kept walking. After a while, we emerged into familiar roads lined with houses and shops. I turned and wasn't all that surprised to find that the forest had vanished.

"What just happened?" I asked.

"We took a shortcut through an evil forest," My chi replied casually.

"We what?" Kosi screamed. "We... how... we could have been attacked!"

"No evil spirit would be foolish enough to attack when one of your chi is physically manifesting," Iboma replied dismissively. "Besides most of the mmuo have gone back to the spirit world."

I thought of asking what he meant by that, but then decided it was easier to just shut up and go with the flow. A few minutes later, we stopped at a crossroads. Directly in front of us was a giant iroko tree. A tattered piece of cloth that had once been white millions of years ago was wrapped against its massive trunk. A crumbling little building that I figured must have been a shrine drooped sadly beside it. The area was completely deserted; most sensible people were inside their homes hiding from the heat.

Iboma kept walking, then vanished into the tree. Our mouths fell open and we gave each other startled looks. After a moment, my chi, or rather his disembodied head poked out from the tree trunk. "What are you waiting for? Come in."

Kosi, I.K and I stared. "Well," I said finally. "I guess we have no choice but to obey the floating head."

We all took deep breaths and walked into the tree together. I expected to smack hard against the trunk but we passed through it like it wasn't even there and came out the other side.

My jaw detached from my face.

"Welcome," cried Iboma dramatically. "To the House of Life."