The
31st night which gave birth to the New Year was a night of jamboree too
– New Year eve. It was like nobody slept in Ozuakoli. All the churches in
Ozuakoli bubbled with people for tarry-night. The night bore different names from
different Pentecostal churches - Passover night, Crossing the red sea night,
Liberation Night and too many other names. They clapped and sang and danced all
night as they crossed over to the New Year. Melvin did not go to the church
with his parents. He tarried at home playing cards with his cousin Emmanuel
because he was feeling sleepy. Before now, he went to church every 31st
December to participate in the crossover prayers and to submit his yearly
prayer points to the prayer warrior group. His recurring prayer point was that
God should deliver his father from his drunken habit. Now he had grown tired of
saying unanswered prayers. He wanted to spend the night differently. He wanted
to spend the night together with like minds, with other undergraduates on their
planed burn fire night.
The
village square was quiet at first as everybody froze and waited for the great
double bell to chime. It was the big bell hung on the umbrella tree at the
centre of the village square. It was as if the harmattan froze too waiting for
twelve midnight too. Dried leaves didn’t fall from the umbrella tree at the
village square. Only some distant sound of bangers could be heard. Even the
smell of smokes that oozed from the nearby compounds into the village square
now felt seized. Soon the bell would announce twelve midnight and the square
would catch fire with activities. And there would be electric in the air. Melvin
was prepared with his fireworks and tyres to burn. He jumped out of bed
immediately the bell sounded and rolled his tyres to the village square. So did
almost everybody in Ozuakoli who did not go to the church that night. It would
be folly to stay indoors in such a night like Tee Ukandu who saw no reason for
the New Year eve. He said there was no
difference between the incumbent year and the coming year. It was just days
coming and going and nights coming and going. No changes. They called him a foolish
man mad with wisdom. The village square got crammed full with people displaying
various things in a twinkle of an eye, throwing all sorts of fireworks into the
air. Before Melvin could roll out his tyres to the village square, the entire
place had already lit up with burning tyres and their black smokes ascending
sky high like propitiatory sacrifice. It was serious bonfire night with people
singing discordantly and dancing round their different bonfires. As Melvin
caught sight of Emmanuel and the other undergraduates dancing around their fire
far from others, he thought what it would be like in hell fire and shuddered.
He did the sign of the cross, sighed and moved on. The frenzy was meant to last
for only one hour. From the gate, Melvin watched a little while.
“Afo
laa oh!”
“Afo
laa oh!
“Afo
laa oh!”
Mixed
voices screamed from different corners and hurrying legs scampered round
burning fires provoking sleeping dusts that comingled with the choking black
smokes of the burning tyres. Weary hands rolled out some more tyres and some
cloths that descended into the fire with them. The owners of the cloths would
not need them again in the coming year lest they come with the ill luck from
the outgoing year clinging to them. Okafor danced uncontrollably in the crowd
making from one burn fire circle to another, throwing his fireworks in to their
fires too. He had no tyres to burn. Melvin watched him run towards the village
township hall. He tore the Pentecostal church banner tied to the wall of the
village township hall and ran along with it like a parachute. It was the banner
that said “CROSS OVER AND LEAVE SATAN BEHIND”. He wrapped the banner together
and threw it in to the fire together with a knockout and screamed; “afo laao!”
The sounds of the fireworks cracked the growing mist of dust and smoke; they were
meant to chase away the stingy incumbent year and usher in a fresh new year and
the smell of carbide filled the air; the kind of odour that caused sicknesses
in domestic fowls and get them turning their necks round and round as if watching
some aeroplanes in the air. At the undergraduates’ corner, they sang one kegite
song after another and walked gently round their fire in Ajebor fashion – their cloths homely, their steps comely and the
songs funny and ridiculous rendition of gospel songs. Other people watched and
admired them. Melvin joined and swayed with them round the bonfire.
The
situations in the churches were similar, only that tyres and cloths were not
burnt there. People in the church danced and sang choruses; their thunderous clap
of hands sounded louder than the fireworks outside; songs that chase away the
incumbent year. They conjured Holy Ghost fire and burnt the stingy year; fire
that burnt on invisible incendiary materials stronger than the tyres outside.
They didn’t burn there cloths in the church. They donated them to the church to
be given to the needy. Some donated some other properties of theirs to the
church; cars, cloths, shoes and money. Those properties didn’t follow their
owners into the New Year lest they come with their accompanying bad lucks. The smell
of incense filled the churches the way the carbides did outside. Like the
welcoming of the messiah in to Jerusalem, songs of praises poured on the ground
like red carpet for the New Year. If he were a human, the New Year must have
stood by the corner watching as Ozuakoli gave him the red carpet reception. He
might be smiling at them now and spotting the people among them whom he would visit
with bad omen and whom he would bless. Tomorrow they said was pregnant and
nobody knew what her offspring would be; twins to some, a male or female child
to others, some others triplets and to yet others imbeciles or still birth.
As
for the incumbent year, if it were human too, he would be moving away now with
face ashen, step by step as the restless clock went tic-tac, tic-tac, tic-tac
for him. He would turn back at intervals to look at the unprecedented injustice
they paid him with as even those he had been good with joined the crowd; chased
him away like a horrible disease, just as the good book said the ungrateful
Jews did to the messiah.
Tic-tac,
tic-tac, tic-tac, the clock would continue banging for him, so rudely.
“Ingrates,
you are chasing away the devil you know for an angel you do not know”, he would
mutter and breeze out but that would not matter because the people were no
longer interested in him. Then the New Year would give a wicked grin and step
in gently like a king.
“Damn
you ungrateful fools,” he might grout and stepped in, knowing that in no
distant time he too would be treated the same way as his colleague.
Melvin
thought these over as he poured a little kerosene on his tyres and lit up fire
that rekindled the students’ corner.
“Afo
laa oh!” he shouted and they all made round the bonfire several times. People
threw in fireworks into the fire that made thunderous sounds splashing fire and
embers about to scare away the stingy year.
12.30am
marked the beginning of welcome songs all over the village square. The year
stepped in accompanied by several gun salutes made by the cacophonous sounds of
fireworks far and near and the crackling of the burning tyres. The year finally
stepped in with a very heavy chilly harmattan wind and the people made joyous
sounds in unison as they felt his presence, though he did not talk to them. One
by one they dispersed, feet dragged wearily. Melvin got home dead beat and
famished.
“It
was all the same,” he thought, “wasn’t it the same farewell and welcome? Only
the final Passover prayers in the church made the difference.”
He knelt down facing the bed. He pushed his
index finger into his nostrils and the finger emerged smeared with charcoal
black substances. He repeated the action severally to clean the smokes he had
inhaled from the burn fire. With his head bent on the mattress he said a short
prayer ambivalently and made his New Year resolution.
Even
before dawn everybody knew what Mr. Samuel’s New Year resolution had always been
- To quit taking alcohol - a resolution he always failed a day after. Melvin
closed his eyes and said a short prayer again and asked God to help his father
live up to his resolution and refrain from alcoholism. It was the kind of
prayer he always said whenever he saw his father sober. He crossed himself and
sighed. He felt God had ignored him as usual. After his prayers he started
arranging his things to travel back to Aba. The remaining two days were like
two years to him. The village would become boring from the next day. Many
people would travel back to the urban areas and left in the village would be
the elderly and little children.
