The initial occasion that it occurred, I thought I was dreaming. I was strolling back home after studying in Ilorin when the sky was filled with clouds and had a smell of rain, and I heard a voice behind me. Nothing, precisely an appearance. I turned around. Empty street. Only the luminous ray of a street lamp, flickering.
It was later that evening after taking suya and cold malt that I informed my friend Tunde about it. He laughed and he nearly overthrew his malt. You are listening to things, Aden.
Perhaps you are fussing in final exams.
“I’m not crazy,” I said. I sounded more like yelling than I intended, and it cut the air in the city. “I really felt it.”
Tunde shrugged. “Sure, man. Whatever helps you sleep.”
I didn’t sleep well that night. It felt again, as it had been in dreams. There were some shadows that were moving a little further than I could see.
There were steps on a time with mine, but, as I turned, there was no one anywhere. I awoke with my blanket in hand, my heart beating wildly, and wondering what possibly I thought had happened.
The following day I informed my younger sister, Funke. She knew how to listen without laughing. She tilted her head, eyes wide "Aden, you should get some space just some quiet time.”
I nodded but I could not guess what quiet time was when I was still pursued by the whispers even in the market, between the stalls of roasted corn and groundnuts. They didn’t speak, exactly. They hinted. The touch of an easel of air which seemed like fingers, a flash in the corner of my eye.
At first, I tried to ignore it. There were lectures, assignments, messages in WhatsApp, the rattling of bikes in the dusty streets, all actually required my attention. But the emotion was intensified.
One night I was sitting on the balcony, with the sun setting behind the hills which embraced our town. It was a blood-orange sky, the uncommon silent charm of beauty. Then I heard it: the voice, which was soft and nearly playful, and called my name.
I froze.
“See? You are mad and you tell me that tomorrow, Tunde said to me the following day.
“I’m not,” I insisted, my jaw tight.
“Something’s… there. Whatever it wants I do not know, But it is real."
"Ghosts he said," laughing once more.
“Not ghosts. Something else.”
It did not happen until that Friday when I was assisting our neighbor Mama Ijeoma in hauling crates of tomatoes out of her farm to the roadside that I began to see patterns. The whispers weren’t random. They seemed deliberate.
Whenever I paid attention, they pulled me to things that were important such as dropping my notebook and the page I was about to read dropped out, or leading me to assist Mama Ijeoma before a load was dropped on her.
I didn’t tell anyone. What can I say that made me feel the way it did, that these voices were leading me intoxicated, not following me? They may say I was going crazy. And maybe I was. The more I attempted to disregard it the more insistent it was.
One day, after another uneasy evening, I went to the summit of a hill located outside of town.
The atmosphere smelled like rain. I sat on a stone and allowed the wind to blow on my face. “I’m not crazy,” I muttered aloud. “I know you’re here. Show me why.”
The wind shifted. I closed my eyes. Then I saw it. Not clearly, just glimpses. Forms of others smiling, assisting and tiny glimpses of happiness and warmth I had not observed. I knew that the whispers were not attempting to frighten me.
They were… reminders.
I smiled inwardly and the tension in my chest eased. The breeze ceased, and I was in stillness, soothing calm. It was the first time that I did not feel lonely, and I was not scared.
I could see Funke noticing the difference when I came home. “You look… different,” she said.
"I know it now," I said, which is no explanation, as some things cannot be explained
altogether. “I’m not crazy. I’m… listening.”
Tunde, in his turn, never inquired, but noticed later.
Perhaps he realized that it does not mean that at times he is crazy, but is just in tune with what the others fail to see.
My journal entry that night stated: I am not crazy. I’m aware. That’s all.
And I slept, without dread, as I had never slept before in months.
