A CHILDHOOD MISTAKE

 – By Anthony Nwoye

As dawn fell on Okeh’s compound – which is situated at a ghetto in Onitsha – kids his age trooped from their various homes to play around with him and his brother, Obinna. On gathering, everybody dispersed for the kind of play they wanted. Be it skipping, hide and seek, or the so-called ‘gamestart’.

That saturday was unlike other playful days they had had. Not too long after the kids gathered, light came. The esoteric shouts of “Up NEPA” – which Nigerian kids are known for whenever light comes – rend the air. Most of the kids rushed into their homes and tuned their televisions. A handful were still playing and Okeh was one of them. He was playing ‘hide-and-seek’ with his brother and two other kids. The ‘hide-and-seek’ game soon graduated to a similar type of game which wasn’t exactly ‘hide-and-seek’. The supposedly act of hiding in order for the other player to seek, soon changed to a player forcing another into a confined corner or hole. Covering the player and causing him cry out a little before he’d open the player.

When the game accelerated into a frenzy but callow fun, Okeh threw his brother into their empty drum and closed him there, the boy jokingly was crying out for his brother to release him whilst Okay laughed and ran to call the rest of the kids as usual. But those kids were then in the sitting room watching television.

“Hey! Come and see Obinna, he’s now begging for help” Okeh said to the kids, his face filled with an innocent childish smile.
“Oh no! Okeh this movie is interesting you’ll like to watch it,” a boy countered.
“The actor will soon come out here to beat up the boss; just watch,” a girl added. She was one of the kids.
“I and my brother Obinna have been watching this movie last night, in fact let me forward it to where we stopped,” Okeh said reaching for the remote as he sat down on their sofa forgetting his brother whose voice is muffled inside the drum.
“No, Okeh don’t forward it, let’s watch it together please naa,” the other girl cried.
“This is our house, I’ll do what I like,” he returns with a mischievous look hanging on his cheek.

The kids thereafter were carried away by the movie and even watched a couple of other movies after the first one finished.
Two hours later or thereabouts a shout came forth from outside, a shrill trembling shout that gave way to a mouthful of cry and sorrow. It was the cry of Okey’s mother. She came back from the market and went to the drum to know if there was enough water for her to cook; just to find her poor Obinna suffocated inside it.

The poor boy had struggled for breathe and helplessly died since no one came to his aid. His complexion turned grey and his limbs seemed stretched. His ugly appearance was a complete definition of death.
Okeh watched with his hands on his head. Sweat dripped down from his armpit and drenched his sides; his eyes became bloodshot and his fingers trembled. Cold caught his feet and sent shivers down his spine. Throbs of his heartbeat pounded in his ears but the words that pounded his heart was “Oh! Had I known”.

Had he known he wouldn’t start such a careless game; had he known he would’ve opened his brother before going to the parlour to watch movies.
It was a mistake that forever lived in his memory. Had he known!