PS: This story was written in my indigenous language, Pidgin English, a variant of English. I hope you enjoy it.
-All misfortune ends up as stories eventually
For the longest time, I wanted to run. When you read this, I hope you understand why I did what I did.
And you won’t curse me, too.
When I was young, I fell in love with various kinds of food. I hated wastage, so I ate whatever I came across, full or not. They called me a glutton and many unflattering names, but my thick hide remained unruffled.
Different foods meant the world to me until I found spaghetti.
It’s not what you think, no. It’s beguiling and strips you of common sense. The first time I became addicted to spaghetti, the world tilted on its axis. I was floating.
Let’s start at the very day my world came unraveled.
“Every time carbohydrate. You go dey chop like baby pig, yet e no dey show for your body. Pankere wọ gown.” Mama said when she walked up to me, a laundry basket under her arms with rolls of fat.
“Sorry, mama,” I said, slowing down my food. The apartment is tiny and meant to be stuffy, but Mama makes it work somehow.
“My pikin, eat o. But eat a balanced diet, eh? I no wan make you get kwashiorkor. E no look good for body. Na so so head and belle remain. You need fat, even if na small. I go buy milk for you when I come back from the market. That milk, wetin dem dey call am again?” Her memory was sometimes glitchy, and I always came to her aid.
“Na Complan.”
“Ehn ehn, Complan. Na, im be that. You need am make you add flesh for your body.” But what is a twelve-year-old supposed to know about such?
Mama goes to do the laundry, and I sit in front of the television, stomach rumbling.
“Open the door, person dey knock,” Mama said from the backyard. Her ears are sharper than the talons of a predator on most days.
“Nnena, how are you?” A woman in Mama’s size sizes me up, tying her wrapper correctly.
“Fine, ma.” I was courteous even though I’d never seen her before.
“Your mama no dey?” She asked, trying to peek inside the house. I hold the door firmly, dissuading her from such an act.
“She dey backyard,” I responded, not budging an inch. Mama has told me many times not to let strangers in. No matter how they seem.
“Okay, I just say make I greet. Before I forget, you fit to give her this? Tell am say na the new product wey come out.” She handed me a sealed product, and my eyes widened when I spotted the name.
It was spaghetti.
“Who be that?” Mama comes into the room, drying her hands on her wrapper.
“I no know o. She just dropped this thing.” I pointed, and Mama’s eyes relaxed.
“Ah, na Mama Nedu na. You no know her? She dey sell spaghetti. She say she go drop by.” I heave a breath of relief, staring at the pack of spaghetti, daring me to move forward.
I cooked it the next day. Delicious doesn’t even begin to describe it. It finished a little too fast, and I stared disappointed at my empty plate, licked until it shone like the back of Nnamdi’s head. We all laughed when he came to school with a shaved head, and I never forgot ever since.
I cooked it again. I was spending the cash I’d been saving for the festivities of Christmas.
It finished—all 3,450 naira of it.
The withdrawal symptoms started innocently enough when I hallucinated a plate of spaghetti. I reached for it, but it wasn’t there anymore. I hiss at the eba, not knowing what to do. I ate rice that night. And my life changed forever.
I could feel a bubbling sensation in my stomach, as though my entrails were being pulled out of my body, acid searing through my stomach’s lining.
“Jesus, wetin? Talk to me! My pikin ooo, make una help me o.” Mama rushed me into her arms, cradling my head with such fondness. I could feel my ribs digging into me.
“Wetin happen?” Papa Njedika was the first to answer the call, his wife a few feet behind him.
“She just begin to convulse. Her body temperature just dey rise. I no know wetin to do. My God oo, make una come o.” And Mama slips into hysteria again.
“Make we carry her go hospital; we go figure out the bills later.” Mama nods, letting Papa Njedika remove me from her grasp. I could see the agony create lines on her face.
But I was unconscious. Outside my body, watching me.
And fear wears me like a sweater.
I was dead.
~~
Being dead didn’t feel terrible, until I touched a lone thread. A thread of white and red was before me, and the non-corporeal world filled up my vision. The chairs were in their first form; a tree stood where all the chairs were, and I found myself standing in a forest.
Dense. Silent. Alive.
The trees encompass the world, stretching forth into eternity. Whichever way I turned, a forest greeted me.
The two threads were on the ground, and I knew I couldn’t touch more than one. It was a choice. I was making a choice.
I picked the red. Cliché, but it worked. I was carried into the air as though I weighed less than a feather, and I kept rising until I was above the clouds.
And the world was before me. I moved, wondering what would happen if I fell from such a stupendous height. Was there a way to die a second death? I didn’t want to find out.
My eyesight had no barriers; I could see the entire world simultaneously.
“Child of the Stars, what are you doing here?” I heard a voice from the world, and my eyes almost rolled to the back of my head.
“I think I died,” I say, turning 360 to see if I could catch a glimpse of the speaker—no such luck.
“Yes, but this isn’t your path to follow. Why did you choose this path?” The voice asked again. I’d already gotten over my fear, and I was feeling irritated instead.
“Is there meant to be a tutorial or something? Because I didn’t receive one.”
The voice chuckled—light and all-encompassing.
“Okay, Child of the Stars. Look no further. Remember who you are.” The voice said with a tone of finality and faded out of existence.
Curious.
After waiting for a few minutes, I got bored and began to touch the trees around me. They felt like they had a soul, as though the world stole their individuality.
“What are you trying to tell me?” I whisper, cradling its bark. A purring sound reverberated around me as though waking the world from its slumber.
One by one, the trees made groaning sounds, moving as one.
“What’s going on?” I screamed, and they turned to me suddenly.
“Child of the Stars, you’ve awoken us from our slumber. We have seen what humans have done, and we rise. No longer playthings, no longer useless. Thank you for waking the Soul of the World. Goodbye, we won’t see you again.”
The world faded to black, and I opened my eyes groggily, staring at my mother's worried face.
“What happened?” I asked, the mother of all headaches deciding to visit me.
“My pikin don wake!” Mama screams, hugging me. Papa Njedika and his wife run into the room, looking at me with worry creasing their foreheads. The hospital waiting room seemed to be full of people. People I didn’t even know.
“You’re fine now,” Mama said, but I wondered.
Three days after I got home, missiles were launched into China and the US, even though there was a non-aggression pact between the World Powers.
“The missiles moved like they had a mind of their own.” The president of the US made that statement, looking stupid on live television.
But when Switzerland launched a missile, the world began to listen. A neutral country was calling for war. It was darker than people thought.
I needed to get back to the non-corporeal world; I needed to right my wrongs. So, I ate spaghetti until I almost passed out.
Nothing. I starved myself for days on end, my body worse than it was before.
Nothing still.
My body was refusing to die.
When I dreamt, I saw the Soul of the World standing before me, eyes filled with malice. It was no longer a giant mass of trees; it was a human with eyes as deep as the universe.
No, not a figure of speech. The universe was its eyeballs.
“Why do you worry, Child of the Stars? They deserve it.” It says, looking down on me with contempt.
“But, I’m part of the world too.” I reasoned, but the look it leveled me with was enough to incinerate.
“And?” There was no remorse in its voice.
“Stop, please,” I beg.
“Why should I? You still use plates: books, wood. You take from us and give nothing in return. No homage, no love. You’re human, too. Born in this age, how can you be anything else? Goodbye. We won’t meet again.”
“No. We will.” I stared at the Soul of the World, pleading. It smiled briefly and disappeared.
“What have I done?” I asked, feeling the weight settle over my soul.
“I don’t know, what have you done?” I heard a cheery voice, the same one from before.
“How do I fix this?” I scream at the void, my voice not getting past two feet in front of me.
“You can’t. This was your purpose all along. I like the bit with spaghetti, though I found it funny. But now, you must wake. Even stars have to face what it means to fall.”
The world shattered, and I woke up with tears in my eyes. My mother was beside me, looking older than I’d ever seen her. She had grey hair.
“Mama?” I asked, turning around to be sure I was in the right place. Everything looked so unfamiliar.
Mama woke up with a start. She saw me and fainted. People rushed into the room, and they ran out when they saw me awake.
“What’s happening?” I didn’t know whether to cry or be worried. Papa Njedika was the only person brave enough to talk to me. He approached me and hesitated but placed his hand on my shoulder.
“We’re the last of Nigeria. And this is 2025. The Third World War.”
It was my turn to faint. But I didn’t.
I’d slept for ten years.
And the world had ended.
All because of spaghetti.