Sitting around a small fire with small fishes grilling overhead, shrill voices danced in the spotlight, momentarily shushed by rumbling stomachs. It was the refining days of our lives, because of the rubble and loses at the wake of the war, but we found a rare gold in those gatherings under moon lit nights.

A meal was a miracle. It's absence gnawed at our thoughts, dived deep and pulled the most debasing characters we never thought we would do. Like crossing towns in search of alms gathered in old sacks scavenged in dunghills.

None of those muddy terrains and late night return pulled our heartstrings like the day we returned without Jidenna, our oldest.

Our fire died and the fishes rotted. Tales drifted in the womb of silence. The places he sat and the jokes he told.

Chidi and I would wait amidst banters of the younger children. That moment when he coughs to say ' enough ' grafted a deep longing in our hearts.

Jidenna's parents worked like his absence didn't exist. I thought so, but during those few times we helped them in the farm, I followed his mother's eyes to Chidi and Dabere, Jidenna's age mates. Deep seated longing lacked utterance, or maybe she couldn't bring herself to speak.

Every time someone made reference to him, Chidi traces a pattern on his palm, Dabere picks his bamboo flute, and I simply raise sand over my feet to create my dream castle. Those were the things we did together with him. Things he taught us.

As things returned to quietness and ease, we washed our school  uniforms, bags, and dusted our buttocks from the ground where we played. Where his prints had watched us to prevent hurt and eyes searched to flush fights and de-escalate scuffles. We were leaving it all behind.

That was until history took us that lonely evening walk when he smiled his last after a brief illness. I felt the wound reopen. My heart swelling from resentment I never knew I buried. They should have mourned him. His family shouldn't have gone ahead with their lives as if his existence didn't matter. Especially his father, the man he had feared and deeply respected. 

I wanted to tell him what a bad father he was. He should have applauded him sometimes. Jidenna had longed for his praises. He strove for it, so much that the child in him grew up quickly into an adult while locked in feeble skin.

I told Chidi and Dabere of my intentions. The silence of that night returned into our midst. Dabere sighed and got trudged away.

Chidi followed his departure wearing a pale look.

" He was tired," Nonye. “ He wanted to see if the afterlife would be kinder to him.”

I stared in dread. Jidenna chose a painless exit. His father blamed himself, and his Mom could not excuse her husband's strict discipline when the boy departed.

The next time I looked at the lamp burning in their home, I realized for the first time, that we were all to blame. We should have seen through the shroud of smiles and billboards of laughter. We mourned him differently, like we will always do.