It was a humid night in Abeokuta. The moon played hide and seek with a thick blanket of clouds, and the chorus of crickets filled the air. Tade, a man of about thirty-eight years, with a round belly shaped like he had swallowed a calabash, was on his way home from his cousin’s naming ceremony. He was slightly tipsy, not drunk enough to stagger, just enough for his imagination to grow wings.
On his way home, he decided to take a shortcut. A typical attitude with Nigerians, even though they know the long route is safer. The shortcut, unfortunately, passed by the old Ijeun Cemetery, a stretch of land that is as wide as a football field and older than the town itself. People said the graves talked at night. Nobody who valued their sleep passed there after 7 pm.
As he approached the cemetery, the wind began to blow with that wicked kind of mischief. The leaves rustled like they were gossiping about him. His pace quickened. Then suddenly, a dog howled in the distance.
Tade didn’t wait for the next verse of that soundtrack.
He RAN!
And not the kind of I’m-trying-to-exercise jogging. No, this was Olympic, Usain-Bolt-on-full-speed! His slippers slapped the ground with frantic urgency. His agbada flapped like it had joined the panic, too. Tade didn’t look back. Every tree became a ghost. Every shadow was like a hand trying to grab him.
After what felt like thirty years (but was really ten minutes), he ran into a man standing calmly by the roadside, dressed in a blue buba and sokoto, with a red cap slightly tilted on his head. The man looked peaceful, too peaceful for someone standing near that graveyard.
“What is chasing you, my friend?” he asked while turning to look at Tade.
Tade, panting like a goat chased by village children, replied, “ah, baba, Mo n sare fun aye mi, Wọn ti sọ fun mi pe awọn iwin ma n duro ni ayika ibi. Emi ko fẹ di ounjẹ alẹ fun wọn!”
The man nodded slowly and smiled, a serene kind of smile that made Tade pause.
“E wo! O ku kekere fun mi lati ku nibẹyen. E wo! Inu mi dun pe mo ri yin. Ṣugbọn, Ṣe e ko bẹru ni?” Tade added.
The man replied in a soft, almost musical voice, “Iberu? rara ooo. Emi ko bẹru. Ṣùgbọ́n nígbà tí mo wà láàyè, èmi náà máa ń bẹ̀rù ibeyen náà.”
So sorry, my brother. Fear? No ooo. I am not afraid. But when I was alive, I used to be scared of that place too.
Silence.
Dead silence.
The kind that slapped Tade’s soul out of his body and back again.
“E duro? Ki le so? Emi ko gbọ yin?” Tade stuttered, stepping back slowly.
“I said… when I was alive…”
Tade’s eyes widened. His mouth opened, but no sound came out.
“ah Jesu Oluwa mi!” Tade screamed.
He turned and bolted into the bush. At that point, snake or ghost, he didn’t care. He ran into thorns, lost one slipper, but he didn’t stop. His agbada was now a torn flag of surrender to the spirits of the land.
From that day, Tade became a bit of a local legend. Children would follow him around, chanting, “ore iwin, ore iwin!” He refused to walk alone after 6 p.m. again and began attending night vigils, just in case he had opened some spiritual doorway.
And as for the man in the red cap? Well… some say he still waits by that same road near the cemetery, greeting anyone brave or foolish enough to pass by at night.
So, my friend, if you ever find yourself walking alone near Ijeun Cemetery, and you see a man in a blue buba and red cap smiling too peacefully…
Don’t ask questions.
Just. Start. Running.
JaneFrances Udeh
StoryCraft Expert, AuthorCoaching by BAC