The Whisperer

Whispers heard at night .

My great-grandfather was a weird man and I took after him, my father always said he saw him in me, the most obvious of these resemblances was the white patch of hair that I have at the very beginning of my hairline," your father was not happy to see that white hair when you were born, " my mother would always tell me." it reminded him of his grandfather... He always said his grandfather was weird in ways he could not explain, " she added. So when my father passed away, I went through his things and discovered what seemed like an attempt at an autobiography that had belonged to my great-grandfather. It read...

Date 1899, month unspecified:  I was already fast asleep when the rattles of guns and the whistling of bullets awoke me. My father ran into our hut but we were already awake all ten of us.

"Are you boys all here," he asked.

"Yes, Father," Akaze answered.

Father wanted to talk when we heard footsteps running towards us, he grabbed his spear ready to strike the assailant down, and then a familiar voice shouted "Papa!"

Oh, it is my son, Father whispered as he set his spear down.

Nkoji ran into the tent breathing heavily, he cleaned his sweat off his face with the back of his hands, trying to talk at the same time.

"The foreigners have attacked. They are burning houses and killing people, Papa. I thought they were our friends, that's what you said," he said as he tried to balance his breathing.

"Only the gods can protect us from enemies in friends' skins, son. I did everything I thought possible to stop this, but it seems the spirits of light have gone quiet for a while. I hear their voices no more, not even my guardian, Ozure. I only hear the dark ones now and they laugh at us."

"Why, father? Why have the spirits left us, Nkoji cried?"

"It can mean only one thing. It is time to choose another Whisperer. I should have announced this earlier but the fear of what was to come made me hold on to my position as the whisperer, even when the spirits went quiet, I fear for he who has been chosen. I fear for my innocent boy, for when so much rests on a man's shoulders it takes all his might to keep moving. I fear being the whisperer is no task for a boy, I begged but they already made their choice... Now I must make mine."

As they talked I wandered out of the hut unnoticed. I followed strange voices calling to me. It wasn't the first time I would hear the voice, the first time was a year before that night. I went to the stream to fetch some water and suddenly I heard the voices whispering. I looked around but I was alone. The voices got closer and louder and I held my head with my hands, trying so hard to block out the noises that made it seem like a thousand people arguing around me. I closed my eyes and screamed in pain, then the voices suddenly stopped.

When I opened my eyes I noticed a figure standing in front of me. He was so tall I couldn't see his end.

"Hello, I whispered in fear.

"Hello, boy," he replied in a voice so loud it made everything around me shake.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Let me come down to your level a bit, he said as he transformed into a giant snake. I shrieked and fell on my back.

Like he read my mind, he immediately transformed into a lion, then to a leopard, and a gorilla, while he whispered to himself "Too scary, too scary, he doesn't like this, he doesn't like that. He is afraid of all the animals? Unbelievable!" And finally, he transformed into a little boy.

"You like this?" He asked and I quickly nodded in agreement. I was too scared to talk, I didn't even understand what was going on in front of me.

"Aaah! You are too scared for a whisperer, but we can work on that. I probably would have to scare you to death a couple of times to make you stop being such a weakling," he said.

"Who are you?" I finally asked.

"Oh, forgive me, Whisperer. I am Kamkam, the guardian at your service."

"What are you?"  I asked," trembling in fear.

"I am your guardian spirit, boy. Judging from my own experience, you're going to be needing me a lot in these coming days."

"So, you work for me? You do whatever I tell you to do?"

Nice try, boy. My job is to keep you alive until the end of your time as the whisperer. So whenever you are in danger I'll be there to save you. As a matter of fact, I am stuck with you until it is your time."

"My time for what," I asked, looking bemusedly at him.

"When it's your time to die, boy. What do you think?" he screamed at me and disappeared into thin air.

When I got home that day I wanted to tell my father about what had happened, but he was so busy with some other village elders, so I had to wait until he was free later in the evening. When I explained to him, he sat there in his hut, pondering for a long while, sometimes talking to himself. I wasn't a stranger to seeing my father talk to himself, or whatever spirit was with him, they were always different. Sometimes he would laugh, sometimes he would argue, and sometimes he would appear to be in physical combat with these unseen forces. We all understood whatever craziness went on between my father and these unseen fellows he dealt with was important, it kept our village safe from the dangers of the other side as the elders would call it, but I was secretly happy that the Whisperer rarely came in the same family twice. It is believed that when that happens, the Whisperer is so powerful that even the spirits fear him. The scary part was that when a Whisperer appears in the same family twice, it is an omen of impending doom.

"Then we must prepare," he suddenly spoke out.

"Prepare for what, Papa?" I asked.

"Oh, my boy. It isn't you I am referring to," he smiled lightly, ruffled my hair with his hands, and sent me to my mother's hut to get his supper, but when I got back he was nowhere to be found.

I couldn't say anything about this to my siblings, my father was gone for days and the elders visited more frequently, during those days. I heard some of them say the same words my father said in his hut some days before. "We must prepare." That was what finally led me to believe something was about to happen.

"What are they preparing for," I asked myself.

"Oh, it is what you already know in your mind, kid, a familiar voice replied to me. I looked up, scared half to death, and Kamkam's smiling from ear to ear. He appeared as a boy as he did before, but his eyes were as red as blood.

"Your village is about to be wiped out, boy. I would suggest that we skip town, but it's totally your choice," he explained as he sat down beside me.

I looked around, wondering if anyone among the other kids who were running around the compound could see him. I noticed none of them paid any attention to me or him, but I had to be sure.

"Ngozee, can you see the red-eyed kid sitting beside me?" I asked one of my sisters.

After looking puzzled for a while, she replied: "You are obviously sitting alone, dummy! Is Father's spirit friends taking a liking to you now?" She busted into laughter and continued with her games, and her friends joined in the fun.

"Oh, by the spirits! You are one dumb kid." Azure screamed and started laughing too."

"I thought you were supposed to be on my side, spirit?" I shouted, unconscious of the people around me.

"Not when you're being such a fool! Of course, they can't see me," he continued laughing.

Everyone in the compound was staring at me with such fixation, that I felt like digging a hole in the ground and burying myself in it. I stood up and ran towards my mother's hut to cry on her bosom. I was surprised when I met my uncle Akigbo in the hut with her. They were having a conversation but stopped the moment I walked in.

"Hey, Amazu. What is wrong with you, why the tears?" Uncle Akigbo asked as he cleaned my face with his hand. His palm felt rough against my cheeks,

"All that farm work is more than enough to make a person's palm that rough," I thought to myself.

"What is the matter, my dear boy? "Mother asked.

"Ngozee and the other kids are laughing at me again, Mother. They said Father's spirit friends are starting to take a liking to me," I cried.

"Oh, boy. You are such a crybaby," Kamkam laughed and I suddenly looked to the right where he stood.

"Have they?" my uncle asked, staring at me fixedly.

"What?" I replied, looking puzzled.

"Have the spirits started taking a liking to you like everyone is saying?"

"Leave him alone, Akigbo. The boy is seeing no spirit. You know that rarely happens," Mother argued.

"That doesn't make it impossible, does it? We need to know if the village is in danger, Adah.

"Here they go dismissing the obvious. Humans are so predictable," Kamkam said as he started to dance around the house.

The dancing made me ignore both my mother and uncle, as I started to smile. The sound of drums and music came from somewhere and it nearly made me dance too. Mother had to grab and shake me before I knew what was going on around me again.

"What the hell was that?" Mother screamed.

"We are all doomed, Adah. The boy sees the spirits too. We really need to prepare!" he ran out of his mother's hut and started running towards his house. Mother called after him but he wouldn't answer her.

Uncle Akigbo's reaction made me more confused. Of course, I knew the story of how a Whisperer's son inherited his father's gifts and it led to the near destruction of the village. I also know that the Whisperer wasn't supposed to appear in the same family concurrently. But I thought we shouldn't be punished for the spirits' choices, I thought.

The white men arrived in Uzudeh the next day. Father was away from the village, but nobody was disturbed by his disappearance. It was a normal occurrence, sometimes he went to the mountains that surrounded the village to commune better with his spirit friends, and sometimes he hunted evil creatures in the forests that surrounded the village, yes that was part of his job as the whisperer. Most of the creatures of the night that preyed on the villagers started staying away from the village when the villagers made the first Whisperer protect them from these said creatures. Over the years the existence of these creatures became myths and tales that old wives told to scare their stubborn children, but father told me whenever he went to the forests to hunt some of these creatures whenever they got too close to the village.

The white people that first came to our village were nicer than the ones that came after. Father returned the same day, and he went straight to the village square to meet the leaders of the white people. This had never happened since the people of Uzudeh defeated the other two neighboring villages and joined their territories to ours long ago.

Father became friends with the leader of the white men almost immediately, he even invited him home one day. The man was slim and tall and it seemed as if he spoke through his pointy nose. His hair was the color of a color I had never seen before, his eyes were as blue as the sky on days when the clouds refused to appear, and when he smiled at my people and waved at them, they all roared back in laughter.

"These white people are here to help us," the chief said.

"That corrupt son of a thousand fathers has been bribed, a female voice whispered beside my ears. She was the most beautiful being I had laid eyes on. She stood very tall, staring at the crowd, her skin so dark it made the white markings on her body glow. Her long hair touched her waist at the back and when she walked towards Chief Adenonoh, the bangles she wore around her ankles and the beads around her waist made the most beautiful sounds.

She stood right there in the middle of the square and shouted, "This is the beginning of the end, my young friend! But with the tragic end of your people, your story begins."

She raised her arms into the air and the sky suddenly opened up. It started raining without prior signs. I felt a hand grab me by my shoulder, I looked up and it was my father, I smiled at him but for the first time, he didn't smile back.

"I am sorry, for the burden you are about to shoulder, my son. We have to go now, son. Before it is too late, the spirits are with this village no longer."

I read this a day before the beginning of my senior year in high school, and just like my great grandfather, the next day, I started to hear voices, too.