Fireflies
written by: Meredith Chiwenkpe Asuru
I never knew why they called my father a firefly, or why the women of Obibi bent lower than they would for their husbands to greet him. But I knew it made her happy, proud even. She always told other women that since she accepted his proposal, she became the unending verse of a love song, a symphony of sweet memories. For those who listened longer, she told the long, tiring tale of how my father and his brother battled to have her, my father bearing the itikir drum, each beat a melodious promise of light, and his brother a basket of yams and maize.
***
She is sitting by his bedside, cooling him with a wet towel, muttering pleas upon pleas, querying the gods, reminding them of all the good things he has done, and why he can’t die. She pauses to wipe the tears rolling from her eyes, and my father tilts his head to look at her. He tries to move his lips, to form words, but fails. So, he fixes his gaze on her pale face, waiting for her eyes to meet his, hopeful that my mother, who understands all of his roaring and silences, will decode the messages buried in its cloudiness. But when she looks into them, she shakes her head. She places her left palm upon his right palm, and wipes the tear beads that had broken from his eyes with the other.
“All will be well, my husband. Trust me, we don’t need to return to Agbo.”
She soaks the towel in water again, and squeezes slowly. As she rubs it against his nape, the door creaks and my brother, who hasn’t been home since the day villagers stripped him naked for stealing money from a neighbour’s store to fund his psychedelic spree, walks in. He drops the small bag he is carrying near the door and pulls a plastic chair closer to our father’s bedside.
“Papa, Kedu?” he asks as he sits.
When our father doesn’t respond, he turns to our mother. “Mama, kedu? When did Papa fall sick?”
Our mother stares at him, her right leg tapping the uncarpeted floor in slow rhythmic moves. “Where have you been?” she asks, and time flutters by in silence, distorted by the whooshes of sea breeze flushing against the half-closed windows.
“Where have you been?”
My brother sniffs, draws his left index finger over his nostrils, but says nothing. Our mother swells, and just when she opens her mouth to ask the third time before she lands him a slap, he speaks.
“Mama, please stop asking. I’m home now. Isn’t that all that matters?”
Arcs pull around the edges of her eyes like they do whenever she wants to spit curses. But she holds her breath against the thought that her past curses might have affected him somehow.
“So, you think you can just disappear and reappear anytime you like?” she says instead, and silence fills the room again.
They sit like that for a few minutes — him eyeing my mother, my mother watching the rise and fall of our father’s chest, and rats fondling poisoned bread underneath the bed. When silence had tethered the fabric of their souls together, my brother breaks the silence.
“Ehen, Mama, why are you even treating Papa in the house? Is there no money to go to the hospital?”
She hisses. “Don’t ask me any stupid question. Are you not his first son? Shouldn’t I be asking you?”
My brother doesn’t speak — he sniffs, turns away from her, and after some seconds, turns back to face her.
“I’m sorry, mama. Can’t you forgive your own son again?”
Our mother smiles for the first time in a long time. “I still have some money left, but the doctor at the village health centre says there is nothing he can do for your father anymore. And your father doesn’t want me to take him to the specialist hospital at Obinze.”
My brother scoffs. “I don’t believe that, Mama. Papa trusts you. He always listens to you. Why wouldn’t he now, when he knows you want him to be better?”
Our mother feigns a cough, stands, and walks hurriedly towards the bathroom. She enters, closes the door, and walks to the half-cut mirror. As she leans towards it, placing both hands on the sink, the necklace our father had gifted her before he fell sick pops out. She holds the gem in one hand, and reminisces about how, after winding the necklace around her neck, our father held her from behind and coursed his middle finger down her manubrium, branching off to make rippling motions at junctions where anatomy says the nerves converge into a plexus of lust. She recalls how he moved backwards, one step at a time until they fell on the bed, and thickened the night with pleasurable moans. How, as his eyes doused in post-coital sleep, he promised to lighten her world and make her the brightest of all gems. She wipes her tears with the back of her hand and smiles. Suddenly, my brother starts screaming, and she runs out.
“Ogini?”
My brother points at our father, shivering. “Papa is not breathing.”
My mother runs to shut the door, telling him to close the windows. “Osiso! Osiso! Before the spirits enter.”
She looks left and right, confused, her eyes dimming with tears. Then, she runs into the kitchen, picks a metal spoon and a bulb of onion, and rushes back. She places the spoon between his teeth, peels an onion carp, and places it in his nostrils. But our father doesn’t sneeze, jerk, or move. Nothing happens. Nothing. Our mother freezes. After some time, she pulls her hair and screams. She falls to the floor. Stands. Breaks things. And curses the gods. My brother tries to calm her, but she refuses to stop. Instead, she rolls to a corner of the house and coils herself up in tears. My brother sniffs, turns to our father, and shakes him, muttering, “Wake up.” Suddenly, our father’s right leg jerks. It jerks again, and again, and he calls my mother, heart pounding, eyes wide open.
“Mama! Mama!”
“Ogini? Ogini?”
“Papa is alive.”
Our mother stands with surprising vigour, and hurries to his bedside, one hand holding her wrapper to her waist. She gazes at his chest for movements, and after some seconds places her ear near his nostrils.
“Eziokwu,” she cries, falls to her knees, and offers thanks to the gods.
“Mama, let’s take papa to the hospital,” my brother suggests.
“No, my son. I know what must be done. Stay here with your father. Don’t go anywhere until I return.”
“Okay, mama.”
She picks up her purse from the top of a locker near the window, and checks out. I glare at my brother as a taut smirk plasters over his face, and wonder why our mother would ask him to watch our father, why she didn’t send for her younger sister like she would whenever she and father were to leave us to ourselves at home. Is it because he was whimpering when our father lost his breath, or that he trimmed his hair to a low cut, and the blue long-sleeve shirt he is wearing is tucked into his black trousers? I stare at him as he stares at our father, as his red bulgy eyes dart around the room, as he walks to the window to peep if our mother has left the compound, and as he rubs both palms together and smiles as she stops a motorcycle.
“Agbo,” my mother tells the motorcyclist, and climbs onto the torn leather seat. As the biker gears up to move, she places both hands on his shoulders and begs him to drive slowly. So, whenever he falls in and out of a pothole, she beats him softly on the back. She repeats it every time until the rider stops and asks her to alight in a thunderous voice.
“Ah-ah. Can’t someone play with you again? No vex, make we continue.”
At Ajani, she shuts her eyes and starts to pray for safety. She continues until she is sure the motorcycle has far crossed the point where the taxi ferrying me to Agbo against their wish on the eve of my eighteenth birthday had somersaulted thrice. Then, she opens them to the view of towering bushes dancing in the wind, and inhales deeply as though sucking back in my last breath. She exhales, wishing I hadn’t died that Friday.
“Please, go slow-slow.”
“I hear you,” the biker says, but speeds up.
She sighs, “That is how all of you behave…”
In front of a compound fenced with untrimmed hibiscus, she tells the motorcyclist to stop, and frowns at him as she puts the fare in his hand. She walks into the compound, towards a green-painted house. As she raises her hand to knock, a man as chubby as my father, face as round, eyes as bulging, hairline as receding, opens the door.
“What are you doing here?”
“Dalu, my husband. You won’t even welcome me?”
“Why should I? Please leave, before you infect me with whatever you infected my brother with.”
“I didn’t…” she says before a chubby, dark-skinned woman comes out and hugs her.
“Don’t mind, my husband. Let’s go inside.”
Inside, the man continues. “If your second son had not died, how old would he be? For good twenty-one years my brother hasn’t stepped his feet in this village. My brother, whom the gods crowned a firefly. Who was doing his bidding until you entered his life. It will not be well with you and your generation, you hear.”
“De…”
“How did you do it? What did you do? I just hope you haven’t come to talk about his death? Because that would not concern me, or anyone in this village.”
“De, I have…..”
“Don’t worry yourself, let’s eat first. You need all the energy in the world to argue with my husband.”
“She has to return to wherever she is coming from. Tonight.”
“Ah-ah, Obim.”
“Don’t call me that, biko. That’s how you women begin.”
“Okay. But even if she has to go, not this night.”
“First thing tomorrow morning. I don’t want to wake up and see her.” He pulls his wrapper a little above his waist and walks into the room.
His wife dips yam into oil and tells my mum to eat. As my mother dips yam into oil and takes the first bite, she asks her why she has come, even when she knew the villagers didn’t like her. “Since your family left, my husband has been forced to grant men outside their lineage passage into the hut, but none has found the drum talk more of playing it to the gathering of fireflies. Our ember months are as dark as the soul of a man who can’t fend for his family. The moon rises early and dies even before children gather under Udala trees for Pa Kanum’s stories. Our crops no longer grow like they did. They said you bewitched your husband and lured him to your village, away from his chi, his calling.”
My mother heaves, “That is why I have come, my friend—so the fireflies may rise again.”
“Aru,” she screams, her face wrinkling. “Women do not go close to the hut. You know this.”
“I know. But wasn’t that what they said until a woman ascended the throne of Akwuchi? Didn’t their land prosper in her time? These rules are ours to make and bend.”
“Shh. The night has ears. But no one will help you.”
“You will help me, won’t you?”
“I can’t go against my husband, if that is what you are asking.”
“I didn’t say you should. Just talk to him on my behalf. Beg him to grant me passage.”
“How? Do I fill my mouth with water and babble, hoping that somehow it sounds like the voice of his Chi? Or I should lure him to bed and tell him to do my bidding afterwards? My husband is a real man, not a woman’s wrapper.”
“Ah-ah, my friend, put yourself in my shoes. My husband is dying, and only when the fireflies awaken will he gather his strength.”
“The gods forbid. I will never wear that type of shoe, me and my husband will grow old together.”
My mother gazes at her, old memories of laughter and childhood naughtiness streaming within. “Please, help me. You know we would have stayed if they’d let him own farms.”
“But farmers brought harvest to your household every season.”
“How many farmers? You know what they brought couldn’t take us for an entire season. My husband just needed a safe place where his heritage didn’t stop him from owning farmlands, caring for his family. I swear to you, I didn’t do anything. Please, help me. Remember…”
“Don’t start, biko. I’m going to bed.”
She stands and walks into their room. My mother looks up at the sky but meets the carton ceiling instead, ants crawling in straight lines along wooden batons. She crosses her hands on her chest and bows her head. As she thought and wondered, echoes of her name, deftly synchronized in protest songs, started filtering in. She stands, pulls the shrunken curtains, and peeks.
My father’s brother opens the door, and as my mother turns, tells her she is cursed, that she has brought doom to his household. He calls out to his wife. “There is fire on the mountain,” he says as she steps out.
“Where?”
He sighs, his heart bickering with thoughts. “Can’t you hear them? They have come for her.”
“What have I done?”
“Shut up, woman. You have done everything. The question now should be, what do we do?”
“It’s simple,” the wife says, and turns away.
“No. We can’t hand her over to them.”
My father’s brother enters his room and returns with a serpentine staff.
“Follow me, osiso.”
He leads my mother through the back door to a mud hut, taps the staff thrice on the entrance, mutters some words, and tells her to enter.
My mother looks into his eyes. “Thank you, my husband.”
“Osiso! I’m only doing this because I still love you,” he tells her and rushes back to the sitting room.
He sits in his armchair and tells his wife to sit and act like everything is alright.
When the crowd enters the compound and demands that he bring my mother out, brandishing her with names that depict treachery and witchcraft, he walks to the veranda and relaxes his weight on a pillar.
“De, you know why we have come.”
“Remind me, biko.”
“Bring the witch out.”
“Are you calling my wife a witch?”
“We will go in ourselves if you don’t bring her out.”
“You say?”
Two behemoth men and a slender woman with big breasts rush in and search the house. After three minutes, they return to the others and announce that she isn’t inside. She is here somewhere, a voice thunders from amongst them. Check the yam barns and the goat house. Check everywhere. They hurry to the barn and the goat house. When they reach the hut, they remind themselves not to get too close. But my mother is inside, eyes shut against the ruminating darkness, counting her steps as father had always told us in his stories. So, they return to others. She isn’t here. De, the same thundering voice called. If we find out you are hiding here, we will burn this house down. My father’s brother laughs and says he knows.
As the crowd turns to leave, my mother comes face to face with the drum. Once she holds it, my father’s brother jerks, holds his chest with both hands, and screams, “Aru! love has killed me.” My mother dusts the animal skin tethered into place by small triangular-shaped woods, says, “You will be well, my husband,” and beats the long-forgotten itikir sound.
The crowd stops. “Where is that coming from?” they ask in synchrony.
My father’s brother runs into the house, and they grab him in the living room and drag him to the backyard. As they force him to grant them passage, his wife tiptoes out the front door, clutching some belongings tied in a wrapper, and runs away. He tells them to calm down, and a woman standing next to him lands him a fiery slap.
“All of you are weak. I wonder why the gods chose your lineage,” she spits, frowning and panting.
“I need to get my staff. It’s the only way I can grant you passage.”
Two men drag him in, while others stand sentry. My mother stops beating and draws breath. “Please don’t fail me,” she says and starts again. My father’s brother hits the staff on the floor of the entrance, and instead of granting them passage, speaks the words that initiate my mother into the itikir cult. “After all, worthy is anyone who holds the drum,” he says beneath his breath.
A man pushes him aside and makes to enter the hut but can’t. As he pulled him and forced him to grant him passage, the room lightened up.
“What did you do?”
He smiles, “Nothing.”
“Impossible! Is it not a woman inside? How could she have awakened the fireflies?”
My father’s brother says nothing.
“Stop her, now!”
“Stop who? Can’t you see what’s happening?”
“But it’s a woman…”
“So? Biko, relax. Everyone here will agree that whether man or woman, we carry the same spirit”
As they talk, no, argue, the room glimmers more and more, and my mother starts her walk out of the hut.
Outside, she looks at the udala tree in the open compound, and stretches her gaze to others that map Agbo into a small rectangular block. Fireflies hovered over them, lightening the path. They stare at her in confusion, some folding their hands, others whispering among themselves as she walks to my father’s brother, hands him the drum, and runs out of the compound for a bike back home.
When she reaches home, the door is wide open. My mother laughs, convinced that my father would have gone to the backyard to offer kola to the gods for a new beginning. She sits on a wooden bench on the veranda and waits. Seconds tick into minutes, and minutes into hours, the night thickening with the scent of withering lilies and her bones yearning for rest. She makes to walk to the backyard, but pauses. “When he is done, he will meet me inside.” She stretches her body and walks inside.
“Chim oh!” she screams.
My father is on the cloth-strewn floor, neck twisted to the east, eyes wide open, as though staring at the ransacked baskets. She calls my brother, in between screams for help, but gets no other response than the chirp of crickets and croaks of frogs. She sits next to my father’s dead body, legs folded at the knee, staring at him, shaking her head. After some seconds, she lies on him and breaks into an ocean of tears, cursing, and wondering if it was my brother, if the messages buried in the cloudiness of my father’s eyes betrayed their true intent, or if itikir played by new hands was a farewell symphony for a dying firefly.
- Fireflies - September 21, 2026
- You’re Invited - April 17, 2026
