WHERE ARE MY UNCLE AND AUNTIES GONE?

I'm in my home, the village.
I climb upstairs.
I enter the first room - it's empty
I'm wondering where Uncle James is gone.
Then it dawns on me - Uncle James passed on many, many years ago.

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I go into the next room
It is vacant
I'm wondering, where is my Auntie Adelemomi?
Where is my Auntie gone?
A fine voice answers me - 'son, your Auntie Adelemomi has gone home.'

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There are more rooms upstairs.
So I proceed.
I knock.
No response.
Another knock, louder.
No response.
I push the door, ever so slightly.
It gives way easily, like there's someone pulling it from within.
I step inside.
It's empty, hollow like the empty shell of harvested snail.
Walls standing - lone four walls encapsulating a lone man.

Silence!

'Wa mosha o', I said, 'Good afternoon.'

'Wa mosha o'. The walls echo back to me, in equal earnestness.

I ask, aloud, 'Aati Ojuola mme re?' 'Where is my Auntie Ojuola?'

'Aati Ojuola mme re?' asks the voice in return,
equal in fervour, candour and nostalgia.

In transformed deference, I lower my head
Only the dead speak this way.
The awakening is sudden
Uncle James, Aunties Adelemomi and Ojuola no longer belong here
Now they can only be seen and touched in the heart.

Tears come flowing down
freely falling in a deluge of empty longing for a people
once ever so present
ever so loved and engaging
now only speaking in echoes
in whispers and loud voices according as you can speak.

Aah! Upstairs is empty
empty and hollow-paced
with me alone
wandering around four walls
wondering where my Uncle and Aunties have gone.

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