Udobuaku has lived in Evil Forest for over nine years. She had successfully, despite the difficult terrain it was, made Evil Forest a home from the age of thirty two. Before this time, she was a beautiful young woman from Iyom in Isumeh village who had been married in the same village, precisely Idomma kindred of the village, and had a child.
A few months after the death of her husband Orunoge, she was told that her father, a widower, was sick. She made haste to visit him at Iyom, some metres away. On getting to her father's house, she found out that Izondu, her father, had leprosy. ''Who asked you to come, Udobuaku, nwa m- my child? I was trying so hard to make sure you didn't hear about my sickness. I have sent a message to your elder brother not to visit home yet until I am sure about what this sickness is all about. If this is leprosy- oria ocha, let me die alone. I don't need to die with my children. After all, what else do I want in this world again?'' Izondu asked, regretfully.
Udobuaku shook her head vigorously, rebuffing whatever negativity that had come with those words of her aging father, as though that was all she needed in an effort to change the adopted thinking pattern of her leprosy-infested father. ''No, papa, it can't be oria ocha. I will look after you for at least four days. It is not oria ocha- leprosy; nobody has had it in Iyom before'', she replied.
On the third day, Udobuaku fell sick and later in the day, her only son, Amobi, became sick, too. Her father, Izondu, became so worried and started suspecting that it could be leprosy. She went back home to Idomma Kindred with her son. Unfortunately, Amobi died the next day, and that shattered the remnants of whatever she had working for her.
Idomma people were enraged and fearful because. To them, Udobuaku has brought home death, capable of wiping them all out. Consequently, she was chased away, only for her to return to learn that her father, Izondu, had been taken to the Evil Forest, to die. Life had taken another form and shape as events had forcefully shaped her perception of it, all in the negative.
With her body filled up with bulging pores of leprosy, she ran to the Evil Forest to search for and to take care of her father during his last days on earth. She had made up her mind to embrace her fate as a walking corpse as she entered the Evil Forest, and met her father halfway to his ancestors.
In a thick smoke of emotion, she called Izondu, her father, but got no response. She nodded her head terribly, turned and headed back to her father's house. She returned hours later with some of the things she could use in the forest and started making a tent she could live in with her father before eventually dying.
Those were days when Leprosy had no cure. The best people could do for their loved ones was to watch them till they became so weak to allow them to take them to the Evil Forest to die, maybe peacefully, and maybe not. But all meant to die eventually.
To them, it was an inflicted disease by the Gods that came with no remedy. To appease the Gods, such a diseased one should be taken to the Evil Forest to fade away.
Having known what such a one becomes, Udobuaku had decided not to wait till she was taken to the Evil Forest. She deemed it more reasonable not to be ferried into it like a bundle of firewood, but chose to walk into it with her two legs still strong on the ground while her eyes were wide open.
She put up so many efforts to add some days to her father. This was rewarded. Izondu uttered some words out of his mouth after four days in the tent. ''May we never see such calamities in our next world'' Izondu said creakily.
After a few weeks, instead of perceiving the oozing smell of a decaying body, Izondu was spotted around the Evil Forest making some survival walks around it. The passers-by and farmers that spotted him were astonished. He would extend some greetings to them, but none would be eager to respond. Was it the responses he was not getting from the people that were making his recovery such a fast journey, or was there probably something in the Evil Forest? It appeared that whatever they were, they were really working things out very well for him. The old man was responding positively.
Udobuaku would sleep like a cat only to wake up, staggeringly, go straight to some herbs or roots, and make medicines out of them. She and her father would drink and started getting better. Sometimes she would be spotted in the nights plucking some leaves to prepare their herbal medicine. Within two years, she and her father Izondu had fully recovered.
One day, Izondu thought deeply about home and deemed it wise to go home to show his people that the Gods of their ancestors had brought him back to life. ''It is time Isumeh people broke some kola nuts for my recovery. It has never happened before. The recovery is out of this word'' he said to himself.
He later had a discussion about it with his daughter, Udobuaku who was overwhelmed with joy. She advised him to make the bold entry with his full regalia of ozo title. They both laughed at the suggestion. Finally, they agreed that he would make the home coming on Afor market day. Afor market was their most popular market square and situated a stone's throw away from Izondu's house.
On the eve of Afor market day, Izondu was busy learning some new dance moves, because ozo tittle dance moves shouldn't be enough for a man who was written off, a man whose kinsmen had already searched among their ancestors. Who could teach Izondu monkey dance steps if not those monkeys hopping up and down those shedding trees in the jungle of the Evil Forest? Assuredly, he would be the biggest thing ever seen on Afor day. Many people make long journeys in life, but only a handful of them return, and are celebrated. But so much is owed to such a person who had dined with his ancestors and was compelled to come back to testify. No doubt, Izondu rightly fits in.
Udobuaka had made the necessary arrangements for this August event. She had gone to Nkwo uzoidu market to purchase kola nuts, pods of alligator peppers and some kegs of palm wine, because she knew immediately Ozo Izondu gets sighted in Afor Market Square, people would converge at his house to welcome him back into their midst, and that would definitely call for celebration, and that comes with cost. So, planning for such a moment rightly appealed to this family that had thrived in the jungle as their home over those years.
Izondu had made ready some dry meat of grass cutter- anu nchi, to take home with him. It's worth it. After all, the tales from half of the great beyond were going to be long. Thus, munching and biting are things expected of humans in rare cases like this recovery. And pushing them all down into their stomachs is something good palm wine from palm tapsters from Idu country does better.
Udobuaku had made up her mind not to accompany her father home, since she now found herself in the better state of mind to mourn sorrowfully her lost child, Amobi, that the affliction of her leprosy had not permitted to observe thoroughly. It was a time too for sober reflection on this journey of pain, loss and heartbreak. ''No, let me stay here more to ask my guardian angel- chi, some questions before I journey back to Iyom, Isumeh'' She would always mutter to herself.
A single night had become a year in the eyes of an impatient Izondu. The awaited Afor market day had become a new bride waiting to be embraced by her groom. He had been gifted with a life not ever given to anyone in Isumeh. Now the waiting was over, and it had given birth to the day it all began all over in the life of this respected aged man.
He was a man who had sacrificed a lot for his people; with time, space and blood. Was it not the revenge of the war he led on Owalla that took the life of his late wife Omani through an ambush he was yet to recover from? Or was it not Izondu that made the reintegration of Iyom Isumeh kindred back into the fold of their Isumeh village again after the unfortunate Stream War- ogu iyi? Or was it not in his desperate quest to guarantee peace and see it reign that he gave his daughter out in marriage to Iyom Isumeh man? And since he did that, has there been any chronic war in Isumeh? Was it not in his obi that the warriors of Isumeh assembled for fortification charms before they embarked on their wars?
O' was it not in his house that people that made low harvest in previous year came to borrow yam tubers? He only got half of the extra yields after harvest. Was it not the same Izondu that went as far as Nkwerre to make perpetual peace with them when they became vicious with their ingenuity in blacksmithing and the war lures that came with blacksmithing? Did he charge his kinsmen for the service? Who could be visionary enough to broker such peace with a village they had no common land boundary with if not Izondu?
He studiously observed the strength of Nkwerre and their courage after losing so many wars until they learned new skills in blacksmithing. It paid off, and consequently, they decided to go on a war spree to make a physical statement to anyone, to any people, both old and new foes, to announce their arrival into reckoning.
It was Izondu who studied their desperation and took a team of his men and went as far as Nkwerre village and struck a deal that forbade both villages from being used as war mercenaries against each other. Or was it not to make sure that the agreement had blood in it that he compelled his son, Chime, to take another wife from Nkwerre. Was he not the man who encouraged the same Chime to marry a hunched-back girl that served them well when they visited the village?
''Such humility coming from among kinsmen that breathe and eat wars must be the true definition of who they truly are. There is something about their wars we have to learn from their beautiful and respectful daughters. Don't focus on the hunch back; look at that very thing that covers it for her. That virtue. O' such humility. Nothing covers shortcomings like humility does. It gives one a clearer view of his challenges and places him on a better hill from which to roar and attack from. Bring this young woman home and watch a warrior die a peaceful death. Always remember what comes first. Human comes first before a hunchback'' was Izondu's last plea to his son, Chime, which opened his mind to marry a hunched-back girl from Nkwerre.
Was it that the Gods and his ancestors had remembered and decided to return him to life again? Instead of the morbid odor oozing out of a decaying body, a life has been transformed. It was really a mystery to him and should mean so much in days to come. If he had died without leprosy, his kinsmen would have, by this time, offered countless kola nuts, for and on his behalf as one of their newest kinsmen that had joined their forebears. But here, now, no one dared that because leprosy was seen as an affliction by the gods and ancestors against someone that failed certain tests set before them. Hence, such a person was not expected to sit side by side with their ancestors.
After learning some dance moves, Izondu set his foot off of the land that plays host to the Evil Forest on Afor market day, passing through grasses and leaves of wild plants that had received their early morning dew baths last night with their hands still open to receive from the sun what it had for them for the day. Every step was counted as his daughter watched in admiration a man whose ancestors and the Gods had served two plates of life. You can imagine an old warrior on snaking moves as his body frame seemed to have been all framed with fragile pottery works. Those were walks of joy. Such moves of appreciation can only come from a man who was denied a cup of death because he was seen munching the bitter stick of life.
Udobuaku watched from afar as her eyes remained glued to her father, who was altogether like an alien trailing the paths to a village told in a story, until he reconnected with the main road that connects Afor market square and Iyom Isumeh. That was when her eyes could no longer capture the glimpses of what elegant Izondu had suddenly become.
She shook her head in nostalgia, turned back to the Evil Forest, stood still and started reminiscing. It was a mixture of tears of joy, imagination, regrets and remembrance of all they had gone through in the last few years. Udobuaku would try to dance, but the tears wouldn't let her.
''It would have been the best gift my Chi would have given me; walking out here to hug and carry my son, Amobi, on my chest, to give him a one-time shot at my breasts, to latch, that he may suck out these rigorous pains of many years, off my chest'' she muttered.
In the next hour, the noise that greeted Izondu in the market square ricocheted back and made a landing at the Evil Forest, where there were ear lopes already up, waiting to receive it. Udobuaku didn't need afa-divination to convince her that her father had been spotted after so many years in Afor market square, once again in his lifetime.
The noise was so wild and deafening. ''Yes, my father, Izondu, you don't deserve less. Your ancestors said you don't deserve less. Dance it like a mad man, dance it like a drunker, dance it like a barren woman that gave birth when all hopes were lost, dance it like a lineage on the verge of closure whose son had returned from an unknown land with kids around him, and dance it like a widow whose only child had survived Leprosy, dance it like a widow whose husband had returned from among the dead'' Udobuaka was talking to herself while breaking down in tears, holding her head intermittently as she stared emptily at the air plants that hung above her heads.
It was emotional turmoil in the jungle as some trees' twigs and leaves got the better part of her head as she threw it amidst joy, anger, confusion and rage.