Sands, Stones and Stuttering Rhythms (3)

It was the night of the quartzite that Idehen advised me to talk like a man. This advice succeeded a hard slap on the soft circle of my cheek, followed by a knock on the crown of my head, which ordinarily affected its width.

"You dis boy!” he admonished stridently. "You better learn how to talk well before you be man. Man voice na him power", he droned in pidgin. 

"Leave am na" came Urbi's seemingly rehearsed reply. "Na small pikin, 10 years abi? By the time he becomes 18, he for don pass this stage", she said, while caressing Idehen's advisory hand from dealing another corrective blow. 

Last night, far from the expected, Idehen came in a new form. A rare gesture from the innards of the quarry. He was a granite; transparent, good-natured and having a brilliant smoothness in the way he knocked the door. He presented a peace offering to me, a roasted plantain, though cold, it was still roasted plantain. He sang thanksgiving songs in a surprisingly dulcet voice. I never knew Idehen could sing. The only voice I have ever heard him use was the one, which I always refuse to hear. This change, most certainly, have been triggered by a mystery, I thought. It was like listening to an unfamiliar bird sing, loving it, yet wishing for it to go away.

As Idehen rang his voice into the ears of his family, through the door and into the sleeping leaves of the bushes, he waved a yellow folder over his head. This contained a single sheet of paper, which was peeking its head out as if to take in its surroundings. He waved it, singing into Urbi's face as if he wanted her to grasp it out of his hand and end the racket. Urbi did not make a move. She just stood there with an indecisive smile rolling around her lips. The type you give when the heart and mind has lost its unusual synergy. At that time, all I could think about was the geometry of my roasted plantain - which point is head or tail? What were the thin lines running over the surface called? Could they be veins? 

Finally, the mystery was unclothed. 

Idehen had gone to the office that day, with his customary empty self, wanting to be filled by the regular scents of rock dust. As he got to the mouth of the quarry, he was redirected by a supervisor to the administrative authority's office. He had been asked to drop his pickaxe before he left. That was strange. At the quarry, every labourer has a personal tool for work, a pickaxe. No one ever misplaced his or dropped it, not even during food time. It was always slung over the shoulder like a sick child. Men, who had been asked to drop their axes more often than not, were fired or were asked to go on a compulsory leave without pay because of sloppiness. Fear gripped Idehen's heart at the realisation of his options. He is a family man who has mouths to feed.