The View From The Window (3)

 WARNING: ADULT CONTENT!

As the news spread about the returnee, his friends were trooping in, slapping his hand and clapping his shoulder and back. Seeing the mood the father was in, they ordered more bottles of beer and meat.The place was foggy with cigarette smoke.

The language changed from Efik diluted with Ibibio and Annang dialects to pidgin English as the Ejagham and Bekwarra-speaking fellows joined their friends. The party was on till dusk.

When night bimbled in, the young men and their girlfriends melted away for fear of the known unknown, the police who could swoop in or not. Everyone went away with the instruction by Utai to 'draw the ear' of their friend, Imo.

Honestly,  the boys didn't stop smoking and the police boots like vultures' talons on the iron sheets of a slaughter-house didn't stop descending click-clack on the shanties. When the ill-timed marathon persisted, Amba and all his friends eventually vanished from their homes. They slept the nights on the floors and benches of churches, friends' and relations' abodes in safer parts of the village. Some left for the forest, working there long-term.

With government's tough stance, those abducted were freed. (Unfortunately, the female professor lost her life.) As the trajectory of events was favourably changing, doctors shifted their position and returned to work. Shortly after, the police from the state capital curtailed their raids on the shacks near the brook.

The year was advancing. The rains, like a retiree, pulled the drawers of its desks and picked its belongings and vacated the space it called its workplace. A fresh face, the dry season, walked in and took its seat.

Amba and a few friends returned. The rest had rented new homes in other parts of the village. 

Mr and Mrs Udiong from their window could conclude business had plummeted for the young man. The few customers still patronizing him were a bunch of chickens which would bawl and scatter in different directions at the mere shake of a leaf thinking it was the kite. For the first time, the Udiongs saw Amba doing menial jobs on the farms and building sites around. But the men and boys where he worked knew it was also the process he used to offer his services to those in need.

From their window, the Udiongs noticed Ime, a regular customer who frequented Amba's kitchen. Ime's brother-in-law was a young thriving palm-oil merchant who lived across the path the Udiongs resided. Mrs Udiong was quite familiar with his sister as they interacted a lot in the market selling their goods. But neither the wife nor her husband had let Ime's sister know what her younger brother had been doing behind their house. Of course, that would would have exposed their viewpoint into the backyard and they would have been seen too as nosy parkers.

TO BE CONTINUED