THE CURSED ONE

“Never has a child with four eyes been born in our land” The old man, Nwakunze coughed and spat, a thick yellowish venom. He being three scores and twenty had known a lot throughout his existence. The Ibo have a proverb that old men would not wash their scrotums in the presence of children. So Nwakunze bit his lip and sat on his old ancestral stool, looking but not moving. He had said enough.
“I cannot stand this disgrace” another old man blurt out. “The child is a cursed one; he shan’t be breastfed by his mother. His likes ought to be thrown in the evil forest, and the woman who bore him must be banished from the land.” The old man Nkiribu stated with firmness, his eyes blazing like a thousand torches tied together.
The woman who bore the child cried out in despair, “Oblanze the holy one had revealed his coming, he shall be like no other free son, he had declared to me. My son shall be a slave to the people but a salvation to Nkoli. My son shall detect a bullet from a billion miles away; he shall rescue Nkoli from any impending doom.” She cried and wailed deeply petrified, pleading for her life and her son’s.
Oblanze the holy one was summoned at once. The messengers who went to call him were blinded by a radiating light that shone five miles from his sanctuary. “Go back and tell the old men, the child must not be touched. He shall speak his first word at six months; let them bring him to me then. Arise take back your eyes and return” So the messengers who got their sight at once turned around lost, running off like frightened puppies. Breathlessly, each man told his tale