The Fishermen

For there’s no greater love than for a man to suffer for his friend

Should they put you there, you will not be suffering for mere friends, but for your brothers.”

all of Africa, very strongly believed that when the fruit of a woman’s womb—her child—dies, or is about to, she somehow obtains prescient knowledge of it.

you not know that there is nothing the eye can see that can make it shed the tears of blood? Do you not know that there is no loss we cannot overcome?”

When a mother is hungry, she says:

“Roast something for my children that they may eat.”

I imagined him standing over Ikenna’s corpse after the stabbing, wailing, having suddenly realized that by that singular action, he had plundered his own life in one single haul like a cave of ancient riches. He must have seen it, must have thought about what the future held in stock for him and dreaded it. It must have been these thoughts that birthed the heinous courage that administered the suicidal idea like morphine into his mind’s vein, starting off its slow death. With his mind dead, it must have been easy to move his legs, carry his body, fear and uncertainty sewing his mind thread-by-thread, the bulge thickening, the loom pilling until he made the plunge—head first, like a diver, the way he always dived into the river,

His chi, the personal god the Igbos believe everyone had,

Those the gods have chosen to destroy, they inflict with madness.

Mother was deeply shaken by the weig

Have you all seen it? Have you seen what your folly has caused? Didn’t I say we should stop going to this stupid river, but none of you listened?” He piled both hands on his head: “You will see that she will certainly blow the whistle to Mama. You want to bet it?” He slapped his forehead. “You want to?”

No one replied. “You see?” he said. “Your eyes have now opened, right? You will see.”