24 The Blackout

It was already about an hour now since the sun came out and nothing has happened. The sun was still shining in its full glory. Ego was still weeding the garden but began second-guessing herself. The little negative voice was back and commenced sowing more seeds of doubt in her mind; again she started defending her stand and was once more engaged in a battle of wits with her mind.

"It is afternoon already oh and I can't seem to see the moon or darkness anywhere"

"I know it is afternoon already, it is not yet time, once it is time it will happen".

"Are you sure or you are just telling yourself exactly what you want to hear?" The tiny voice whispered into her heart.

"It will happen, it must happen; my dreams have always come to reality. It will not fail me today that I need it most". She replied herself.

"I thought the old lady said in the afternoon, or do you want to wait till evening first before it becomes clear to you that nothing is going to cause any blackout".

"Come! I don't want to argue with you again especially not under this hot sun; so leave me alone; whether it happens or not it is none of your business".

The tiny voice began laughing and after a while, it stops and began roaring into Ego heart

"The old lady lied to you, nothing is going to happen, the sun will shine as it has always done and nothing is going to change. Don't deceive yourself. No war is coming; the earlier you believe it, the better for both of us".

Ego slowly began considering the whispers of the tiny voice. "You might be right oh; What if it was just a dream and nothing more. After all, I have never heard of when there was a total blackout in the afternoon before and it is already afternoon and no sign of anything". Ego said now trying to convince herself.

"Now you are waking up from your slumber, and it is very risky you could get killed in the process and if you get killed I die too. I'm not ready to die if you must know" the voice said.

"I know I'm about to dance with death but life has been so unfair to me since Nnanna's demise. Sometimes I even feel like giving up so I can join him. I don't want to continue like this; I have to believe that this is going to happen and just wait till evening to see whether it will occur or not. If it doesn't, good; but if it does I am going without any hesitation". She concluded and then set out to block the tiny voice in her head by shutting her eyes, raised her head up and closed her both ears with her palms as tight as she could as she began shouting over and over on top her voice "It is going to happen oh! It is going to happen!"

Then suddenly there was utmost silence, the voice in her head was gone and it was like the whole world stood still. She opened her eyes to see that the moon has appeared in the sky and it has started to move in front of the sun. The sun appeared hollow as the moon had come in front of it. A substantial proportion of the sun was covered and the loss of daylight became noticeable. Gradually sunlight around her started getting dimmer. The color of the village seemed to disappear.

Everything was fading as all the colors began to go from the moor. The colors were changing; the blue turned to purple, the white became livid as at the approach of a violent but windless storm. It became cooler as light and warmth were vanishing. She could feel the soft breeze rushing through her face. The shadow grew darker and darker over the moon. The birds stopped singing while people and animal sounds and movement follow suit. The world became static for some moments like they were experiencing a holy silence just to observe this weird occurrence. There was now a really eerie light like a filter had gone over the sun. It was still light enough to still see around but it felt really unearthly.

"It is happening! It is really happening! Ego shouted in joy; she shouted it so loud so the tiny voice in her head could hear it. She could not believe it was finally happening; deep down she prayed it does not happen so she will have no reason to risk her life, but that's past tense now as the only option she has right now is to embrace her new realness.

She quickly picked up her packaged grains and headed straight to her hut. When inside, she untied the cocoyam leaf and poured its contents into her wooden mortar and placed the pestle inside. Took out her torch from under the wooden bed and placed it on the ashes of the dead fire and bent down to blow the fire back to life with her mouth.