At gunpoint we march, our hands flailing while the thin long rust mouth of Maxim guns sneer at us.
“How did we get to this stage?” my father asks, but the belligerent gaze my mother pours him makes him recoil, abruptly.
Every time my father’s revolutionary bout rears its head, my mother always have a noose to tame him; and today, she’s shown that just perfectly.
“Lep ai!” one of the soldiers screams, his eyes darting like a horrified rat.
We file on a single harmonic line that snakes through from below the whistling pines toward that shallow end on Balogun Kuku’s compound.
They have not lashed us yet; that white lieutenant is presently penning our names to a sutured parchment, while that gaunt looking white general is busy sizing up Iya Meta’s flappy breasts. Baba Meta snarls.
A few of us have escaped, but these men who speak through their nose prefer to give a chase – as if they know this land more than us. I hear them speak in muffled tones, the ocean breeze and its crisp voice whispers gently to my ears.
The memory of Agbadagiri seems to be a few minute away from being snatched away from me forever: the jaguars I play with, the cooing of that white dove close to my aba, the snarls of lions and the roars of our kinsmen tearing through the green leaves and thorns of the spear grasses during the monthly leopard hunt. All these will be gone in a moment.
I closed my eyes savouring the touch of bravery that picks at me this time, I gnash my teeth that they nearly spurt blood from my gums. This moment is sweet, for what shall I say of me being a man to be killed by another?
There are no ropes binding us, no manacles on our feet, no agadagodo to our mouths, only the three rifles and the fear of the unknown. From nearby, I hear the leaves rustle, I turn back to look, someone is trying an imperfect mimicry of the clan’s deaf man pantomime; the fingers were black, it is the warlord.
As the bodies begin to unfurl from the camouflage of the leaves, we see hope, our future and the battle to rescue our motherland. The griot brings out his flute to sing. The hoot pierces through the ears of everyone – we all recognised it. Before they realise what is going on, Kurunmi strikes, and from then a new era begins.
Yet, Unseen 