Arm Yourself with An Artificial Ear while on A Mission to Heaven -By Ifeanyi Nwokeabia

(a story of how I lost my father’s treasured radio)

Laughter was banned completely from existing in our midst. “No one should ever laugh”, they warned sternly. As a matter of fact, we all sat down to watch how the last man that laughed was executed. He was tied to a stake, and a burning fire was set under his legs. Soldiers were made to guard us against stretching helping hands to the burning man. We were forced never to look away, but to watch the fire burn through its victim without mercy. Then the chief executioner in a commanding charismatic way said, ” we have shown you little of hell on why no one should ever laugh.” “If this is little, how then will a bigger punishment be?” I asked myself.

We all went home helplessly sad. No one ever spoke of that day’s event. We lived in pretentious believe that “all is well.” Moving on became a mantra for who it has not directly happened to. It became pertinently clear to us that death is an only gateway, the day a man was murdered for a smile. The shock of it sent everyone drowning in the deep pit of River Niger.

“Smile is a menace. It’s betrayed greatest of men. It must not be allowed to last longer on the face of the Earth. It’s buffoonery to allow it to still live when it kept on deceiving the rich that the death traps set for the poor are yet to kill them all in a single swoop. So, we shall kill anyone that smiles again. Stiffen every face and live all days in an anguished face.” This was the recap of the executioner’s long speech.
I could have got a longer version of the speech, but I was teary watching another man burned on the stake for smiling. Were we not told to suffer and smile? Were we not told after the death of laughter that smile is the only healing balm to our aching soul?

In my attempt to get a lasting solution to the present woes, I found out that I lack the power to shoulder all the affairs. Then, I remembered a version of the Bible where Christ made mention of one carrying his cross. I tried to make more meaning to it, but having lost the knowledge of Bible classes made me hiss and shook head in self pity.

The thought of my father flashed in like a torch to my mind. “To live in heaven, always arm yourself with an artificial ear. Two ears are imperatively too small to hear and understand the wonders of this world, so, get an extra ear(s).” He concluded.

We have known our father to be a man with fewer words, and each time he spoke, he lives us with so to haggle in our minds. We watched him that evening as he listened to his four-battery radio. Being an inquisitive one amongst my siblings, I asked my elder brother what our father meant by an extra ear? He laughed and told me to never mind our father with his deep words with no meaning like Lakunle in Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel . Although, I wasn’t satisfied, but who am I to say it when we have been told to see our elderly ones as wisest? So, I slept and buried the thought.

After a long time, yes, it’s so long that I didn’t remember the last incidence. It was on my eighteenth birthday. Though it’s later that I observed from the cackling laughter of my older siblings that that has become a tradition to our father. He came back home on my eighteenth birthday with a radio. He said, ” son, may this ear lead you through.” He spoke this word like a flash of lightning, and went to sit and relax his body on his preferred cane chair.

Initially, I never loved it, but time heals and makes everything beautiful. I later fell in love with it, cuddling it like a pet to anywhere I went. I sat to listen as my father do, in the morning and evening. No news passed by without having hand shakes with us. It helped me to calculate my movement on daily basis. It exposed me to the wisdom of laws and orders. It brought the latest policies to my doorstep, and help me to adjust easily.

On one evening, I was so busy with my radio when father returned and exhaled, “son, you have been fully indoctrinated.” I looked up to him to him and smile. You knew that thankful smile that says, ‘thank you for showing me this path?’ That’s what I felt.

It’s a painful thing to me today that I have lost the face to look my father in the eyes and tell him that I have lost the treasured ear that once fed our ears with enough information to the vituperating social media and internet of today? I knew how he would drew my ears and accuse me of leaving my root. I knew how he would have advised me never to leave my ears to inglorious razzmatazz of the users of these platform? But of truth, time changes all, but in the same old way, just different practice.

Nigeria in the present time has suffered and is still suffering from insecurities. I may not vouchsafe that there’s still a state without a fair share of her worries on security currently. In applying Charles Darwin’s theory of the fitter of the fittest, one needs an extra ear to survive. Arm yourself with so much information before setting out for work or anywhere you may wish to go. God is the protector, but a human must endeavour to help himself, so that, God can do His part too.

Information in the present time is scattered like oil bean in a dry season. Everyone needs to wear wide ears, and accompany it with a sieve, to select genuine information from false one. Wrong information can cause pogrom within the minutest time, so be careful! Water is good for life, but not every water is drinkable. Information is water, drink responsibly.

But could it truly be that those persons that were burnt on the stakes failed to arm themselves with artificial ears? Or were they not having ears at all? The answers to these questions and many more are neither here nor there. Like my father, I’m also a man of fewer words. Let silence speak from here.

Nwokeabia, Ifeanyi John is a poet and teacher. He has Nigeria Certificate in Education and Bachelor of Arts in Education, both in English Language. He has authored a collection of poems titled Immortal Words(2021). He was shortlisted for the ENDSARS poetry competition organised by the Society of Young Nigerian Writers in collaboration with International Human Rights Art Festival (IHRAF) USA, 2020. And in 2021, he was shortlisted for Essay Competition organised by International Human Rights Art Festival on Human Rights Abuse in Africa. His poem also appeared in the anthology ‘The Best of 2020 Poet of the World’, a publication by Inner Child Press, USA. His other works are published in different online platforms like Poemhunter , voicesnet , The Shadow Tales Review , AceWorld , calseriesblog , qwenu , opinion Nigeria, SYNWBlog etc