The way this wind hits just probably might set the tone for my mood. I am certain for this. It's daybreak in Ebute Metta and the woman who genuflects with her ass up in the air, puffing air into waning firewoods, is my mother. Watch her stir meticulously balls of akara in heated cooking oil. Beads of sweat ornament on her head like little diamond crystals. Her knuckles ashen and powdery that one could mistake them for vitiligo. And this would go on for many days. And many nights. One day, mother didn't fry and sell oily akara to commuters and traders in the market. I know because Jaja, who sold batteries, told me she was in the local hospital at Ebute Metta when I went to pick flowers. I know because I watched them roll her body into a ward unit. I know because they said cancer was killing my ma.


                                                                                                                     *

Do you have a father? I say no. Do you have an uncle? I say no. Mother is my "do you have" plan. She belonged to me just as much as I belonged to her. People see it. They see when mother crest my neck with white white dusting powder when there is no talcum for us to use. The smell smells of home and my little fedora hat hanging like a dead wall clock on mother's shoe rack.

Ja! I know mother would never leave without saying goodbye and so I wait. I wait for mother all day long. One time when I come back from fetching primrose and ixoras for mother, the doctors have cut her hair. I know mother's hairdo isn't fine, but why they cut her hair without telling me? I cry so much my chest hurt; I lick mother chocolate and I still cry a little more. The doctor say something about stage three and chemotherapy, but I know he's lying. I know he hates my ma because of her powder hands staining his bedsheet. I hate him, too.

When the nurses ask me why I don't go to school and wait for mother, I think they want to take her away. I tell them I stay put and they leave me there for days. Not talking. Not wanting to toss me to upsetment. I prefer to go into the bush and pick flowers for my ma because that's the only thing she likes. Me and her like them. Them bright bright flowers; lilies, bougainvillea, rose, barbados—bud nipping early around August. We don't scent them as people in the T.V do. Mother say it's poison, and first time when I scent it, I sneeze—them people in the T.V lie. Why do they not sneeze?

One day when I come to hospital from flower-picking, mother is awake. She sits on the bed looking scrawny and weak. I am not sure those hands can fry akara again, so I take a sit beside her. She tell me to hold her hands but I am scared that she might break. She cough too loudly in my ears and I fear that blood will soon follow. She look me dead in the eye and smile. This woman look me dead in the eye, and smile! After them doctors barb her hair away! After she knows she is very sick and might die! I pray silently that she does not check the cans of Ovaltine and Milk beside her. I scoop some in my mouth when she is asleep, and watch them melt into solid state in my mouth. I even hum and whistle nne ndo while doing it. The doctors don't catch me. I am swift and slippery as a snake. I lick with the mouth of Inikpi the bird. But mother doesn't check the tins. She check my face as if she kept an expression there. I am ashamed of myself because I can't even look her now ugly face. I don't know how to tell her I miss her hair, so I wear her a garland I make on top of her head. The garland cover her head a bit and I don't see her loss of hair a tad.

"Have you eaten today?" She ask me, coughing a tad. I say no, I don't want to eat anything. She ask me for her frying pan and earthenwares, I say I wash them and put them inside the dark store. She ask me if I leave them to dry, I lie and I say, "yes ma." Her lungs must feel like a train's chimney for she always gave a long pneumatic hiss when she cough.

"I tell the doctor to give me marijuana, but he refused," she starts, "now, I don't feel so good," she say with great effort. I don't say anything, I just hold her hand and I don't squeeze them, for I still fear that they will break.

"Have you do it before?" My mother ask me. I don't know what she's talking about and so I ask what.

"Have you sleep with a girl before?" She say smiling weakly at me. Why is mother doing this? Why is she asking all this type of question when she is really sick? I know I have do it before, but I don't know if I should tell her. I look her in the eye and she look the other way groaning softly. I feel I should tell her. Maybe it will make her happy.

"Yes. I have, ma," I say anxiously.

"Hmmm, I know. With that tomato girl they call Basira," she say, smiling with all set of her teeth showing to reveal a tiny yellow dent just below her small small teeth. I am surprised, but I try not to show.

"How do you know, ma?" I ask.

"I am your mother. I know everything," she say brushing and running her hand through my uncombed hair, "but did it hurt?" she ask again.

"A little," I replied.

"Do you like her?" She ask again, this time, asking for water as she cough loud loud. I quickly run to the tap and check if the water is rushing. I filled the plastic disposable cup and gave her to drink. She thank me.

She ask me the question again, because I do like I didn't hear her the first time.

"I don't know if I like her ma, but she like me," I said trying to avert my gaze from her dull eyes. She was silent now; austere, lacklustre, plain, she was  just there—distant. I was confused about what will happen if I lost my mother. For some time I don't think  about it; I pluck flowers just because of her. She liked the flowers, and because she liked them, I plucked them. But what if one day she is no longer here. Would I still pick flowers? I am scared, and I can't wait to find out, so I ask her myself.

"Ma, will you leave me?"

She looked down upon me like light casted upon a shadowy rock, something tell me that even if she reassure me, her face would betray that reassurance.

"No, I won't," she say.

"How do I know?!" I snap, almost crying now.

"Because I am promising you," she say, "now leave me alone now, let me rest," she order me.

I was a bit happy. Mother won't be leaving me because she promised. Mother always keep her promises. Like one time she tell me she will sew shokoto and jalamia for me, she pay the tailor to do it for me. When she say we will eat bread and tea on Saturday, we always did. When she tell me she will buy me a fedora hat from the market, she buy it for me. When I had a torn short and my play friends laughed at my black ass, she promised to patch it and she do it. My mother was a keeper of promise.

One day, after I come back from picking flowers, I don't see my mother again. I scream for my father I did not have because they have taken him in her. The doctors tried to hold me down so I wouldn't gnaw at their skins, but all I was was a sad boy. The flowers in my hands were crumpled as I rattled on like a broken radio. I just asked them to let me give her her flowers but they refused. I cried so much my voice croak like a frog's. I keep wandering further and further into the bush. Into the gardens. Into anything that had semblance to a flower. You can hear me sing or cry around Ebute Metta market; I am that mad boy who sings

First it was her hair

Now, you took her body

But you promised

you promised 

you promised