WEYREY - A Short Story

It felt like a daydream, a surreal experience that felt almost too good to be true. It was as if I was transported back in time and reliving a cherished memory, but with an added sense of wonder and amazement.

I was back in our house in Ilesha, a one-bedroom apartment that didn't seem so small when I was young, but now that I was back, it felt almost claustrophobic. My father played, ate, sang, danced, taught, and read to me in this small room. He loved the poverty out of me. We might not have been rich, but I was rich with love, and I was somewhat happy.

I remember what he used to call me - "Okoko" and as the events played out in front of me I realized just how much I missed him.

"Do you know why I call you Okoko?" He asked.

"No!" I said innocently.

"You remind me of someone I loved dearly, my friend Okoko. He was my best friend 'from small'. Wherever I was, you'd find Okoko and wherever he was, I was never far away."

"What happened to Okoko?"I asked as he rubbed my gorimapa.

"He is in heaven; he fell sick and never recovered." He paused, as if the memory hurt too much.

"So why do I remind you of him? Am I going to die too?"

"God forbid!" He shouted and drew me closer, kissing my gorimapa not once but two times.

"You look exactly like him, you even smile like him, and you are kind and gentle like he was."

Even in a trance-like state, I was aware of my surroundings and where I currently was - In a shack owned by a man I wouldn't have given a second look on a normal day. Yet, it is this same shack that I have visited every day for the past two months and found comfort and happiness waiting for me.

You see, in my life I have experienced many heartbreaks, but the biggest heartbreak was losing my father as a young boy in Ilesha. I never knew my mother; my father said she died giving birth to me. So he raised me all by himself.

If anyone had told me I would be able to relive moments with my father so vividly, I would have thought them crazy. But here I was with this man, this man who made what I thought was impossible possible.

"Welcome back," he said as I came to.

"How long was I out today?"

"Two solid hours!"

"Thank you, thank you, Paul."

"Okoko I've told you to stop thanking me; you thank me with the token you give me and the conversations we have. I do this because this is what I am meant to do."

"No matter how much you protest, Paul, I will always thank you because these memories are the only things that keep me going."

Before I knew his name, they called him ‘Weyrey. He also went by other creative names like ‘Hungry’, and ‘That Mad Man’.

I remember thinking that in a kinder world, he might have been somewhere warm, being cared for and looked after, but much of the kindness in these parts had been replaced by distrust and people who were so caught up in their own personal hell that they had no time to think about others.

Don't get me wrong, there's the occasional kindness that warms your heart, but more often than not, the only thing people like Paul get are dirty stares, change thrown at them, and the occasional pity party. I myself was guilty of throwing him a pity party or two.

I wondered who he might have been before he found a home in the makeshift shack he so carefully built for himself on my street. It didn't look haphazard like you would imagine, but every piece of wood and sack used to assemble it was carefully sourced.

And his appearance wasn't exactly what you were probably used to. His shoulder-length dreadlocks or matted hair, depending on where you were looking at him from, sat well on his smallish frame. He didn't look malnourished, and I never saw him beg a passerby, not even once, so I often wondered how he maintained his frame.

Even when he was offered money, he would shake his head and retreat into his shack.

His clothes, however, needed a good wash, but on closer inspection, you'd find that no amount of washing could restore their once vibrant colors.

You see, Weyrey was not a Weyrey, but he was not normal either. Weyrey had powers. Yes powers! The kind you only see in movies. No one knows how he got these powers, not even Weyrey himself, and the few who know about it kept it to themselves, for themselves, because of what it did for them.

You know how our people are, poster children for the phrase "an idle mind is the devil's workshop." All it takes is for a voice in the crowd to shout "Witch!" and the next thing you know, they are crowdfunding for his cremation.

Everything they don't understand is a witch that must die by fire.

Weyrey was a memory peddler, offering respite to the lost, the hopeless, and the dreamers. He offered them the peace and calm that they could only find in their happiest memories.

I remember the day I first encountered this power. I had just gotten another rejection email from yet another company. Two years of joblessness pushing three. I took a stroll to clear my head and relax the rumbling in my tummy that was yet to get accustomed to our new 001 feeding schedule.

I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't know when he grabbed me.

Have you ever been grabbed by a madman? Your first reaction would be to shout at him, shove him, or pull away. But just as I was about to attempt one of the three actions, he called me by a name that only one other person and God could possibly know. I pulled away from his grip and asked him what he said.

"Okoko! is that not what your father used to call you back in Ilesha?"

People passing by stared at me weirdly, almost as if they were trying to tell me something. It was like they were trying to tell me he wasn't right in his senses. Can’t a man just feel like interacting with a "mad man" every now and then?

"How do you know that name. Who are you and who sent you?" I asked, because anyone who knows your secrets could only be sent by the devil or those who want to destroy you from your father's house.

"If you want to experience the best moments of your life, step inside my palace." He retorted and turned around, his smallish body disappearing into his, er, palace.

What is this? Rantings of a mad man or something more. I debated my next move. Was I setting myself up to be Clifford Oji'ed?

Truth be told, my curiosity was piqued.

I thought about it for a minute and decided I needed to find out more. So into his palace I went.

What I met inside pleasantly surprised me. It was a neat but small space with a bed made of tyres for sleeping, rather than an unkempt dump that housed the dingiest of rats and the neighborhood's finest scrap. In the other corner were two makeshift chairs missing their bottoms but balanced by a stack of blocks. It smelled foul, but not the kind of foul that one couldn't stomach. Some clothes hung on a loose stick above the bed.

"When you are done admiring my palace, you can take a seat beside me."

He motioned for me to join him.

He told me about his powers and how he could see the past but not the future. How he helped people relive pleasant memories, especially at times when the present was too painful to bear. He was born with it, this power, but it wasn't until his secondary school days that he truly understood what it meant and what it could do.

The people he helped knew better than to go about broadcasting it. They know what could happen to him. The open-minded are few and far between in these parts. Too many hypocrites that won't hesitate to visit a babalawo but would condemn him and his power.He also had to play his part. Hide in plain sight.

"No one disturbs a madman; he does the disturbing," he said, bursting into laughter.

He laughed a mad kind of laugh. If he indeed wasn't mad, he wasn't doing himself any favours with such laughter.

He spoke well, very well.

"I read a lot; I have some books. Here, see" He raised up a sack beside his bed to reveal a large collection of books. "But university was not for me; I'm a wanderer. I am just here to help people."

"Hmmn," I responded, with several questions running through my head.

"Are you ready?"

Ready for what? I asked, puzzled.

"To be happy, if only for a second, to see your father and relive the best moments of your life," he shouted.

I responded with a reluctant yes.

He jumped up and immediately started singing and clapping in the kind of way that made him look anything but sane.