Monkeys are cruel creatures. The monkey mocks me even as I lay there on the mat at the back of the hut I have begun to call home. It seems to know that I am powerless before it and I never realised that I had become a bully with the power of the plague coursing through my veins. Without the power to destroy within me, I am just a man that even a monkey can make fun of. I used to think that I was stronger than this but on seeing the monkey’s ugly face taunting me right now even as it throws orange peels at me, I wish I can just hold its scrawny throat and make it bleat like a goat.
***
<center>![wave275774_960_720.jpg](https://files.steempeak.com/file/steempeak/warpedpoetic/AihLYXEK-wave-275774_960_720.jpg)</center><center><sub>*[Pixabay: Cocoparisienne](https://pixabay.com/photos/wave-beach-sea-water-nature-bank-275774/)*</sub></center>
***
I don’t know how long I lie, recovering from my wounds but it feels like forever. After my encounter with the faceless man in my dream, I fell into a fever that held me in its grip for weeks. It felt as if something is leaving me. I sweat, i vomit and pass waste like I am a baby. The fever makes me weak and hot all over. The huge man that I had wanted dead became my nurse and many a night, I screamed in delirious fever and wept in his huge arms, calling out to my mother, to Nadiri, to any god who still cared to listen. I was cured of pride and shame. My host and goaler, the blind old man, I never see anything of him after that first night. Maybe he is there but in my fevered state, I see nothing. 

I try to rise from the mat but my body is still too weak and it refuses to grant my request. The monkey scampers away on seeing me attempt to rise. I ignore it and turn to look through the door which stands open. I can smell the sea from here. I can even hear it as it climbs on to the shore and sways away again. I remember how it felt like to face the sea, making incantations to the gods back then on island and like always I remember Nadiri then my thoughts pause. I have not had a dream about Nadiri since I banned her from my memory. It is as if she never excited. I tried to recall her face but there is nothing. I panic.

I have banished memories before and when I do so, I can still remember the people I banished; I don’t just remember the incidents. It is quite strange to see that I have no memory of my late wife. It makes no sense. I am not a newly blooded man. I have been creating such places in my dreams since I discovered the veil and how to draw power from beyond it and Nadiri’s memory was the first I crafted, one of my finest I think. Losing it felt like losing a limb and I didn’t know how it had happened. Did the faceless man do something or was it that snake haired thingy that spoke from within Nadiri?

*“You are awake. Good. We need to talk.”*
 
The old man’s voice drew me away from my thoughts. I watch him enter through the door. He had his leather bag strapped across his shoulder. He smiled at me with those milky white eyes and I wondered what secrets laid behind that opaque view.

*“Talk about what?”* I ask.

*“All in good time. First I caught fish. We will have fried fish and rice this evening.”* He replied.

I eye the huge man as he steps outside and returns with a basket of still writhing fish. He sets the basket down and immediately begins cleaning them. The old man stows his bag against the wall and sits on his mat. He brings out a small wooden mortar and pestle, takes some sharp scenting spices and herbs from his bag and dumps them into the mortar then he begins to pound them with the pestle. I watch him as he works and notices the calluses on his hands. I have seen those kinds of calluses before, on the hands of the spear wielders of the Old Ubini Kingdom. They were an elite warrior sect that answered only to the Ogiso. I know my history.

*“When did you last hold a spear?”* I ask.

The pestle pause mid pound then it continues on with its steady rhythm. The herbs and spices meld together as he tips a clay pot of water into the mortar. He grinds the pestle into the mixture until he is satisfied then he places the mortar and pestle to his side and turns to face me.

*“By the time, Oranmiyan came to Ubini the Ogiso dynasty was dead. All ties that bonded the spear wielders were broken and we became a wandering horde on the horizon of every and any town we came across. We ravaged the land all the way to the Great River and across it. Across it, we met with resistance. Not the kind to expect, not men with weapons or even women with wiles and knives, no. The very earth fought against us. How leathers rotted in the swamps that bogged the land like a rash on a sickly child. We were eaten alive among the mangroves and when we tried to return back home defeated, the capricious olokun claimed the rest of us. I and five others survived but when we arrived Ubini had changed and so had we. A sickness rendered me blind and my spear became my crutch.”* He speaks softly.

I can see the distance his mind has travelled in the opaque whiteness of his eyes. He is no longer the old man to me now but a man, who has lived, fought, loved and found a way to redeem himself.

*“How did you end up as a seer? Who taught you to penetrate the veil?”* I ask.

*“I have always been able to. I was the eyes of the spear wielder.”* He replies.

*“You are Obuto the broken! That is impossible!”* I scream, rising. A huge hand pushes me back down.

The old man raises his head sharply and stares at me. The huge man seems to shift a bit as if tensing for something. Even the monkey senses the change and scampers away to the doorway. 

*“You have heard of me, wanderer?”* the old man asks. His question feels like a probe as if he is afraid of my answer.

*“Heard? You cowardly piece of shit! You are my father! You left my mother broken. I will strangle you with my bare hands when I heal.”* I spit towards him in disgust.

The huge man rise but the old man raises his hands even as his body shakes. When he raises his face to me, I realise that it is laughter that rocks him so.

“Ha... destiny is like a careless child playing with a toy. Everything becomes clearer now.”* He says. *“You rise in anger, you foam and bluster like a rabid rabbit but you do not ask the most important question.”* He adds

*“What question?”* I ask; the fact that I am still conversing with him squeezing my throat together into a squeak but I needed to know.

*“If I am your father, what am I doing in a time far in the past before I even met your mother?”* he asks.

*Why indeed? If what he says is correct in the time we are in now, he should not exist and even if he did, he should not be this old.* I studied him closely, curiosity breathing even as my disgust bite the dust.

*“You were brought here like me?”* I ask. The answer obvious in his smile.

*“Now we are understanding ourselves, wanderer.”* He replies, smiles, frowns in surprise and collapses into dust.
***
**Notes:** *The **olokun referred to here is not the god of the sea that had tried to curb our hero in part 2. This reference is to the Great river, the river Ethiope. It is also known as the Olokun River among the Bini people.*

warpedpoetic, 2019.