Ojuju.

Listen to me, Child; I am sure you must have heard the terrifying stories about life and all it is capable of. You must have heard that life will suck sometimes, that the world will move on especially on days where the sun refuses to rise from where you are. Knowing is good because you can anticipate the emotion, but, believe me when I tell you that you can expect it and still be dazed by it. What is it? Life. I think it is common knowledge that life is overwhelmingly capable of a beauty that will consume your fragile little heart, just as it is capable of rearing an earth shattering ugliness that will crack your tough tall walls. Ojuju is a Masquerade, but, not the kind that has little kids clapping, dancing and jumping happily as it passes by. It is a Masquerade that periodically tests the functionality of your amygdala. Knowing what you know now, it is safe to believe that Ojuju is an allegory of life, or at least, of life's most horrendous form. If you paid any attention, you would notice that you are only scared of Ojuju before it reveals itself and moments after it leaves. Yes, life is capable of giving you the beating of your life, anytime it so pleases. The moment when you can feel that you are about to be dealt a heavy beating is scarier than the beating session itself. Likewise, moments after the beating stops, you tremendously fear that life is still lurking around waiting to pounce on you, unaware.

In the previous sentences, you could replace the word life with any other scary word to understand better. You know your week is about to be ruined because you feel your menstruation coming soon, and when it ends you wear your pad for an extra day because you'd rather waste that one pad that have your day ruined with stains, unaware. You can feel your life flickering because you know that soon, your friend will leave you, and when they finally leave, you spend so much time wallowing in self pity hoping that life empathizes with you enough to not hit you again, unaware. You know that your government is as smart and empathetic as a marshmallow and you feel the quality of your life is about to take a drastic turn just before that one damning policy is passed, then, it seems like the government is making a U-turn on their decision but you are not impressed because you'd be damned to be bamboozled, unaware.

When you wake up in the middle of the night wanting to pee but you cannot shake off the feeling of Ojuju being somewhere around, you stay on guard. Now you have peed and are back to your room without using any of the combat styles you had curated in your mind, the logical thing is to believe that it was a false alarm and there is no Ojuju anywhere. Until you remember that you have been away from your room, so, what if it hid itself while you went to pee hoping to catch you, unaware. So, you stay up for just a few more seconds to keep watch, maybe not seconds, but minutes. Okay, a few more hours. Till you wake up by daybreak realizing you are still alive. Listen to me, Child; life will break you in the most terrifying way possible but you will soon get to learn that the true horror will be as a result of you getting through it. You will wonder if you beat life, if you won. You will wonder if you carry as much horror as life does for you to come out of the other side, victorious. It would never make complete sense how you are still breathing after everything you fought because it would all feel like the battle happened to you, unaware.