Mama Aku said there was a district chief who had come to our village generations ago, she would spit, shake her head as she narrated the story. She said her great grand ma had told her the tale. 

She claimed that this King had spent only three years in the village, with a promise to return for his bride.

Aku said that the old folks in the neighboring villages had said the same thing. That this King was returning to marry us, all of us, old men, old women, handicap, blind, deaf and even wanton girls like Nkenna.

I remember it like it was yesterday. Mama Aku would wake early,sing songs of love to this mysterious King, chanting his name over and over like she had been struck with high fever.

She would teach us his names, all 21 of them. I would roll my eyes , how can One King have more than 6 names? 

That was  many years ago. 

Somewhere after Mama Aku’s death, Aku and some of the villagers, including Nkenna and Odichi the village thief would sit together loving on their “husband”. They grew in number and strange things happened in their gatherings, very strange things. Ukachi’s dumb daughter started speaking in one of those gatherings. But I would scoff at them and yell curses in the name of our villages deities, I even spat at them too.

Last week,  Aku  was aglow with joy and excitement as she screamed that He would return. She said the most wonderful things about him. It was tempting to join in her madness, to ask her how to prepare for him, it was tempting to give into the yearning for him but I shut that desire down.

Now, Aku and the others are dressed in white, all ages, all sizes and from all villages seated at the banquet table with our husband but He will not see me. He says He does not know me even though I told Him that I knew He wanted to marry me too.