By Marvel Pephel
Abuja, Circa 3500
In a city in a country saddled with the task of meeting the technological needs of its inhabitants, rose a man with his invisibility. His name was Dr. Okoro. This discovery of his was a serendipity. Now, it will interest you to know what and what led to the discovery. And what and what he decided to do with it.
***
Dr. Okoro loved to play rock music, especially those with the sound of wah-wah guitar in them. He also had a thing for wind instruments, and owned a couple of them. He also owned a parrot and a cat. The name of his cat was Mushkin. There was no name for the parrot – poor fellow! Poor fellow who talked and talked and talked and still remained caged. Its master, ever since he brought it home, had never considered allowing it to flap its wings outside the cage. But despite the freedom that was denied it, the poor thing kept talking and talking – sometimes – to the discomfort of its master. His master who would have killed it on the day the thing couldn’t just let him have his night sleep. He, eventually had to grab the thing from its fixed cage and put him in a carton, and took it into his toilet. And, sure, that was the only freedom the thing ever got! If that could be called freedom. Of course, Dr. Okoro was a no-nonsense man and had enormous love for his wife. The two lovebirds lived like two dovetailed pieces of wood – and it seemed
nothing could ever separate them. At least, so it seemed. Now Dr. Okoro was a Molecular Biologist who worked in a laboratory as a researcher. He also owned a clinic and seldom had plenty time for other things – except sitting under the cherry tree in front of his clinic to read a book or going for a walk with a friend or two. He was a dedicated scientist, so much that he was a member or a fellow of the Nigerian Society of Molecular Biologists (NSMB) and Molecular Science Society of London (MSSL). He was a dedicated scientist, he was a scientist par excellence. A man with great zeal for scientific inquiry. Everybody loved him even though he was famous for being standoffish. He kept a moustache and often wore white clothes. Often bespectacled. Often in his laboratory. Often in need of privacy which his wife won’t let him get most nights. And on such occasions, he acted like a real gentleman and never complained.
***
“Oh, Peter Squire, spin me a yarn!” Dr. Okoro said and crossed his legs. He was sitting under his cherry tree.
“Doc, I’m being frank with you. That’s exactly what happened. I am allergic to lies.”
“Hmm. So you mean the man jumped to his death?”
“Yes. Because of his wife’s tantrums.”
“You don’t say! Well, what has become of the woman?”
“Of course, she’s alive. Eating the fattest calves from the farm and occupying space.”
“Oh, poor bloke! He took his own life for the sake of his wife. It must not have been mere tantrums. You know, sometimes, the heart doesn’t say everything. Well, may his soul find eternal rest.”
Peter Squire removed his hat and genuflected; a sign of respect and last obeisance for his late comrade. When he was done, he stood upright and wore his hat again. “He will forever be missed. He was a lovely chap.”
“Too bad he had to exit this way.” Dr. Okoro said to Peter Squire, the VSO nurse from England. “Now, tell me: how often do you hear from the friends you left behind?”
“Oh, very often. Especially my wife.”
“I said your friends not your wife. Don’t I know how mad you are about your family?”
“But she’s not just my wife; she’s my bestie.”
“Wow, I love that! At least you won’t be jumping to your own death any time soon.”
Peter Squire held his chest and laughed uncontrollably. “I won’t even dare!”
The laughter became contagious and Dr. Okoro joined in.
***
Now, once upon a time, Dr. Okoro used to read only biographies and historical fiction. Now, while in his study, his eyes fell upon a title. KING SARGAN. He, when he was younger, treasured this book because it relied heavily on moral and how one man’s tyranny left him and his country in cold waters of destruction. He remembered a page from the book and laughed loudly in between trying to lift the book off the shelf and trying to keep his glasses resting firmly on his nose. He took out the book quickly and hit it on his desk to remove the heavy dust that had come to be slathered on the book due to lack of use. He smiled and turned the pages intently. He reached a page and screamed excitedly. He sat down gently and perused the content of the page:
“Discretion is the better part of valour,” men quote
When they reject a seemingly risky adventure.
But some are only expressing sour grapes,
With a treacherous heart latent ‘neath a hallowed mien.
I doubt if any man is perfect
That live on this peccable sphere
Where all species are under an arcane spell.
Or did seemingly perfect Lucipher not fall?
Men, the scriptures affirm, are to dominate
Over the inhabitants of the globe:
Be they furred, feathered, skinned, scaled or leaved.
Yet, man still remains an ad infinitum slave
In the hands of Lust, Mortality and Dame Nature.
What serving-ruler men are!
Would it be despicable if I extol corruption pintly?
And would I be mean if I covet a man’s sweetheart
Like God-loved righteous David did?
Or would I get a condign for defending a music
I think is sweetest, as Midas thought of Pan’s
But recieved the ass’s ears for injustice?
Or would I be a prey in a spider’s web
If I try to circumvent the universal laws?
Of course, not! Who can challenge me?
Afterall, I am not Thor the Friend of Men.
King Sargan paused on the thought to sip his whisky. He rose from his chair, took out his favourite book, Twenty Famous Meanest Men, and walked languidly across the palace. He placed his pince-nez firmly on his retroussé nose. He was a tall and huge man with a pot belly. He was the king of his country, Green Coast; a country known for its criminal notoriety. His magnificent palace stood kilometers away from Green Coast’s near-tumbledown buildings. King Sargan was one king, amongst others before him, that was highly feared. Nobody advised nor challenged him. Only the mention of his name posed a great trepidation to the citizens. He was a tyrant. Even his appointed chiefs were scared to tell him his wrongs; they were potential dead men. They, on most occassions, offered their wives to please their ruler. King Sargan simply got whatever he needed, by fair means or foul. His evil actions took place like a domino effect; one evil always led to another, and more.
Somebody knocked on the door and Dr. Okoro put his comb in-between the pages of the book and closed it. He stood up, adjusted his glasses, and asked who it was. What struck him first and most, if alarming, was the familial tone of the voice.
“Vincent?!” asked Dr. Okoro.
“Yes. It is me, brother.”
Dr. Okoro wore his coat and went to open the door. Vincent was his cousin, a man with dreadlocks that often seemed unkempt. He smoothed his mustache and unlocked the door.
“Vincent! What an August visit! Boy, you sure don’t look too good. How’s everything?”
“Supposedly fine.”
“Boy, don’t speak in parables. Come, we need to talk in the sitting room.” He stepped out of his study and locked the door. “Vincent! Boy, how’s your boat business?”
Vincent was about to reply when Dr. Okoro’s wife appeared and began to tell her husband that breakfast was already served. Together, they walked towards the dining room with Okoro’s wife asking about Vincent’s wife’s pregnancy.
***
Au fond, Dr. Okoro was a perfectionist. A perfectionist with a lively mind that often channeled his existential energy to something creative and rewarding. He had a fecund mind. He had a Midas touch that could turn anything he touched into gold. He was extremely gifted. Jovial to a fault, but he also carried an aura of reserve about him. It was the rainy season and a Monday, and he stepped out of his car with an umbrella. He had parked close to his cherry tree, an exclusive parking space for him only. He closed the umbrella and handed it to Nurse Abigail who had come to greet him. And of course, he had stepped out of his car with Mushkin in the grip of his left arm. He rubbed the cat’s head as he walked through the entrance door. Another nurse greeted him and he stopped, almost abruptly.
“Nurse Umbule, how are you?”
“Fine, sir!”
“How’s your patient doing? I mean the child that has pile.”
“He’s getting well.” Nurse Umbule replied.
“Good. Where is Mr. Jude?”
“He should be in the lab, sir.”
“Okay. Thank you.” He turned briskly and walked into a door by the left.
“Precious!”
“Good morning, sir!” Precious greeted on seeing him.
“Yes, if you don’t mind, I’d like to see you and Mr. Jude in my office now.”
“Okay, sir. I will fetch him right away.”
“Good!” Dr. Okoro replied and left with his furry companion.
***
Saturday, six-fifteen p.m. Dr. Okoro wore his lab coat and sat across his lab bench. He had been sick three weeks before. Now feeling strong and healthy, he decided to go back to his rigorous lab experiments. But before he could lift a test tube, his eyes fell on an RVS strip and he decided to test himself. It’s just for the checking, I know, he said to his interrogating mind. And he did not hear the independent part of his mind saying, Oh, poor Igbo man! He gently placed the strip on the lab bench, punctured his thumb with a lancet and dropped his blood onto the strip’s end where there was the blood absorber. He added a drop of buffer afterwards and watched with ease. Of course his eyes was on the control unit of the strip. He watched with ease because he knew himself. He watched with ease because he expected to see only a line. And so when the result appeared, and he saw two pink lines, he slumped to the ground and fainted.
***
He wondered where she could be this night. Thursday night. There was no answer on the mobile phone. At the receiver’s end. A man’s heart was thumping really fast, threatening to jump out of its bony cage. He started feeling cold in his soul, so much cold that he crawled to the sofa in his sitting room. He stood up and lay on it quietly. Dr. Okoro knew himself, and to be HIV positive was a mystery to him. He had told his wife because he was a good husband, and because he wanted her to believe his innocence. He wanted her to stay with him in this particular trying time of his life. He needed her to understand that it was not his fault – and of course, his wife asked if it was hers. To that note she tested herself and the result came out negative. Dr. Okoro further pleaded and asked for time to figure out how he got the virus. His wife listened and promised to give him time to come up with an explanation for how he contracted the virus. But her absence this night…with a few of her belongings, as Dr. Okoro later found out, signified that she may never be coming back to stay. So Dr. Okoro lay on the sofa and wept for what he believed could never have been his fault.
***
Friday night. And as Dr. Okoro tried to sleep with his sorrow, he received an SMS from his wife which read: I have moved on with my life, and I think you should do the same. The message disturbed him so much that he did not sleep this night. Hands of depression held his throat and began to squeeze peace out of him. He, with a heavy heart, removed his pyjamas and slept with his boxer shorts. This very night, he shucked corn in his dream.
***
Monday night. If you are au fait with human psyche, you will know that challenges and depression can push one to greater heights, can push one to become better – this, of course, is if one decides to wear the cloak of positivity. So, still battling with his depression, Dr. Okoro went back to his abandoned project – the herculean task of finding a cure for HIV. Now that he was infected with the virus was the best time to give the project another try. So, with his wife gone AWOL, he spent most of his nights with test tubes, beakers, petri dishes and the likes. Sometimes, that is if his self-love bar rises, he spent his night with a pillow and a blanket. He often slept in his laboratory, him and Mushkin. This night, in his dream, he almost danced on banana peels.
***
Wednesday morning. It was raining, so Dr. Okoro wore a parka to his clinic. As the nurses greeted him, he wore a smile – the smile, which he knew too well, was a carapace that tried to hide the troubled innards of a man on the brink of collapsing or a thing worse than that. Even with the cold, he felt his body was burning. To what do you owe this hyperpyrexia? his mind asked. He knew the answer but, if he must stay collected, must parry the question. His peripheral vision revealed a nurse running towards him and shouting something, but he did not turn nor did he bother to stop. In the world he was living in now, to stay peaceful was to avoid human contact whenever he could. He turned the door knob of his lab door and locked himself inside. He had started to undergo what Mr. Jude would call “Induced Hibernation”. And now, if you must mention that name near him get ready to absorb the impact of a flying mass with your head. Was it not Mr. Jude that made him to transition from HIV negative to HIV positive? He was so sure it was him.
Okay, you don’t know, Dr. Okoro was a haemophiliac. Dr. Okoro had been sick before he tested himself, you know this. It was Mr. Jude that tested the blood that was transfused into him when he lost a lot of blood due to hemorrhage, Mr. Jude was his clinic’s laboratory technician – you wish you knew all this, but you do now. And for the million dollar question, WHERE IS MR. JUDE THEN? Dr. Okoro had sacked him for gross sexual misconduct with patients and nurses. Did he even test the blood?
Inside his laboratory, Dr. Okoro’s eyes crinkled behind his glasses. A green effervescence went up in a lovely curl, Mushkin jumped across the lab bench and landed on the floor with shards and liquids. Dr. Okoro screamed within five seconds of the incident and tried to gather himself in more than ten.
***
When, finally, he gathered himself he discovered Mushkin was no more. He began to fidget. He was perturbed, he was perplexed, he was flabbergasted, he was discombobulated, he was everything you could think of. Then, like a horror movie, he heard a new close to his leg and he shouted his own name by way of surprise. He was taken aback. He stroked his mustache, summoned courage, and squatted. He made a move that seemed like he was grabbing the air. And the move yielded Mushkin in his hands. Astounded, he let go. The cat made more mew sounds before Dr. Okoro bent down and grabbed the invisible cat.
***
Dr. Okoro, still not able to see his Mushkin, locked the thing up in a big airy box. He sat afterwards and ruminated: What sort of chemical cornucopia must have led to the invisibility of Mushkin? I was mixing ethanol and…whatchamacallit. Ah, no, Mushkin must have overturned other chemicals into my test container! Invisibility? No, I must get to the root of this. He stroked his mustache and proceeded to wear his gloves. He noticed a bluish chemical was dropping to the floor from his lab bench. He picked a rag and wiped his lab bench clean. He adjusted his glasses and decided to sweep his lab first. While he was outside trying to dispose the shards and dirt from his lab into a trash can, Nurse Abigail greeted him. He waved a hand at her and returned to his lab bench. It was already evening and he knew, perhaps, Nurse Abigail wanted to inform him that she would soon be on her night shift. Oh, caring Nurse Abigail should just go! I will be fine, he thought. Nurse Abigail had been acting like a wife to him ever since she knew about the fact that his wife left him. He had just picked up a pipette when somebody started banging on the door. He went to the door and looked through the peephole. It was Nurse Abigail! Oh, not again! He opened the door.
“Nurse Abigail, what is it?” he asked. “Is any patient looking for me? What is the work of Dr. John?”
“No, I was just checking on you.”
“Oh, thanks. Quite thoughtful of you. Now, you see, I am fine.”
“Okay, I will be going…”
“On shift.” Dr. Okoro completed.
“Yes.”
“Good. Now, hurry before the downpour gets too heavy seeing that you are wearing such good shoes. I was in the middle of something, do have a good night.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He quickly closed his door.
There was a feeling of something familiar hovering in his mind space, albeit vague. This very night, he slept with a real smile on his face. He had an actual sleep, his first since many days of being depressed and floating in-between consciousness and unconsciousness.
***
Thursday morning. He woke up and could not turn his neck with ease – he must have slept with his head not properly placed. He rubbed the back of his neck gently and tried to put away his pillow. He stepped out to brush his teeth and just then, for the first time since he started sleeping in his lab, it dawned on him that his employees may be gossiping him with regards to his strange behaviors. Well, he pushed away the thought with ease and walked back into his lab. Door closed!
***
01:00 P.M. EAT
Dr. Okoro tumbled from his chair, reached the floor and shouted “Eureka!”
***
01:50 P.M. EAT
Dr. Okoro stepped out of his lab, locked the door with a visible cat in his left hand. Smiling uncontrollably, he walked away from the door of his lab.
“Good morning, Sir!” Nurse Umbule greeted.
“Yes, a very good morning to you.”
“Good morning, sir!” Nurse Ngozi greeted.
“Yes, a very wonderful morning to the world.”
“Good day, sir!” Nurse Abigail greeted.
“Oh, good day, Abigail. Isn’t the day so good?” He suddenly halted, put his hand in his pocket, and said: “Abigail, take this money and give yourself a treat for the sake of a good day.”
“Thank you, sir!”
“Oh, Abigail, don’t thank me. Thank the day.”
He continued replying to all greetings with great elation until he entered his car and drove off. And drove off to have a drink or two with a few trusted friends. At this very moment in his life, in his imagination, he was moonwalking.
***
18:00 P.M. EAT
Having known what led to the disappearance of Mushkin + having produced a “reappearing mixture”, he returned to his lab to try the “disappearing mixture” on himself.
***
18:40 P.M. EAT
Dr. Okoro could not control his euphoria when he stepped out of the lab and walked past people without them seeing him. Excitement closer to madness almost choked him. He ran back to his lab to check if he could see himself with a mirror. And…
He was able to see himself. So I can see myself but others can’t see me? he said to himself, feeling amazed.
He smiled at the reflection of himself in the mirror and sat down to make a list of things he must do with his invisibility the next day.
***
And the next day finally came. And Dr. Okoro stepped into the world with his invisibility. All the plans on his list bored down to one precise and, as it seemed to him, elegant motive: Scare the shit out of people!
***
To become invisible together with his clothes or hat or shoes, as he later found out, he must smear the chemical onto such piece of wear and allow the liquid to permeate onto his skin. If not, he would have to go naked. He abhorred the latter. So he dropped some of the liquid onto his shoes, smeared it on his clothes and went invisible.
And out on the streets and main roads was he, talking children away from the custody of their parents and getting enough entertainment as they contemplated between running for their lives and running after their floating children crying for help. And for everywhere he went, there was a type of confusion that was left behind. Sometimes, he introduced himself as Mr. Wind to his victims – most of whom fainted from shock and fear. And so gradually, with the commotion that had risen on the streets and main roads, policemen were all over the streets and main roads of Abuja trying to solve the puzzle – trying to solve what, arguably, should be the greatest puzzle of the third Millennium.
***
Days turned into weeks and weeks into months and no one could demystify the case of the invisible Mr. Wind. Ads with the caricature of him as a mass of strong air began to appear on billboards with captions like, “Help Yourself, Help Your City, Help Your County: Do You Know How We Can Capture Mr. Wind?” or “Capture Mr. Wind and Win Millions; Offer Valid While the Mystery Last”. People began to live in terror as many victims who couldn’t take the shock were often lying dead when found.
***
So when Dr. Okoro discovered that his actions were becoming life-threatening to his countrymen, he decided to stop playing pranks and instead put his invisibility to good use. And so one day, he drove to the woods on the outskirts of the city and walked into it to test his invisibility in new ways – ways that could be of benefit to mankind.
***
Sometimes things don’t happen the way we suppose they should, and even gods, to their chagrin, can be astonished. Dr. Okoro had just gone invisible when he decided to climb a tree. But unknown to him, the branch he had decided to stand on was dry and naturally out of bounds for heavy weights. So he fell and landed with a sharp pointed object he brought along piercing his chest. Suddenly a lesson presented itself and he knew he will not live to share it: That good intentions aren’t enough when fate takes centre stage. So, Dr. Okoro took a deep and final breath and died invisible. And this was how Dr. Okoro’s disappearance and the identity of Mr. Wind became a mystery and a story that lived in the hearts of men.
Marvel Chukwudi Pephel is a prolific Nigerian writer who writes poems, short stories and other things besides. Has works appearing or forthcoming in Pyrokinection, High Coupe, The Kalahari Review, The Avocet, African Writer, The Naked Convos, Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine, Jellyfish Whispers, PIN Quarterly Journal, Praxis Magazine for Arts and Literature, Poetry Tree on the Charles, Academy of the Heart and Mind, amongst others. Shortlisted for 2016 Quality Poets Competition. Has poetry selected for the Best New African Poets 2016 Anthology. He is currently a two-time winner of the Creative Writing Ink Competition (Ireland). You can follow him on Twitter @Marvel_C_Pephel.
Academy of the Heart And Mind 