After days of dreary and dismal weather, it was a different Friday morning. The sun rose early and shone with remarkable vigour as if to make up for the forlorn weather of preceding days. Some ebullience and optimism had returned to the nation. After five weeks of a distressing lockdown as a result of the raging pandemic, the heart warmed at the prospects of a partial relaxation.

Snooper himself has been in a pernickety mood. The possibility of some prized delicacies returning to the menu, baring Okon’s penchant for sadistic mischief, sent one virtually swooning with expectations. The last time the crazy fellow had been sent to the market to get fresh eggs, he had returned with something looking like miniscule coconut which turned out to be Iguana eggs.

The mad boy had told his boss that that was what was available in the market and he should just get on with it. Snooper was so enraged that he threw the frying pan at the crook, which he ducked and which caught a dozy Mama Igosun pat on the ankle whereupon that one went ballistic berating yours sincerely for not being in control of his household.

All of a sudden, the fragrant and aromatic smell of sandal wood and some ancient pomade invaded the entire space. Yours sincerely thought the aroma faintly and quaintly familiar, a throwback to ancient times in the village when damsels and debutantes prepared themselves for Christmas festivity. As snooper sniffed the wondrous aroma while wondering where it was all coming from, Okon crashed through the door panting and heaving with fright.

“Oga, oga, mama’s head don catch fire. He don set himself ablast and ablaze. Na dem kainkain and dem Red Indian taba him dey smoke go finish dem woman ooo”, Okon shrieked in fear and terror.

“Where, where, oh my God?” yours sincerely screamed as he crashed down the stairs and swept through the kitchen into the backyard only to be met by arguably the most surreal spectacle of his adult life. There was the ancient stormy petrel sitting straight and ramrod amidst the receding fumes as she beheld herself in smiling self-admiration from an ancient mirror of Ottoman Turkish provenance. In the background were the dying embers from the damsel’s inferno and the red-hot native iron comb the old woman had been plying back and forth through her hair.

“Akanbi, wetin be matter? Wetin dem kukuruku boy tell you?” Mama Igosun asked calmly and with a mischievous glow in her face. “I don whack him coconut head dis morning”.

“Mama, what is all this?” snooper asked, deflated and crestfallen.

“Wetin be wetin?” the old woman shot back. “I been dey fire and iron my hair. Na the thing wey I been dey do with your mama over seventy years. That’s how your papa see am come say better dey there. Old age no mean Kusimilaya no dey again. Akanbi, dem say arugbo (Old woman) no dey Ghana”.

“Mama nobody does this kind of thing anymore. You can go to the hairdresser.” Snooper remonstrated with the ancient troublemaker.

“Which hairdresser? Wetin him dey dress? Dem wound my head?” Mama snarled in mock anger.

“When you burn the house, you will be happy”, yours sincerely sulked as he retreated.

“Wo (look) make him burn patapata, dat one no concern me”, mama sneered at snooper’s heel.

The Nation