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Spirit Husband

By Uchechukwu Nwaka

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Don’t collect gifts from strangers.

Don’t pick up money on the streets.

Don’t take food in your dream.

The spicy fried exterior of the akara melts over my tongue, and the soft baked beans within seep into my taste buds. The flavour ripples into my teeth and tickles my ears and waters my nose. I stuff my mouth full with three buns before the particles go the wrong way and the coughing begins. The pepper enters my eyes and I rub at them with the heel of my hand.

My eyes scan the wooden table. It’s no bigger than the desks in the orphanage’s classroom where we learned arithmetic and English. A silk tablecloth is draped over its surface, laden with a large ornamental bowl filled with aromatic akara. To my left, a loaf of bread sits on a flat plate, radiating waves of warm goodness. To my right, the steam from a bowl of pap condenses over its transparent cover. There’s a tin of Peak milk and Milo beside it, alongside a large unopened sachet of Dangote sugar.

A jug of kunu occupies the opposite end of the table. I’m not interested in that one right now. It’s the clear pitcher of water that I need.

It’s too far, yet when I reach for it, the distance shrinks and my fingers close around the handle. I drain the water without even a cup, and there’s a soothing calm as the water rolls down my throat.

Do I know that this is a dream already? Yes. Do I keep eating?

Yes.

Even on the best of days I don’t remember much about my mama. I know her skin was dark like mine and that she had a nice smile, but I could never picture her actually smiling. I don’t know whether I inherited my dimples from her or not. I don’t remember her voice either. Not really. Except the words of her mantra.

Don’t collect gifts from strangers.

Don’t pick up money on the streets.

Don’t take food in your dream.

My hand falters over the bowl of pap. It’s as if the host hears the train of my thoughts, because his velvety fingers fall on my shoulder like a gentle breeze. Reminding me not to be shy. That I don’t need to hold back. I turn to look at him. To tell him that I understand, and that the meal is deli—

I wake, breath rushing into my lungs in a gargled choke. The memory of his face feels so vague in my head, like it is eating itself away from my consciousness. Suddenly I cannot remember what kind of lighting made up the ambience, or whether anybody was there at all.

But then I feel the pepper in my throat…

I remember that the orphanage only served bread and pap for dinner—neither of them spicy.

I’ve been… dream eating.

---

I groan as I grab the headrest of the driver’s seat from the back of the car. It’s been many years since my first dream meal. I squeeze my eyes in pain as a wave of contractions hit me. My water broke two hours ago. A few days too early.

Dele’s eyes track to the rear-view mirror. Beads of perspiration trail down his face—even in the air conditioned vehicle. I purse my lips and brave the contractions. I don’t want to worry him, but he sees the pained look over my face.

He assaults the horn on the steering wheel.

Lagos traffic is a sentience of its own, something that I cannot deal with right now. Dele’s grip on the steering is murderous, and I don’t need to be a psychic to know the thoughts that run behind my husband’s darting eyes. This is my first pregnancy that has come to term in five years. Hell will freeze over before I let myself lose it because of traffic.

“Dele.” I groan. “One-way. Enter the one-way lane.”

“Are you sure, Udo? Things might get rough.”

“Just—” but a sudden contraction forces me to scream, stealing the rest of the sentence from my lips. There’s no way for our car to cross the barrier between lanes. I realize this too late, but Dele has already killed the engine, opening the back door. He stops a keke napep on the other lane, violating a myriad of traffic laws. Then he lifts me with great difficulty. It’s a herculean task to get us both over the pavement, then us into the tricycle, but five minutes later, we’re speeding to the hospital.

---

Maybe it is because of the stakes on this pregnancy, but I find myself reminiscing a lot. Especially back to that evening on Daruma Crossing, where everything started.

In my head I’m back in the orphanage. It’s past lights out and I turn restlessly on my bed. My stomach rumbles defiantly over the thin soup of egusi and the fist-sized wrap of eba that the orphanage fed us for dinner—too soft to be considered solid food. Lights out also means that Aunty Gloria has taken away the single lamp that serves the wide room where the sixteen children sleep, so everywhere is dark. The house has no generator. Aunty Gloria would have us believe that the house is not receiving enough funds from the government, but I’m one of the older kids. I know she keeps funnelling our money into one Ponzi scheme after the other.

My eyes fix on a cockroach that’s making its way across the wall from a window. I strain my eyes to follow it as it crawls amongst the shadows. Something suddenly taps me on my foot and I jump. Two hands automatically fly to my mouth, stifling my shrieks.

I bite.

“Shh, Udo! Fuck!”

My eyes scan the darkness, looking for the source of the familiar voices. It’s Uba and Frank, the two other orphans my age. My worked up heart slows for a bit. “What are you guys doing?”

“Remember how I told you that there’s a place we can get free food?” Frank said. “I’ve confirmed it. We’re going to get some.”

My stomach rumbles at the mention of food. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Shey hungry no dey do you?” Uba asks in pidgin. Once, Aunty Gloria would have flogged him shitless if she heard him speak like that, but I sense she’s given up on him. On all of us really.

“But you guys are going to Daruma Crossing by this time. Isn’t it late?” I say.

Frank tuts. “Uba why do we have to bring this girl along again?”

“What’s your problem Frank? Am I not allowed to ask questions? Don’t you know that there’s a shrine around that area?”

“We no dey reach any shrine. If you go come, stand up.”

It’s not too difficult to scale the fence that surrounds the orphanage house. Before long, the three of us are on the bush path outside the house limits. There’s no moon visible, leaving us in complete darkness. My heart beats against my chest rapidly as my slippers crush over dried twigs and tiny stones. The sounds of our footsteps create a dissonant harmony with the crickets trilling into the night. Bushes rise around us in both directions—I’m not sure whether they’re cassava or pawpaw. There’s a denseness about them that seems to sponge in the darkness and the crickets’ noise, and their branches sway towards me as if to abduct me into their endless tangle of leaves.

“Hope say you no dey fear. Eh, Udo?”

Uba’s voice reaches me from so far away that I realize the boys are taking a bend in the path ahead. They’ve completely left me behind! I sprint up to meet them, and I don’t need moonlight to see the disdain written all over Frank’s face.

“Walk fast.”

My heart is thumping now like a toad trapped in a bottle. I don’t want to admit it, but I’m scared. Daruma Crossing is quite deserted, even during the day, but the boys will probably never take me along with them again if I don’t keep my complaints to myself. Besides, I’ve never been the best with directions on my own. I ignore the gooseflesh on my neck and focus on my breathlessness instead.

“We’re here.” Frank says.

The road stretches ahead and forks in two directions. The apprehension hits me before my brain can put words to the feeling. We are standing at a T-junction, and this ‘free’ food was arranged neatly at the centre of the ‘T.’

My mama’s mantra rings in my ears as the boys bend over the ceramic casserole dishes. “We can’t eat that,” I say, my voice so hollow that I barely recognize it.

“Why?” Uba asks in utter oblivion.

“That’s ebo food.” I say, and suddenly my voice is too loud. It’s too dark and the bushes are too silent.

“Ebo?”

This is worse than picking up money on the streets or taking gifts from strangers. Any of those could potentially cost a person their spirit, let alone food sacrificed at a T-junction.

“Sacrifice. Juju. Shrine food!” I gesture like a maniac as I answer Uba. “Frank! Shouldn’t you know this?”

Frank shrugs and opens one of the casserole dishes. At that exact moment, the wind picks up, and the thick aroma of chicken pepper soup invades my nostrils, my tongue, my throat, and kicks me in the gut. My stomach rumbles greedily and Uba snickers.

“Abeg leave all that juju nonsense for one side. As if no be babalawo go chop the food last last.”

Saliva pools in my mouth. My mama’s mantra resurfaces but I force it down into the depths of my subconscious where the inchoate memories of her reside. Frank rips a large piece of chicken thigh and I break. My hands plunge into the bowl, scooping chunks of meat and thick broth with my fingers. The scalding soup is a welcome sensation as the food enters my mouth, completely erasing the taste of the ‘coloured-water’ egusi soup I had for ‘dinner.’ Uba opens another bowl, and that one is filled with fine pieces of immaculate white yams that seem to give off their own illumination.

I reach for the yams.

---

The hospital bed presses against my back. A doctor keeps issuing instructions to me. I can barely register most of what he’s saying.

“Madam, I’d like you to push.”

I can feel the child inside me, seeking light. I scream in exertion as the delivery team exchange instructions amongst themselves. I can see Dele too, but just barely. His outline is blurry at the edges, and there are two of him. My vision begins to swim—the exhaustion is getting to me. It won’t be long before my consciousness gives way, so I anchor myself to the monitor beeping steadily behind me. My beacon in darkness as my thoughts wander back to my first dream meal.

“Push, Madam. Push.”

They say you dream about food only when you sleep with an empty stomach. In my experience, that’s not always the case. I see myself then, back in the orphanage, the evening after stealing the ebo food; the entire house smelling of party jollof and chicken. Apparently, one of Aunty Gloria’s schemes had racked in a profit and she decided to treat us. I eat my rice out of the plastic disposable plates. The chicken is amazing. Even though it is mostly strips of meat on tiny chunks of bone, it’s a cut above any kind of food we’d eaten in a very long time. Yet I can’t help but draw comparisons. Aunty Gloria’s feast is not enough for me.

I’ve tasted forbidden fruit. I want more.

That night, curled upon my small, iron bed, I fantasize about the T-junction at Daruma Crossing. The rich pepper soup that some rich fellow seeking more riches placed there to curry supernatural favour. The heavy chicken bits, and how my jaws hurt from chewing so much…

Then I dream.

As dreams go, I do not exactly relive that moment. The food never reaches my mouth. That’s how it always is. A normal dream. I see Uba and Frank eating though. I also notice the piece of chicken in my hand, but I do not attempt to eat it. There is this feeling of an inherent wrongness in eating while not awake. Some say it is a form of defence mechanism to protect our spirits from roaming predatory forces in our most vulnerable moment. Usually, that’s the point when we wake up.

However, I do not.

---

Instead the dream changes form, and I’m seated at the fanciest table that I’ve ever seen. The décor looks like something out of a movie, but the lighting is faint. There’s a glow of settling dusk in the room, and I notice that the chandeliers have small scented candles within them.

Plates of fruit appear before me, creating a rainbow-like effect against all the grandeur. I pick a slice of pineapple from the plate nearest to me and bite, and the flavour erupts over my tongue.

Don’t take food in your dream.

Apprehension suddenly roils through my gut as the sweet nectar runs down my throat.

This is… real?

That’s when I see him, seated at the far end of the table where I can’t see his face clearly. My heart begins to pound in my chest. What kind of dream am I having?

“Did you enjoy the pepper soup and yams?”

My heart freezes in my chest. I want to shout ‘Jesus,’ but the distance between us vanishes in an instant and his fingers cover my lips. There’s an inhuman sensation about them, like wind, but with the kind of smell you’d notice before a storm. His face—now under the candlelight—is smooth, almost sculpted. His skin reflects the lights like tiles would, and there’s an overwhelming intensity in his depthless black eyes.

“You shouldn’t be saying that name in vain, now should you, Udo?”

“H-how d-do you…?”

His fingers trail down my face, and it’s like a person’s hot breath running over my skin. “Udo. Uba. Frank. I’ve never shared my meals before, and it feels surprisingly… good.” He rises from his chair and spreads his arms over the table. “It’s all yours, and don’t worry, it’s not an illusion.”

My mama says; Don’t collect gifts from strangers.

Don’t pick up money on the streets.

Don’t take food in your dream.

“T-thank you, b-but I think, I think…” but my fingers had taken another slice of pineapple. This time the taste is awakening, and I can only sit on my bed, shivering. My tongue still thrums with that otherworldly taste as I lift my fingers to my face and then to my mouth, praying to whoever would listen that the taste not linger.

But. It. Does.

I pick at my brain to recall the events of that dream, but the second I focus on a memory, it’s gone. Through the window the night breeze picks up, and gooseflesh pulls on all the hairs on my skin.

---

Memory lane keeps winding along. Now, I think about Dele. We meet sometime after I stop dream eating. I’m in my final year at LASU, and he’s a banker. We hit it off pretty well. Much to my surprise, he doesn’t seem that distraught when I tell him we won’t be able to have sex. Unlike the people I’ve seen in the past, he doesn’t cheat on me because of that decision—I have my ways of telling these things. He seems… serious… about the whole relationship.

He confirms it on my next birthday, with an engagement ring.

“We’re losing contractions.” A doctor says.

“Udo! Udo!” Dele’s voice sounds far away. Desperate.

“Sir we’ll have to ask you to give us the room now.”

“Why? What’s happening?”

“We need to perform a Caesarean section.” An oxygen mask slides over my face. My lower half begins to numb. I want to say something to Dele, but I’m just so tired.

---

Yam porridge, garnished with ugu and pomo and periwinkles. Ukwa, with sweet corn and an assortment of smoked fish. Jollof rice so red and dishes of chicken larger than anything I’ve ever dreamt in all my life. We go back to Daruma Crossing a few nights after that, but nothing. The T-junction is just lonely and deserted. I refuse to go after that. Kidnappers could be lurking in those bushes after all.

But the strangest thing of all is that nobody ever mentions the dreams, or its charismatic host, Nruka.

On the last night I follow the boys to Daruma Crossing, I finally work up the courage to ask Uba.

“Do you ever dream about food?” I whisper.

“Every day.”

“And what do you eat?”

“Eat? Inside dream? Tufiakwa!” He swings his arm over his head before snapping his fingers to the ground, as though the very motion actually wards off evil. His dramatic reaction pulls Frank’s attention towards us.

“What about Nruka? Never dreamed of him?”

“Who’s Nruka?” Frank asks. I never liked his tone.

“Never mind. He’s an imaginary friend that claims others can see him.”

---

There’s one fruit that Nruka serves after every meal. It has a luscious blood-red rind, like a berry, but the size of an orange. Most times I look forward to the fruit beyond everything else. To the way it pulls my senses apart and rearranges them so that I can taste with my fingertips and feel the warmth of the candle with my eyes. And I can taste him with all my body, smiling beautifully as the shadows of the lights play over his face while he watches me shudder under the fruit’s effects.

“What’s this called?”

“Soul fruit.”

“It tastes so good!”

“Doesn’t it?” He kisses me suddenly. Heat rushes over my body and it’s like my head is filled with hissing steam from a kettle. His tongue tastes like soul fruit nectar too, and I feel like I’m losing myself. Light-headedness sways the room to the side as his hands run over my body, each touch electrifying. I’m overstimulated already from the soul fruit, and it doesn’t help that Nruka’s hands are striking a fever within me. His mouth trails from mine, to my neck, then my breasts. Before I can breathe I’m on the table, and Nruka towers over me now. Something ripples under his porcelain skin for the briefest second.

“Udo, you are a virgin, correct?”

But I’m breathing too hard to respond. I nod. He falls on me right then, on the table. My mama’s mantra has long been silenced, but I wish it had surfaced in that brief second when I had seen something crawl beneath his perfection. The gust of wind that blew the lights out with a wailing of a million sorrows.

---

“We can’t keep doing this Nruka.” I pull the sheets to myself and cover my body. Over the years—with Aunty Gloria’s legal adoption of the older kids and my subsequent emancipation —I didn’t need to eat in my sleep anymore. Instead, on most nights Nruka appeared, we had sex.

“I’m serious with Dele and he’s serious with me. I’ve kept myself for you for so long… as you asked. But we’re getting married soon.”

Nruka pulls me to himself, but there’s resistance in me.

“Udo, I’ve been here for you since the harsh days of the orphanage. When you didn’t have anything to eat!”

“And I’ve been faithful, have I not?” The air is sharper now, dry like harmattan breeze. “You said I couldn’t sleep with any other man. And I haven’t. But this is marriage. It’s sacred.”

“And this is not?”

The temperature of the room drops, and for the first time in a while, the goose bumps come crawling back, like an army of spiders over my flesh.

“This is marriage Udo,” he towers over me now, pulling the sheets away from my body with inhuman strength. “You are mine.”

“P-please,” I croak, but his hands are cold and his grip is like iron. My mama’s words scream in my head now. The mantra endless in a tone of scorn. It is not my mama’s voice I hear in my head as Nruka forces himself on me.

Don’t collect gifts from strangers.

Don’t pick up money on the streets.

Don’t take food in your dream.

The voice is mine.

---

I am broken after the first miscarriage. I stay indoors for weeks, almost crippled by the depression. Dele tries his best to cheer me up. It’s not an uncommon occurrence, he says. We can always try again. My dreams suddenly become quiet after Nruka declares me his wife, and the fear of that… spirit… turns me into an insomniac. He’s never appeared during afternoon naps, so I change my sleeping patterns. When I start losing weight, Dele attributes it to the depression. We make love and then I lie awake for hours, staring into the ceiling.

Into the darkness.

After the second miscarriage, the doctor tells us that everything is normal. We are both fine. Nothing is wrong. He asks us if we have any habits that might be affecting our health. I don’t mention the myriad pills I swallow every night to escape slumber.

Before this pregnancy, I receive the most unusual visitor.

Frank and I grew apart after he left the orphanage. I haven’t heard from him since then. When he turns up in front of my flat, I can tell something is wrong…

“She’s haemorrhaging.” The doctor’s voice cuts through the haze of my memories. “Can we see the baby yet?”

“Sir, I’m sorry you can’t be here.” Someone else yells.

I can’t get my vision to stop swimming. The light-headedness forces my eyelids closed. At an impossibly far distance, I see Dele trying to push against a nurse by the door.

---

Frank’s dressed smart. His full hair is combed but just barely. When I look closer, I see the yellow deposits on his teeth; his blackened lips. The whites of his eyes are dull—reddish or yellowish or both. The fabric of his clothes is thin and hanging on the last thread, and under the ceiling fan the shirt billows over the frame of a thin, sickly man.

“What happened to you, Frank?” I ask.

“My life went to hell, Udo.” His eyes dart about, and I imagine they will fall on the portraits of myself and Dele, or on the wallpaper, but he’s too nervous to even register anything.

“Talk to me Frank. You look like a mess!”

“You got married huh? Seems like things are going pretty well for you.” He fiddles with his collar and I notice his fingernails are bitten short. Too short. “What about Uba? Is he okay?”

“Of course he is.” I actually don’t know. “Why wouldn’t he be?”

“She said that it’s been you all this time,” Frank says, his eyes manic. “That I should find you. It’s all your fault.”

My pulse quickens. “Who said that?”

“The prophetess. I went to one church to understand why my life has gone so wrong. Why nothing ever worked for me from the moment I left the orphanage.”

I want to scoff at him. He has all the markings of an addict who cannot sustain his poison. Was this some twisted way for him to—

“She said I ate the ebo to a powerful spirit.”

My blood turns to ice in my veins.

“The woman could see everything. Down to how many of us ate the food. That there was a girl among us. That was you, Udo!”

His eyeballs are wide now, bulging. I rub my palms over my skirt; they are clammy and cold.

“She said that one of us was under the spirit’s favour. And that person has been the one shielding us ever since. You’re flourishing! You’re the one!”

My heart is drumming uncontrollably under my mouth. “W-why not ask Uba. Why not?”

“Uba is still living with Aunty Gloria, for fuck’s sake!” His voice devolves into an unnatural scream. “Does that sound like somebody who is doing fine?”

Spittle flies from his mouth as he yells. “Uba was doing small-time Yahoo-Yahoo and he was nabbed by the EFCC. For Christ’s sake he had to hide inside one of Aunty Gloria’s Ghana bags when they came to her house to detain him.”

Cold sweat rolls into my eyes and stings like the venom of a dozen serpents. “I-I didn’t know.”

“You have to help us, Udo. This is on you.”

“What?” Sudden anger courses into my blood like fire. “I told you that night that we shouldn’t have taken that food! Did you listen? No?”

“Udo, don’t you see?”

“Fuck what you see!” I scream. “I’ve lost two pregnancies. Don’t you dare come into my house telling me some bullshit about how I’m flourishing!”

“Udo—”

“GET OUT!”

---

The doctors’ voices break through my haze. “Okay! We’re almost there. We’re almost there!”

Ah they’re still at it? The monitors are a little too loud. Is that normal? Is it over yet? Am I still dreaming?

---

“Your babies dey trapped,” the prophetess tells me in a violent blend of English and Yoruba and pidgin. Frank is outside the tent; I can see his shadow pacing around the entrance.

“Trapped? How? The doctor told me everything is fine.”

The woman—her face has more lines than crumpled paper—shakes her head sagely. “If everything dey fine my dear, you for no come here.”

“So what do you mean by my babies being trapped?”

The woman squeezes my hands in hers and gives a pained yelp. “Ye. Madam your spirit husband no go allow those children to leave. You have anger it.”

My heart pumps cold blood through my body. “S-spirit husband?”

“A very powerful spirit. O lagbara gan. And the spirit don dey chop the destinies of you and your friends wey chop his ebo.”

I bite the inside of my cheeks to keep myself from hyperventilating.

“But there get way for you to collect your children back. But that one na if you get the mind to enter spirit world. That same place where you dey always chop away your destiny. Where you dey fornicate with that demon. If not, no child go grow inside your womb, because that spirit go continue to steal them.”

“What should I do?”

“Fast. You no go chop food for seven days and seven nights. No water. The spirit strong die! You go buy holy water. I fit provide that one, na just one-fifty thousand naira. Anointing oil too, same price. And some other things I go provide. But you must prepare your mind.”

“For what?”

Her raspy voice hollows into a painful croak.

“Because you fit die inside there if you no ready yourself.”

---

The crying sounds of a baby fill the operating room. It ignites something within my chest, piercing through the daze of exhaustion and anaesthesia, through the sounds of the monitors. Tears film over my eyes, duplicating the already doubled images. I put out my hands to receive my baby, but the staff are chattering. The images are refusing to focus.

And in the space between all the people and at the point where all of them become one, someone stands silently, sculpted in marble and granite, looking down on all of us.

The mask suddenly becomes too tight for my face. I struggle against the oxygen mask and the nurses grab my hand. I’m screaming, thrashing, and Nruka looks at me. His expressionless façade cracks like an egg as he smiles with marble teeth.

I beg to see my baby.

---

Oh the stakes on this child are high indeed.

I remember descending into the spirit world under the prophetess’ guidance. The spirit world is darkness. A swimming darkness that I sink into. I hold my breath and thread the waves. A tree stands within the depths, with infinite branches that span into the black waters and vanish.

I draw towards the tree.

The branches are quiet pieces of bone, each linked to the joints of the next, like they are seeking refuge from the deep. Some branches bear fruit—pulsing red fist-sized berries that I recognize.

Soul fruits.

The trunk is sculpted of slowly moving skeletons, almost a hundred meters thick. Some of the skeletons have flesh on them, slowly rotting away as they moan into the waters. Bile crawls over my tongue and my gut twists uncomfortably.

That’s when I see Uba.

Or what looks like Uba. He is tangled in a mass of bones, and his flesh is desiccated and leather-like. I panic, reaching towards him. The other skeletons reach out, bones snapping in threatening arcs. There will be no salvation for him as long as it was denied them.

My God.

I see Frank, and he is impaled by arms and legs and drying out even faster than Uba. The limbs that pierce him coalesce into an outer branch, and at its tip, a soul fruit suckles to life.

I claw at my tongue and almost vomit as revulsion gouges my throat.

Higher up the tree there are bigger soul fruits. I swim towards them and there is life pulsing within each one, curled in foetal positions. My chest constricts in anguish.

I reach for my children, three in all, trapped inside the perverse fruits Nruka grows for his own twisted delight. The branches lash at me but I fight back. They crumble when my blows connect and I thank the prophetess for the gruelling one week fast. My hands curl over the fruits.

“Udo. You finally came back.”

The familiar icy voice stops me in my tracks.

I turn to face Nruka, but he is something else now. A serpent with fins and gills that ooze a stale black ink. It pollutes the water with a stench that I imagine would fester in greed and jealousy and spite. Walking over people for self-gratification.

Walking over me.

“So this is your true self?” I say. “I’ve been very foolish.”

“You are mine, Udo,” he smiles. That black liquid seeps out with every syllable. “You are my wife. The sooner you understand that; the sooner your suffering will end.”

“I rebuke you.” I grab my children. “I rebuke you, Nruka.”

He doesn’t make any move to stop me.

“You can sense it, can’t you? I came prepared. I do not belong to you, Nruka! Over my dead body!”

I turn my back and flee, my children in my arms. The spirit does not dare follow.

---

My baby’s cries permeate the delivery room. My arms tremble as I reach desperately for my child. “It’s a girl, Madam,” one doctor says, handling her gently. I grab my baby from him, and my heart jumps.

She’s beautiful.

But…

But Nruka is still in the corner, and his perfect teeth have devolved into the serrated dentition of the beast in the sea. Conceit radiates from him in sickening waves.

Why?

The doctor has been saying something for a while now. All I hear is ‘Madam. Madam.’ They’re trying to take my baby from me. My child.

No.

I remember my mama’s mantra. I will teach it to this child. I will sing it to her every day so she never falls prey to any spirit. I clutch the bawling child to my chest and her cries soften. I hush my baby, oh so beautiful, as the world quietens around me. I do not see the blood pooled between my legs, or the frenzy of the doctors trying to stop the bleeding, regulate my blood pressure, save my life. I do not see Dele by my side, holding on for dear life as the medics move around him, unable to get him out.

All I see is Nruka’s jagged sneer, mouthing the words “You can keep the child, but you are mine. ‘Over my dead body,’ wasn’t it?”

I do not hear the machines flatlining. Or Ebube crying anymore. Ah, Ebube. That’ll be such a beautiful name.

---

Host Commentary

PseudoPod 914

April 5th 2024

Spirit Husband by Uchechukwu Nwaka

Narrated by Opie Ogundiran

Audio Production by Chelsea Davis

Hosted by Alasdair Stuart

---

Hi everyone, welcome to PseudoPod, the weekly horror podcast. I’m Alasdair, your host and this week’s story is a PseudoPod original that comes to us courtesy of Uhcechukwu Nwaka. It’s narrated by Opie Ogundiran

 

Uchechukwu Nwaka is an Igbo medical student at University of Ibadan, Nigeria. His works have appeared in PodCastle, Escape Pod, Fusion Fragment, FIYAH, Omenana, Brittlepaper among others, and some of them have been nominated for the Utopia, BSFA and Locus Awards. When he’s not writing, he can be found reading manga, streaming TV shows, playing amateur volleyball, or trying to catch up with his endless schoolwork.

 

i would appreciate if people considered my work under the Best Novelette category for their Locus ballots. Anyone can vote. Although all of that will depend on whether “Spirit Husband” will run on PseudoPod before the voting deadline (or if it is against your policies.)

Narrator: Opeyemi Ogundiran (Opie) is a Nigerian fashion designer, entrepreneur, and part-time narrator based in St. Petersburg, Russia. She developed a love for African stories and folk tales due to the influence of her parents who always told her countless fables as a child. This love for African folk tales in turn inspired her desire to help others enjoy the tales the way she does through listening.

 

and the audio production is by Chelsea Davis. So, admire the food, but DO NOT touch it. And that’s the truth.

 

What strikes me about this story, what seems most horrifying, is the way that it curdles the concept of hospitality. There are few things more fundamental to human life than being able to eat, and be safe, with people we love. As I write this, we just had a lovely weekend, a full day of which was handing off the kitchen between each other as we cooked different things. Food is magic. Cooking is magic. There are few acts of love purer and more sincere than making and sharing food.

 

Here, food is a trap. Not the sort of trap I’ve been conditioned to be wary of after a lifetime of institutionalised fat shaming but something more insidious, more hostile. A hook, baited with survival, or at least the first good meal you’ve had in too long. No plan survives contact with the enemy and no advice survives contact with necessity. Hunger baits the trap. Desperation closes the door.

 

Once its closed though, the story’s second set of teeth are even longer and even sharper. Feeding, sharing, become instruments of control, contracts only one side is fully aware of. If you eat the food, you become the food. Something seemingly given becomes a justification for taking everything. Freedom. Bodily autonomy. The future.

 

Looked at that way, the story is as much a tragedy as it is horror. There is never any hope, never any chance. A moment’s respite, the fundamentally transitory nature of food becoming a choking network of roots that traps and feeds and uses that sustenance to keep itself alive long enough to feed again. Endless hunger, endless victim, sated endlessly but never quite enough.

 

But there’s also something like hope here. A moment extended long enough becomes somewhere you can live or at least survive for a while. Seeing horror approach is, as we’ve talked about so often, one of our touchstone definitions of horror. But if it never quite gets here than that gives us time, Time we can use. Even if it’s just to make our peace.

 

What a wonderful, terrible knot of a story, thanks to all.

 

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We’re back next week with Heavy Rain, by TJ Price which features amazing PseudoPod team members Scott Campbell on narration, Kat Day on hosting and Chelsea Davis on audio production.. Then, as now it will be a production of the Escape Artists Foundation and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International license.

We’ll see you next time, but first Pseudopod wants to know What’s the matter, Albert? You have your knife and fork. You do know how to use them. Or have all those carefully learned table manners gone to waste?