We were five in number. Five good friends; Five best friends. Ike, Dike, John, Fola and I.
The villagers usually called us “the five wise men”, because we always did things together. You know that saying ‘Birds of a feather flock together’ Yes! That was a pure definition of the five of us. Who could ever separate us, in the village of Agbani, Nigeria, where we grew up in? I don’t think anyone could.
We attended the same school, ate together from the same pot, washed our clothes together, played together cried and laughed together. What didn’t we do together? Oh I can remember. At night we would go back to our various homes and sleep; waiting for the next day to continue with our never ending bond.
Usually, one would make vows such as “in life or in death” or “till death do us part” and yes! We always took such vows to always stick together. Sometimes playfully or sometimes after a serious misunderstanding usually caused by John, the chief of argument and logic. He would never rest until he won an argument, no matter how wrong he was; it was in his nature not to lose. Anyway, he later told me that he wished to be a lawyer which didn’t surprise me at all. Imagine arguing with a lawyer. Just imagine.
Dike and Ike were men of action. No, no, not men. As at then we were young boys; just boys. So I’ll say the both of them were boys of action. Strictly core to their beliefs no matter how uncertain the situation seemed to be.
If a situation required us to kill a Snake, for us to get a treasure, Dike and Ike wouldn’t think twice before charging at the snake. According to them, the treasure had to be gotten by all means and anything hindering them from getting it would be eliminated. That was how they viewed life and such courage always saved all of us, as a team. But for me to ever raise a muscle? Nah, I was a weakling who only hailed them. I never did the dirty job. How would I do the dirty job when I couldn’t even stand the sight of a tiny black cockroach in my house? So they were the boys of action, while John, Fola and I, were the boys of words.
Talking about snakes; Agbani, the village where we grew up in, usually revered snakes. Though we rarely saw them, but It was a big abomination to lay hands on those sacred reptiles, not to talk of killing them. I always wondered why.
“If you kill a snake in this village, the family members will hunt you for the rest of your lives” an old man said to a group of kids who sat round him one evening, in front of his hut. We were among those kids. Yes; the five of us were among them. We usually gathered round Papa Emeka’s house with other children in the village most evenings to listen to his words of wisdom and stories too. He was the wisest and the most friendly aged man in the community then.
Anyway, the snake topic that evening sounded funny to our ears. When did snakes start having family members? I turned to look at Dike and Ike. They were talking about something else. They didn’t seem to be interested in what the old man was saying about snakes.
“Let me see the snake first, then we will know if I’ll kill it or not” Dike said, and the five of us burst out laughing. I laughed. I thought he and Ike weren’t listening. I was wrong.
“Dike calm down naw, it might be true. Maybe that’s the custom of the land” Fola cut in.
“Custom my foot” dike said and Ike nodded in affirmation before changing the topic.
“Guys don’t forget that we set our traps in the forest this evening. We should go pick it up tomorrow” he said, diverting our whole attention from the snake story to our traps in the forest.
I was excited. It was my first time doing such; I’d never caught an animal with a trap. I didn’t even know how to use a trap. It was Dike and Ike that taught the three of us how to set traps and how to use it effectively. I wondered what time they used to learn it since we had always been together since childhood.
The next evening, we arrived the forest a bit late, and since it was getting dark, Dike told us to hurry up before night met us. “It’s not good to be here at night” he said.
There were only two traps. Dike and Ike used the big one while the three of us, used the other smaller one.
Our trap didn’t catch anything, so John started arguing that I didn’t place it well, he was trying to shift the blame on me, when in actual sense there were three of us handling the trap. As usual I kept quiet and allowed him to be talking plenty.
Dike and Ike’s trap caught a bush meat and when they beckoned on us, we all left our trap and ran to see their meat.
Their trap was located under a tree, and I wish I’d looked up early enough to see the creature hanging and staring at us. But I didn’t look up so something fell from on top and landed on my head. Cold, slimy and a bit sticky; my goodness it was a snake. A green snake.
“Ah!!!! God forbid!!!, Ah!!!” I shouted in total confusion and madness as I tried flicking the serpent away. I was lucky it didn’t bite me. Maybe it was also as scared as I was, and must have been shouting too, only that I didn’t hear its voice.
Dike quickly rushed the serpent which was sprawling on the floor, and struck it with his machete. Then he lifted the machete and cut it into two.
“Everybody move back!!!!!!!” He shouted.
Move back? Me? Hahaha, I took to my heels. I ran home. I didn’t know what later happened. I didn’t know how they finally managed the situation. But for me? I disappeared and appeared inside my father’s sitting room.
“Why are you breathing that way?” My mother asked.
“Oh mummy, good evening, we were playing the ‘hide-and-seek’ game” I lied. Even though I never believed the snake story by Papa Emeka, I didn’t just want to tell her that we had cut a snake into two.
“Don’t you boys ever rest?” She asked.
It was the normal thing she always asked me whenever I came home after a long day with my friends. And I would smile as usual and say “never”. So I smiled and replied her with the same thing before going into my room.
We never knew that what we did that night at the forest would have a repercussion. Yes; it was going to hunt us for the rest of our lives.
Even after I saw Dike, Ike, Fola and John the next day at school and we laughed over everything, including how I’d run away like a woman; it didn’t end there. We would be punished.
Even after Dike boldly stood up and talked about how he cut the snake into two halves, how he used two stones to crush the snake like okra, and then how he finally buried it before leaving the forest with his bush meat; it didn’t end there. We would still be punished. We had committed a grievous crime. We had offended the gods.
All these happened ten years ago and I would have forgotten about everything if I didn’t see Fola yesterday.
(Continued in part 2; Click on the link to read part 2; https://www.nikeshwrites.com/2025/11/offending-gods-2.html)