The fire crackled as grandpa stroked the big log of fire wood which never seemed to be out of fire. Large chunks of fire laden embers landed on the ashes of previous coals which had warmed the room before.

Grandpa sat up to hedge his loin cloth properly around his groin, between his legs, as I looked away into the the fire place, to the first enterprising tongue, strenuously raising its flame above its seated embers.

The rest of the hut was dark. Only grandpa’s ankles showed, his feet which now has the colour of ash, his arm, only when he stroked and the thickening colours of yellow, orange, sienna, burnt umber and the pitch darkness around us.

In that fire our souls rested and found warmth, away from the muted noise and scotching sun shaded by grandpa’s presence and lonesomeness.

“Nkechi..,” humming the N a little longer, as if to trail its mystic certainty. “It will be well” he finally muttered.

My tear filled eyes were wet, they flustered and also sparkled, catching a glimpse of those firry flames, confident, extinguishing the dark coals beneath them and gaining their energies there by.

Leonard Chintua-Chigbu

Listening and Creative Communications