FLASH FICTION!!!!

"A goat that dies in a barn was never killed by hunger."

My mother has a son. Nwabuike was not like me. He had skin like a baby. His eyes were not clear like the defining browns of mine. His were a grey so grey one would think they weren't fully formed before he was birthed. Ike's hair was a pale yellow, like the new blueband butter mama hated so much, she had called it weightless nonsense and sometimes when I stay in the kitchen with her she would turn her mouth in that way that told you she was dissatisfied and say, " I don't even know why they stopped making it hard, that hard one was sweet. This one is nonsense. Ezigbo nonsense". Ike's hair was weightless like the new butter. When Ike cried, he turned red, when Ike looked at you it was as though he looked through you.

Ike's birth had brought a lot of problems. Papa did not like Ike. One night, I had heard him call him a deformity. My father was not a man of so many words. He almost always communicated his displeasure and sometimes even pleasure with a "hmmm" but the night Ike arrived from the hospital, papa was livid, there was a huge fight that had left mama with a few bruises. Before Ike's first birthday, mama had lost a few teeth. Before his fifth, my mother was one-eyed. I didn't really know what the problem was but I knew my brother was different and my father hated it. My father's family hadn't helped one bit. They would visit and ask my mother when she would give them a real son and not some half baked pikin. I concluded that they were all stupid.

The day is Sunday, mama is getting Ike and I ready for mass. We weren't a wealthy family. We were poor. The poor that didn't lack. From the window in the room we shared with our mother we saw a car pull up. Shiny black with headlights that could light the entirety of our home. This is a Jeep I thought. Mama told us to stay in and not make any noise, Ike and I nodded and my mother stood up, untied her wrapper, tied it again and walked out of the room with the grace of a woman who didn't know herself anymore. When she got back, her eyes were crimson and she looked at Ike how one would look at a child who had lost a parent, was that guilt? My mother asked that I remain in while Ike followed her to the sitting room. I did not object. I saw Ike get into that man's shiny jeep and I saw them drive off. We didn't attend mass that day.

It's been two years now, we are not poor anymore. My father owns jeeps. Our house is an edifice in the city. We are wealthy but Ike never came back.

At 15, I will come to learn that Ike was an albino. I will also learn that papa had given Ike to the medicine man in exchange for wealth. The latter of both truths will eat away at my mother and when I am 16, she will take her life.