The Mystifying Island

2

The news fared gloriously than a wildfire. Everyone had heard of the damage done by the lengthy precipitations at the wood factory in Dandidi Island. The logs were wet that the sun's incandescence could not bake them enough for firewood. That was the only way the locals cooked their meals and it was about to be whisked away from them by the season they had long been longing for in eight months of the invasion of fogs and plumes of dust, and the tortuous dryness brought along with them. Dandidi, burrowed by foreign drillers for precious stones and oil, now has her rivers stenchy and habouring several spillages, lichens and billions of deadly microorganisms.The activities of these oil workers rendered them, by no means, potable. The town, laced around her wide area by high promontories, attracted tourists who saw her fit for a tour from west to east or from the east to the west as the case may be, depending on which of the neighbouring towns you have started journeying. The women of the town, regarded as the prettiest and most hardworking of species, are often taken away as booties by the yearlong traffic of rich and lettered immigrants.

Four years earlier, following his ascension, Dinrobo of Dandidi, the paramount administrator of the town, cautioned against mass expatriation of their women by marriage when it took him almost half a year to find a beautiful woman who would complement his imperial presence and be worthy to be hailed as 'Her Majesty'. He lashed his countrymen bitterly for tainting the virtues their custom had assiduously held for centuries. More men were expected in the town in the coming weeks. So, Dinrobo II planned to nip the menace in its bud. All chiefs and city patrons in Dandidi suggested that only engineers, lawyers and physicians be ushered onto the Island. This they opined would influence their children into becoming ambitious, civilised, and as a result, useful for the progress of their clan. They persistently made this known to get a crisp attention from their beloved King. There was a sudden strange silence. It took him a couple of sips from his goblet of wine in his court before he could mutter a decision. He affirmed that all the borders would be shut after the twenty-fourth hour to allow all citizens on a business trip or other forms of journey to troop back into town and afford his chiefs ample time to get the latest policy across to all before it springs to life.

"Have we had thought about the women of this land?", the shrill voice of a clergyman asked when he received the news. He was dumbfounded by the King's insensitivity. Half a century before this age, the population of women in Dandidi had become tenfold that of men. Their king quickly authorised that a man could tie the knot with as many mistresses as he desired and such had been the trend even until the reign of King Dinrobo. This, among many other legends, have been misappropriated for their neighbouring towns because of its remote location in the Western region.

Mr Shola was Mike's senior at the University of Lagos in their undergraduate years. They had learnt about Dandidi in an elective class; its geography, its ethnography, its politics, the life of the ruling class and their subjects on the Island. For Mr Shola, it was left to be seen if there was any other remote place more intriguing to visit than Dandidi. Mike called the place "a sheer spectrum", a tag Shola also nodded to in clear agreement.

They were uncertain about the place they would sail to mid-year, yet, optimism beclouded Mike's thoughts. 'We may eventually discover another mythical soil,' he thought. Another of such places was the one mentioned in a story which his father had recounted to him when he was just twelve, four years before the poor worker died of complications from a head injury he sustained in a textile factory he worked for. Mrs Badu, Mike's mother, reeked utter remissness and was in all spheres the opposite of her late hardworking husband. After one year of her husband's demise when she saw that her clothes were ragging quickly in succession, she stormed into the office of the factory's General Manager to claim all that her deceased husband was entitled to. After a long feisty deliberation, the GM confirmed her poor man had filled in another name for next-of-kin and that all the funds from his insurance and his savings had been tendered to the supposed rightful person.

Jobs were hard to come by that year in Lagos. Taxes had hit the roof and the new governor was having his machineries churning out burdening economic policies. The governor wooed the electorates during his campaigns, where he promised to reduce taxes but why he recoiled and went back on his promises was not indecipherable even for his party faithfuls. The political culture in Lagos was bridled to a number of factors there was hardly a control over by any common man: poverty, lifestyle, youths' indifference and the sole African gene which was communality. So, if one person's in-laws planned to vote a notorious candidate, their neighborhood joined too in voting the same vagabond. Now you know what these inexplicable genes are. A very detrimental lifting into political awareness. After weeks of suffering the major frustration of not being willed anything by her husband, Mrs Badu went on a tedious but fruitless search for a job in the city. Her life became as despicable as a protagonist's in a soap opera, scaling one hurdle of emotional t*****e towards another. She later on discovered that Mr Badu had four other seeds outside their marriage and that he had discreetly nurtured them for over a decade with three young women in a remote town, a revelation which compounded her misery. Many of her irresponsible behaviours after this event did not rub off on the character of Mike as she had sent him to live with a generous relative in a town twenty-five kilometres away from Lagos as soon as he turned seven, so he could complete his secondary school education without serious concerns.

Police Secondary School, Badagry was where he started picking up the other mythical details about Dandidi, and when he mentioned them to Bade,one of his uncles, he did with an unmistakable curiosity and a wide smile, hoping that all unprecedented features that were not mentioned in the tales he had heard about the land would be unravelled by the man.

The hunt for fossils continued in Dandidi even as newborns welcomed therein suffered chronic typhoid from the intake of contaminated water. If Mark had had this slight information, he would have reneged on his vow to chase the lofty dream of visiting an unknown place miles and miles away from where he had friends and relatives. The mighty King Dinrobo knew absolutely not about Mr Shola and Mike's plot to go on an adventure towards his own land! He was worried that his little territory had become even far from being inhabitable for doves and pigeons. His lofty dreams for the Island were greatly threatened and there were no fortuitous remedy soon forthcoming. The dreams— a land gradually occupied by sages and technocrats and the sophisticated use of irons and energy, had been forecasted by soothsayers for centuries. A land wherevforeign gurus would induct their children into seveal modern trades yet to be ventured into in the land- robotics, medicine, aeronautics blah blah blah. 'And who will start learning all these esoteric things?' He asked his visibly dejected chiefs at his court. 'My contemporaries and I?...I am too old to read letters now as you can see. Don't let my protruding biceps from heavy-lifting in my youth sell you that idea either. I can't...I can't send my prince away with these men either for I fear he would become a monster just like them...or have you all forgotten our plans? They stay here, introduce my people to a bit of their ways and leave as soon as some of our roads are tarred, there is water to drink again and there is reliable electricity for all.... Until after they have built many schools! Yet, they come, use us and leave.'

The reserve on the west of the territory dwindled every day as many Dandidians scrambled for logs. Rancorous few engaged themselves in fisticuffs right there whilst the debate on foreign investors dragged on at the king's court. Love which had once permeated the heart of the town retreated through that nozzle: survival. Dinrobo's dreams therefore remained dreamy and the natives' optimism reduced to mere heedless whimpers.

*******************************************

On the dewy dawn of a Saturday when all roosters awaited some glimmer from the sky to prowl for worms, Mr Shola and Mike left Lagos for the Island. They sojourned aboard a large ash ferry that was to sail across the Atlantic and past the remote Dandidi Island. Since it was going to be a single day expedition, Mr Shola and Mike took with them six bottles of malt drinks and two loaves of bread.

'It's going to be a long day,' Mr Shola notified Mike.

'We'll make it a short even if it means breaking records out of the woods,' Mike replied.

'No woods this time. Just brine and brine'

They both smiled.

Dandidi was a sole craft by the passage of time. Its closest shore to any other land was where their king's monumental palace was erected.

'I think it's a nice idea now to gather all the history here in,' Mr Shola finally said as the vessel moored on the shore of the island, his smile even wider than that of a professor who had made a giant discovery. The first shore guard who checked them in at the harbour spoke impeccable pidgin English. Mike's forehead wrinkled from startle. A cab driver who conveyed them away from the beachy seashore spoke the language too with vigour.

'I hope say we no dey wrong place now?' Mike quizzed the driver.

'Neva. Na Dandidi be dis. Me I be konfam indigene. Ma mama an papa na from hia'

They got off the cab at the centre of the Island after a five-minute ride. The avians of Dandidi celebrated their arrival with tunes, in the rows of lush conifers that enclaved the heart of the lsland whereof a change in Mike's life would forever ensue. Mike and Mr Shola's arrival was announced at King Dinrobo's court. He welcomed them to his Island as tradition required and when Mike ultimately spilled his name, it rekindled an old forgotten mystery.

'Thank you...papa thank you.' King Dinrobo got up from his throne, looking up to the ornamented ceiling of his court. 'you are Badu's only son? Oh my God! One of your four sisters lives herein.'

An uproar rented the air until silence was restored by the king himself. His face filled with joy. He ordered his courtiers to ensure that there was a grand banquet in the evening of that day to celebrate the arrival of his startled long-lost in-law.

'And what should I do?' Mr Shola asked the king. 'We came here together to make a survey for our university research. What lie will I take to Lagos?'

'Tell his mother she has nothing to lose. His son is having a royalty of a time. Hahaha', the king roared hysterically. 'Mike is going nowhere until she's able to build the school her husband promised after we had handed him three of our daughters. He eloped with one of them and never came back. Now it's payback time for our priest's oracle had warned me to find a way to get him or his son to Dandidi.'

The guards captured Mike while a helpless Mr Shola found his way back to Lagos. He left an unaddressed note at Mrs Badu's doorstep the next day:

"If you want to see your son, trace your husband's infidel years to Dandidi"

**************†††††*******************

The news of the event travelled faster than a tsunami from the estuaries of the remote Island to the creeks of Lagos.