The Voice

"So the town of Amatu talked and whispered; so, the world talked and whispered. Okolo had no chest, they said. His chest was not strong and he had no shadow. Everything in this world that spoiled a man's name they said of him."

"Listen not to him. He speaks this way always because he passed standard six. Because he passed standard six his ears refuseth nothing, his inside refuseth nothing like a dustbin."

"Speak of this thing no more. The ears of Amatu are opened. If this the ears of Izongo enters, we will fall from our jobs."

"Doesn't shame fall on your head, you man without chest, for saying you want to burn a woman's house down to the ground? If you are a male man be with a strong chest, come and take him."

"The people snapped at him like hungry dogs snapping at bones. They carried him in silence like silence of ants carrying a crumb of yam or fish bone. Then they put him down and dragged him past thatch houses that in the dark looked like pigs with their snouts in the ground, pushed and dragged him past mud walls pitying eyes, pushed and dragged him past concrete walls with concrete eyes; pushed and dragged him along the waterside like soldier ants with their prisoner."

"Tell me the bottom of everything,'Okolo said with a soft voice.'We have been friends for a long time since we were children so tell me the bottom of everything. There is nobody here."

"You must leave this town. It will pain our insides too much to see you suffer. We are a soft people and even now if you agree to join us, we untie your hands and you will have no need to knock your head against stone as you are doing."

"Even if a person inside water lets out gas, the odour floats up to the surface. You know not even this the saying of our Izon people?"

"It was a great task I performed, my people. A great task in sending him away. A dangerous task, but it had to be done for the good of us all."

"Yes, they are singing with voices like a piece of earth, and drinking with throats that pick nothing, and shaking the world with their looking-at-nothing feet."

"I have not the big thing between us forgotten. You will of my doings hear concerning it."

"I have already told you. Be sensible and be a good lad. This country will need men like you, if only you learn to shut your eyes at certain things."

"It is bad money. Bad money never brings good to anyone."

"He says the money paid them by Izongo is bad money and that he, too, like Okolo will speak. Only he says the time is not correct yet."

"Yes! He who touches me his fingers will burn. What is yours."

"Without money I can't find him. Money is everything in Sologa."

"A dead man's shadow has entered this house."

"Amatu is lost, yes Amatu is lost."

"If in this world we can recreate ourselves, I would become a man. When I die, I will return as a man, I will continue to be a man but not a cripple."

"I am Chief Izongo. My name, like the wind, has entered everybody's ears. And people know me as one who always does the straight thing and that is doing what has come out of my mouth."