Ink of Ages Fiction Prize

Ọmọ Ayé Méjì: Child of Two Worlds

Eni tí ó dákẹ́, o ti gbà. The one who stays silent has already agreed. But fear nailed her tongue.

It was 1943 in Lagos, Nigeria. The lagoon smelt of kerosene and salt, its waters restless with the hum of British gunboats scattered along the Marina. Union Jacks stood erect on the sides of the whitewashed buildings, with their owners, the British soldiers, watching the roads carefully and violently.

Today, they were hungry for blood. Aunty Hafiyat, the groundnut seller, hissed as a soldier attempted to take a bag of groundnut she had meticulously placed on the tray atop her head. She was dragged back by her hijab and beaten to a stupor.

“O ti to, E jor!” bypassers screamed as the soldier kicked her repeatedly.

Aunty Hafiyat lay there on the ground, her beautiful burqa soaked in mud.

I was twelve when I watched this sight, coming back from school. I cowered behind the malam selling bread. We flinched each time she was kicked.

“Eni tí ó dákẹ́, o ti gbà. The one who stays silent has already agreed.”

It rang in my ear, repeated in my Iya Agba’s warning tone. But fear nailed my tongue.

I wished I could run and help her, scream, hit the soldiers, do anything, something to stop this horrific sight. I hurried back home quickly, scared I might become the next victim if the soldiers were to catch a glimpse of me.

Look, Lagos wasn’t always like this. We didn’t always pace the streets with fear or hide in the corner the second we saw a glimpse of khaki shorts.

We were free. We danced wildly in the nights to the never-ending rhythms of the talking drum and sekere, our feet stamping dust into the air. We ate roasted corn and groundnuts on the roadside as we laughed under the gas lamps.

But the British took it all away.

They took our land, marking it with borders we did not draw. They rewrote our stories in textbooks we could not read. They built churches where shrines once stood and called it salvation. What was once ours by birthright became theirs on ink, by arrogance.

I hadn’t meant to pass through Balogun Street that day.

Iya Agba had sent me to purchase beans. “Kò le rara,” she shouted as I left through the door. “Not hard at all.”

Iya had always been so specific with the ingredients she used to cook. “Ẹyọ̀ ńlá tó gbóná,” she would warn, as the spiciest peppers are best for hot, mouthwatering akara.

We had always bonded over food. Nights we’d spend in the kitchen on stools, Iya Agba’s face illuminated by the blue-yellow flames of the gas cylinder on the verandah, talking about times before colonization, what the times might be like after.

I was lost in the sweetness of old memories, replaying Iya Agba’s voice in my head, when I realized too late that I had taken the wrong turn.

I stumbled into the cracking roads, signaling my entry into Balogun Street. The distinct smell of sweet puff puff frying filled the air. Small children ran around their mothers’ kiosks, the joy evident in their wild smiles. I stopped, rested my shoulder on a nearby kiosk, and smiled. Despite the deteriorating infrastructure, Balogun Market was beautiful.

It was then I saw him.

He was leaning against a cracked wall, arms folded, watching the world with a kind of quiet amusement. His shirt was faded but clean, and his eyes, those eyes, held something I couldn’t name yet. Not charm, not mischief. Something steadier. Something that made me forget, for a moment, that I was lost.

He noticed me noticing him. And smiled.

That smile was the beginning.

Of course, I didn’t know it would lead to Sunday walks and shared puff puff, or to childhood stories told under the mango tree behind Mama Titi’s shop. It is strange, almost laughable now, how easily I let my guard down.

Because he was a soldier.

Not just any soldier. He wore the same uniform as the men who dragged our mothers by their wrappers and beat our fathers for speaking too loudly. He belonged to the ones who took our Lagos, painted it with flags, and told us it was theirs.

I should have hated him, but love doesn’t ask permission.

Henry. That was his name. Tall, broad-shouldered, white. The kind of man who walked like he owned the earth beneath him. His touch was firm, his voice low, and I mistook danger for desire.

“Teni, nibo lo n lọ ní gbogbo Sunday yi?” Iya would quiz me. “Where are you going every Sunday?”

I would lie. “To get small soap in the market.” “To visit Adanna.”

I lied until the truth grew in me, kicking.

Iya Agba knew before I said a word.

She had been watching me for weeks, the way I moved slower, the way my wrappers no longer fit right, the way I avoided her eyes like they were fire.

That morning, she didn’t shout. She didn’t ask. She just stood by the window, peeling beans with a quiet that felt like thunder.

“Ṣé ọmọ ni?” she said finally.

Is it a child?

I froze. The words clung to the air like smoke. I nodded.

She didn’t cry. She didn’t curse. She just dropped the bowl and walked out of the room. Her silence was louder than any slap.

Later that evening, I went to Henry.

He was sitting behind the barracks, smoking, boots off, shirt undone. I told him everything, the missed periods, the test, the fear. He didn’t flinch.

“That’s not mine,” he said, eyes cold, voice flat.

I laughed. Not because it was funny, but because it was cruel.

“You think I’d carry a soldier’s shame for fun?”

He stood up, brushed past me like I was dust.

I watched him walk away, and in that moment, I understood something deeper than heartbreak.

I was nurturing a British seed in Nigerian soil.