Of Snails and Storm: I thought I was mad

The beginning — the madness.

Before a few months ago, I was convinced that I had spent my entire childhood a lunatic and that no one had noticed. I have memories, as vivid as high-definition pictures, of my young rambunctious self, standing, on the veranda of our old house, the one I grew up in. The veranda looked out to the street and I could see everything below me and more so above. Below, there were rusting zinc roofs, the kinds that covered tenement houses with long halls that housed multiple apartments on either sides. These roofs were littered with objects I myself had thrown down carelessly. Above, there were clear skies, as blue as those in paintings and story book illustrations. In these memories, I practiced an art. This practice was the reason why, years later, I would think myself mad.

I remember an afternoon, one of those afternoons when the sun’s rays hit your skin but were not harsh and the air seemed still, only occasionally did a breeze disturb the tranquility before it all returned to its previous stillness. It was one of those afternoons when we were on holiday from school and I spent time missing my friends and imagining what I would have been doing if school was still in session. I remember my 8-year old self standing there, in short shorts and a singlet, staring out from the veranda into the street, arms outstretched.

“What are you doing?” My cousin had asked, curious. He was the closest thing I had to a junior sibling before my brother was born a few years later. His question carried a hint of worry. I am sure it looked unnatural, what I was doing.

“I am controlling the wind” I said without turning to look at him “like Storm. In X-men” I added, like this part was supposed to make it all alright.

“Hmm” was all I remember him saying. With my back to him, I knew what his face looked like when he said it. His eyes would get wider and his lips would clamp together and elevate and jut forward. With their sudden closeness, the ‘hmm’ is the only sound to pass from his lips. It was a way to show his disbelief and I heard it, loud and clear.

“Oya come and see.” I beckoned to him, this time looking at him over my shoulder catching his face still in its ‘hmm’ stance. He walked forward and looked out at the world above and below us, waiting to see what I wanted to show him.

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Storm of the X-Men. Portrayed in the movie by the beautiful Halle Berry. She has the power to control the weather.[/caption]

“Look at that tree, there.” I gestured to a tree growing up out of concrete. It had its roots in the compound that we shared a fence with. The branches extended to our side of the house and some were caught in the jarring snare of the broken bits of glass that crowned the top of the concrete fence. My mother had asked those to be put. There were certain cats, that no one laid claim to, that would usually take leisurely strolls on the top of the fence, at night, meowing to their hearts delight, all the while terrifying me as their sounds invaded my dreams. The night after these bits of glass were installed, we heard a meow and then a scream, a lot like a human’s. We saw a lot of blood on the side of the fence the next day but that was the last time we heard the meows.

“I am looking.” His tone was one that awaited surprise mockingly, not counting on it. My arms were by my side and as I raised them slowly, I stared fixedly at the tree. The air remained as still as it had always been and with every inch that my hand went up, I started to feel my cousin smile behind me, reveling in what could only be seen as my own folly. It was at this moment of despair that it happened. The leaves moved first, and then the branches shook and suddenly the air was not still anymore. A mild breeze blew danced across our faces; mine was set in a smile, his in utter shock.

So there I was, a young boy, with nothing to lose with the power to change the weather, however slightly. I was never bothered by the fact that I could never actually move anything with the wind, save for biscuit wrappers that looked poised to move whether or not there was a breeze. I believed in the development that would come with practice. I believed I would one day control the clouds like Storm.

It remained a secret for a long time and save for this piece it would have remained that way. I remember going to primary school and just staring at my classmates. I always wondered if they too had powers like me that they did not talk about. I wondered how they would feel if I told them I had powers.

In the midst of coming to know myself as a boy with powers, things happened. I grew up. I practiced less and I did not talk about my powers anymore, not to anyone. Not even my cousin.

Enter the snails.

Conversations with my parents are always insightful. I always learn something, most of the time about myself and where I am from. I remember this one conversation that would begin the journey that has led to this.

It was on a day when I was not in school. It was a long holiday and I was home, safe from the treacherous living that came with being in a boarding school. I was a teenager. My voice had cracked and sounded deeper, I was taller than everyone in the house, my aspirations of being a Catholic priest had started to wane and I had begun doing stupid things.

“Why don’t we eat snails?” I posed the question to no one in particular as my mother and father sat on the couch beside each other. Their puzzled looks were expected and I continued, to clarify the suddenness of the question “My friends are always talking about how they have snails and I just thought of how we never eat it here.”

“We just don’t eat it where I am from. It is basically a taboo.” My mother giggled before she responded.

“Same with my side. That is why we don’t cook it.” My father added, not taking his eyes off the TV. It was tuned to the news; something terrible was happening somewhere in the country.

“But you can eat snail if you want o. It’s just how we grew up, I did not learn how to cook or eat it so that is why. We are not telling any of you not to eat.” She said these words that started the formation of the possibility of a meal of snails in my mind. I thought of what they would taste like. I decided I would try them the next chance I got. Looking back now I wish she had stopped me. I wish she had sternly told me never to never touch snails for as long as I lived, then maybe, just maybe…

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Just look at.[/caption]

My first taste of snails came a few years later. I was in the university already. My fixation on snails and their taste left almost as soon as it settled in my young mind. It was while I was walking down a street in Victoria Island, the part of Lagos where the rich are said to live, work and play golf. I was there, an industrious chap, searching for a summer job to feed my recent internet addiction (data is still a pricey commodity). I had walked a long while and was hungry before the logo of a Sweet Sensation restaurant crept into my peripheral view and I knew, that that was the one — I also had no other choice, the hunger was starting to feel like my stomach was a pin cushion housing a thousand, nay a million, pins.

I was craving fried rice but I was unsure of how the pricing was with these fast food restaurants but I walked in nevertheless, wielding in the back pocket of my jeans enough money so that I could easily change my order from ‘fried rice please’ to ‘donuts and water thank you’ without feeling too embarrassed. As I went through the huge menu that hung over the counter where the attendants, with dead eyes — the type that come from monotonous work, stared at nothing, I stumbled on it. It said boldly above a steamy dish with snails and some pepper sauce — “SNAILS”. I had to try it. It only made sense. My mother had sanctioned it. This was the time.

And so I ordered a place of fried rice with snails. It cost nearly all the money I had confidently held before but I bought it anyway. I ate the rice and enjoyed it. The snail, however, was underwhelming. The boys, back in secondary school, would talk about snails with all the pomp of a man introducing the members of the circus. Some of them licked their fingers in exaggerated shows of tastiness. I was subjected to all this, listening without speaking, longing for something I was not sure I liked. Now here I was, eating it and feeling — for lack of better words — meh.

That, my friends, was the beginning of what can only be described as a slippery slope. I have had snails a few more times after that. Snails suddenly made an appearance in small chops — a side dish that has slowly become a staple in the world of events catering in Nigeria — joining the ever-faithful puff puff, the luscious samosa and the mysterious spring roll, often replacing peppered gizzards or chicken. And as a foodie, both self-proclaimed and crowd-conferred, it is only to be expected that on one or two occasions I would have downed a couple of plates of snail-inclusive small chops. Now it may be cliché in its use but this phrase holds true for me; ‘had I known…’

The big reveal — I may not have been mad.

It was only a few months ago, while I sat to lunch with my parents after church, talking about plans to travel, that the issue came up again and the entire story was told. It started with a joke I told, a joke I wish I hadn’t told. Not because it caused a revelation I dread but because it really wasn’t funny. I pointed out how rainmakers in our villages conveniently avoided making threats to ‘release rain on your event’ when it was the dry season and rain was on holiday itself. My parents laughed and because they laughed I laughed.

“You know our family were rainmakers. Very strong ones that time.” He said it matter-of-factly even as he put a spoon of rice and ofe akwu in his mouth. It sparked something in me, this talk of weather-bending ancestry but I did not push it.

“That is why we don’t eat snail. Our family, we had to avoid snail so it would not interfere with our rainmaking powers.” He continued “People who wanted our powers to fail would do some incantations and burn snails nearby so our powers would not work.”

I sat there slack-jawed and bamboozled. Was he saying what I thought he was saying? That my ancestors were basically Storms in their own right?

“That is why we don’t take it where I am from. Our village, we have a lot of rainmakers so whenever we see snails, our parents will ask us not to touch it and we should allow the children from the other villages eat it.” It was my mother who spoke this time. She sipped her water after she said this and my father nodded his head as he fed himself another spoon of rice. They were unaware of what they had just done to me.

As lunch continued, they told me more tales. My father spoke of how we were known for being the family to call to hold back the rains and to cause them to fall when needed. There used to be a shrine where some people gave offerings and this kept their powers as long as the members of the family refused to eat snails. My parents had remained untainted and probably, without their knowledge, harbored weather-altering powers of their own, but here I was, the fruit of their loins, tainted in ways I knew not how to clean myself. I was livid but there was nothing more I could do.

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These clouds are a painful reminder of what beauty I could have created. :’([/caption]

I spent the rest of that day thinking of my young self, out on the veranda of the house we had now left, conjuring things he did not know. He was naïve to me at a time or, dare I say, mad.

Now my heart is heavy because I know that the next time I am offered, I will eat snail. Not just because it tastes mind-blowing when done right or because it is meat (I love meat) but because I know for sure that my powers are gone now — I can’t even move biscuit wrappers like I could before — and as I eat it, I will wallow in inconsolable regret and weep silent tears that no one can see for my lost powers and for all the times I thought I was mad.

-E.M

#Bless

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