Mgbe nnukwu mmanwụ pụta, obele mmanwụ na-agba ọsọ.
I don’t even have the mouth to tell this story. I’m so tired most of the time. Besides, whatever they will say will be the truest version of it, since they are the truest version of me. It’s a strange thing to say, I know, considering that they made me mad. But I am not entirely opposed to madness, not when it comes with this kind of clarity. The world in my head has been far more real than the one outside—maybe that’s the exact definition of madness, come to think of it. It’s all a secret I’ve had to keep, but no longer, not since you’re reading this. And it should all make sense; I didn’t want to be alone, so I chose them. In many ways, you see, I am not even real.
When they speak so contemptuously of humans, I’m never sure if they mean me as well. Sometimes I wonder if there even is a me without them. They talk about Ewan, the man I married, as if he was nothing, because he was only flesh. But I loved him and that made him more than human to me. Love is transformative in that way. Like small gods, it can bring out the prophet in you. You find yourself selling dreams of spectacular hereafters, possible only if you believe, if you really, really believe. So in loving Ewan, he somehow became a god. I don’t mean that in a good way—he made me suffer but I still cast idols in his name, as people have done for their gods for millennia. It didn’t end there. When the years accumulated and exposed Ewan’s cracks, I covered them in gold and bronze. That’s what you do for the idols you make. But I loved him, I really did, and he loved me, and that was the danger—is there any story of a human loving a god that ends well? I was so busy pretending I was normal back then, I didn’t know enough to think of that. So maybe he made me suffer, but how much can flesh really hurt spirit? Who do you think will be bruised more in the end?
You see, you’ve gone and caught me. I’m talking as if I’m them. It’s all right. In many ways, I am not even real. I am not even here.