Short Story: “Son Of Ladi” | Haruna Solomon.

I pushed through the crowd to Ladi’s hut, but it was guarded. My mother had ordered some youths to protect the door and I wondered how well-wishers can be intruders or why sympathizers are denied access to the deceased. Perhaps the child was dead. The youths did not allow me passage too. I yelled at them and asked them to leave my compound before I fetch my machete as my mother stood by the door and pleaded I wait a moment. I insisted but she pleaded harder while I waited. Everyone looked at me; some eyes held pity, some showed curiosity, some were indifferent or what I could not interpret. I heard my first wife say to her friend that Ladi gave birth to this kind of child because she collected charm that will make her bear male children. That God was exposing her fetish ways. My heart pushed hard against my chest in anger. I slapped her to the ground and ran into my hut. I returned with a machete and stood over her threatening to chop her head off if she doesn’t tell me the kind of child, the charm, and all the madness surrounding this birth. She wept in fear and begged for her life.