There is this nostalgic feeling you get and immediately you just burst out laughing. Scary as it may seem, the memory of almost burning down my family house as an ignorant kid gets me weak anytime I remember it.
It was one Sunday evening. My dad had travelled for missionary work, and my mom was left alone to deal with me and my two siblings. She had suggested we visit Grandma that weekend, but we vehemently refused. The last time we were there, my brother broke her most expensive ceramic cup and got a proper scolding. Ever since then, Grandma’s house felt like a courtroom where judgment was administered without mercy.
The day started very peacefully. We had gone to our place of worship in the morning and returned home to the mouth watering aroma of fried rice. My mom had cooked it in her usual way. She spiced it just right with diced vegetables and soft chunks of meat. We devoured it like children who had been starved for like a week.
That day, NEPA-The power company, of course, had decided it was not a day for electricity. Mom didn’t want to put on the generator either. "We need the fuel to pump water," she said. So we made do with daylight and, later at night, we would make use of candlelight.
With Dad gone, the house felt like a carnival. We ran around, played outdoor games, and even danced. I can't forget the smile on Mom’s face when I danced with my waist bent. We made sure to do all the things that would usually earn us frowns and warnings if Dad were around. Mom told us folktales that evening, the kind her mother told her under the moonlight. We lay on a mat in the compound with our bellies pointing at the stars, while laughing and gasping at stories of talking tortoises and foolish kings.
Then, while she was in the middle of telling us what the tortoise told the king so he could marry his daughter, Mom remembered the soup in the fridge; the Okazi soup(wild spinach soup) she had cooked the night before. With no power, certainly, it wouldn't be able to last much longer.
“Dinma, go and warm the soup,” she said.
I was only six, but I was what you would call “domestically trained.” I could heat soup, make eba, and even pound pepper with the mortar. It was more like survival than skills. Mom believed every child should be useful.
I did as I was told; I lit the stove, warmed the soup, and made eba afterward. By the time we sat down to eat, the moon had reached its peak. The soup was so delicious, so rich, and filled with all the right things in the right places. We licked our fingers with utmost satisfaction.
After clearing up, Mom bathed my younger siblings while I was asked to light a candle. Our routine when Dad was not around, was to sleep in the sitting room, with all of us huddled up together on one large mat. It felt warm and secure, being that close to Mom.
The candle...Honestly, up till this moment, I still wonder why I placed it on our old 14-inch box TV. Maybe, because we placed everything on that TV ranging from combs to books to crayons and what have you. The candle didn’t feel out of place. It was just another item finding rest on top of the 14 inches box television.
Mom came out and, maybe she was just too tired to notice, so she said nothing about its position.
We laid down and soon drifted into a really deep sleep.
"Dinma! Dinma!" I heard my mom’s voice like it was coming from under the water.
I opened my eyes to the sight of flickering flames licking the walls. Smoke coiled up like curled ropes. I could barely see anything. At that moment all I felt was panic and my whole body freezing.
My mom's hands reached out to me through the smoke, yanking me out from the mat. She was screaming, with her eyes filled with a mixture of fear and anger. The fire had started from the TV; I think the candle had probably melted to the base and toppled over.
We had our neighbors rushing in with buckets of water flying through the windows. I could see my siblings coughing profusely from the smoke. The feeling of guilt overwhelmed me.
After what felt like a whole century, the fire was finally put out.
The first sight that grabbed my eyes, was our TV that was now a melted mess. The cushion chairs were burned on one side and one side of the wall was blackened with soot but no one was hurt.
I stood there, shivering and feeling confused. My mom turned to me with blazing eyes. "How can you place a candle on the TV?!"
I honestly had no words. I didn’t even understand what I had done wrong. All I knew was that I followed instructions-sort of.
Aunty Nneka who was a loving neighbor. From what I heard, she was the first to raise the alarm and she had helped put out the flames too. She touched my mom gently on the shoulder.
"It's one of those things," she said. "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."
Somehow, those words were like balm on my mother’s anger. She sighed, gathered us in her arms, and for the first time since the fire started, we cried. Not out of fear, but out of relief.
Later that night, we squeezed ourselves into the one untouched room and slept with the windows open to air out the smoke. My siblings snored softly while I stayed awake, watching the flickering shadows on the wall and promising myself never to touch a candle again.
That incident became our family tale. Every time we gather, someone would whisper, “Dinma, please keep the candle away from the TV,” and we would all burst out laughing.
Yes, it was really scary. But it taught me something early on—sometimes, no matter how carefully you plan, life still finds a way to teach you that what was meant to go wrong will still go wrong.
And sometimes, all you can do is laugh about it later.
