It started like joke like joke. One day, Uncle Majority came to our house, after ten years of everyone knowing nothing of his where-about, begging my father to accept him back as one of us.
"It's not my fault," he said on bended knees, crying. "It was the devil's doing, Uncle. Forgive me--"
"I trusted you!" Father said, shifting his leg from Uncle Majority's grip. "You took my five hundred thousand naira, my life's savings, and ran away! Ah, no, no, no. You are wicked, Majority. You are a wicked man. Free my leg, jor." He left him sprawled on the floor, in the centre of our living-room like a wall-gecko someone had trampled on.
We, my brothers and I, all ran to Father's bedroom, begging him to show mercy.
"Daddy, he was young then," I said.
"And you know he is an orphan," Tboy said.
"And, look at him now," Dudu said; "he looks like he's been frying under the sun for years. Daddy, just forgive him nah...please."
Father, after hours of listening to our plea, begrudgingly asked us to call Uncle Majority in. He told him he was welcome, could stay as long as he liked, until he could find his foot again. With excitement on our faces we escorted Uncle Majority to his new room, where we chatted through the night, and he told us about how he'd been working in a white man's plantation. It felt like having a big brother around, one much older than we were.
In the middle of the night that day, while I drunkenly found my way to the toilet in the midst of the darkness(as per NEPA wahalla), light from the guest-room, where Uncle Majority slept, caught my attention. I took ghostly steps towards the door, and immediately I bent down to peep through the key-hole, the door creaked open.
Uncle Majority was dangling in the air, his eyes two completely black marbles, with a smirk on his face. He licked his fingers as though he'd just finished eating something delicious, and when he saw me, his mouth wide open, blood streamed down his parted lips.
"Oops," he said, licking the blood back in as he floated towards me. I froze, my legs felt as though they'd turned to liquid, and attempting to scramble out the room I fell on my back and crawled to the exit, mumbling.
"Ssh..." he said, his index finger on his lips. "Let's not create a scene now."
Agitated, and with pursed lips, I nodded in agreement.
He pressed his fingers into his right eye, pressed it in so deep it popped out. "Ooops," he said, giggling as the eyeball rolled on the floor towards me. "Pick it up."
Jamming my back against the door, with fear and trembling, I wanted to shout 'Daddy', 'Jesus', but, as in a dream, the words wouldn't fall out.
"Stop doing that," he said, sternly. "You could break the door," he added gently, forcing a smile. I stopped jamming the door. "Now, eat."
As I picked the eyeball up, he stared at me with hope in his eye. It felt cold and greasy, his eyeball. I closed my eyes and brought it close to my mouth. Then I dropped it in. As I churned on it, it did not taste so bad. It tasted like hard-boiled egg coated in blackberry jam.