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Oleya froze as the name ‘Tunkana’ resounded in her ears. Every other word her editor said merely drifted like echoes.
“The Rizi park story was a major success, Oleya. This story is just what you need to ascend in your career.” Mr Roza lounged in his chair. “Some villagers swear they’d seen stars shimmer in the ground, not the sky. They say it happens at funerals.” Mr Roza pushed a couple of files across the table to where Oleya sat still.
“Tunkana! Funerals! Shining grounds? No!” Oleya suddenly stood up and yelled. “No! I’ve moved on. I moved on from all that illusion, Mr Roza. How's that even a story worthy of publishing?” Oleya didn't hide her disgust.
“Oleya, are you okay?” Roza stood trying to figure out the cause of Oleya’s outburst. In six years of working with her, he had never seen her exhibit anything short of respect, self-control, and integrity.
Even Oleya shocked herself. Fidgeting, she grabbed her bag and turned to leave. “I'm sorry. Excuse me,” she muttered.
Oleya left the office building as though she were being chased. Even in death, her mother, Leira was still pulling her home.
All of the anger and resentment Oleya nurtured in the past came in torrents. She recalled the way Leira often spoke to her in certainties that defied fact.
“We do not die, Oleya. We return as roots,” Leira would say while making cornrows on Oleya’s hair, pointing at the soil after rain, or while teaching her the Tunkana way of greeting elders and the land.
Oleya held on to that belief like worship until school stripped it from her.
When Oleya was ten, her science teacher spoke about decay and biological endings. She raised her hand and said calmly, “We do not die, we return as roots.”
The entire class laughed.
Oleya sank into her seat and slowly tucked in the cowry stringed to her hair. It was the first time she realized that belief could be embarrassing.
Six months later, her mother passed. Oleya witnessed first-hand the reality of death. She watched as her mother's coffin was being lowered. She watched soil pour and she acknowledged the finality of it.
The lie had revealed itself. Oleya’s grief was true but her anger was brutal. She was angry at her mother for planting false hopes and angry at herself for believing and waiting for a miracle that she would return.
Oleya began to erase Leira from her life slowly. She cut her hair and changed the way she dressed. She wanted to belong to the city and not old fantasy. She threw all her cowries and her mother's notebook of oral stories and hand-drawn symbols. Even the old tapes of village songs she revered weren't left out. She became a successful journalist who chased facts that could be quoted and archived. Nothing mystical survived her childhood or so she thought until her editor mentioned ‘Tunkana.’
After days of pondering. Oleya took the job reluctantly. She needed the career growth. Oleya had not been to her maternal village since her mother passed but nothing had changed. It was as though the village was resisting time. Oleya could not help but acknowledge that invisible glow Tunkana had. As a child, she used to think that the village was covered in an enchanting veil that you could only feel.
She came to where a group of women sat humming rhymes against the cymbals. “Do not search with your eyes. It is the heart that sees.”
Oleya wanted to walk away but a memory flashing through her mind kept her fixated. She remembered the way her mother always came alive in the village. The way she'd dance to those songs like she was elevated into a different world. The cowries on her silky black hair would hit against each other as she moved graciously. Oleya recalled how much she idolized her mother. She didn't realize that a tear had dropped.
“Isn't it Leira’s daughter?”
“She has her eyes.”
The villagers always remembered the children of the soil. They offered Oleya all the help she needed for her story by holding her hands through stories, rites, and rituals. At first, Oleya found them to be amusing. Slowly, she began to understand the way of the Tunkana and her heart began to soften.
One morning, a chief died and by evening, funeral arrangements were in place. Oleya documented it all. She watched with keenness as the rites were performed..
That night, Oleya sat alone outside thinking about her mother and all the things she could have told her. “I wish we had the chance to say the things we didn't say,” she whispered. She was starting to understand why her mother was deeply connected to Tunkana. They weren't mere villagers but a group of interconnected souls. A tear rolled down her cheek to the ground.
Suddenly, like roots sprawled on the ground. Oleya’s tear formed extensions beneath the ground that started to shimmer like silver. She watched in awe as the glimmer extended beyond the surrounding trees. Without thinking, she followed.
The trail had now been replaced by twinkling stars beneath her bare feet. Oleya felt a thrill all over her body and could not fathom what she was witnessing.
Soon, Oleya came to a place where she saw glowing stars rooted in the soil. They were like a garden of soft stars breathing gently like a memory.
Oleya recognized her mother's presence instantly. It felt like warmth behind her eyes. She knelt before the star and a familiar silence spoke. Not words but understanding.
Oleya understood that her mother never promised a return in person but presence. Leira understood that Oleya’s rejection was of a child who needed her mother. They both stayed in each other’s company for as long as it lasted. Oleya finally released the grief she hadn't allowed herself to heal from.
She left Tunkana a different person. Not transformed, not naive. She didn't write the story her editor expected. She didn't write about glowing grounds. She wrote the truth about death not being disappearance, but a return to something different.
“We do not simply die. We return differently.” Oleya smiled as she finished writing the story.
