DEAR UNCLE ROBOT

PROLOUGE

      It was an early November morning when the call came. A dark, gloomy day....when the sun refused to give out its light....Even though I was only five at the time, I still can remember everything that happened that fateful day.

      You see, I come from a small impoverish family of nine. Being the only daughter of my mother, she had three other brothers and a sister who also had a little girl of her own, my cousin, you'd say, and she was only two at the time. Now, of all my uncles, only one stayed with us while the other two, along with my mother, stayed and worked at Lagos city. I can't possibly remember her face for she left me in the care of my grandmother as soon I was born.
  
       Uncle John, as I had always called him, was a young man of disputable character. He was quite the type of person who was always angry at himself and the situation of the family. He never attended church since I knew him and he was always searching for a way to improve the condition of the family. Nevertheless, he was a funny yet mysterious person at the same time. Always quick to discipline anytime we erred. He was a severe introvert and like he had always said, he hated people and they hated him back. He saw himself as the black sheep and the only one responsible for my grandfather's death. He hated anything and everything connected with God or religion and he was always locked up in his room. He had always complained about how his talents were going to waste for he had been a writer and artist. But he found no one willing to help and most of his books and drawings were already gone before his death that morning.

        I was brought up by my grandmother to love everyone in my family, even those I have never met till now. But in my heart, I had always hated Uncle John. And I'm sure my cousin felt the same way. Even though we were kids, he had found great pleasure in telling us frightening and scary tales, many of which were conceptualized. One of his made up characters however traumatized us so much that we were always terrified whenever he called its name. Whenever we were being stubborn, the sudden mention of that name would bring us back to order. We were made to believe it was the name of a real demon who had managed to live in the shadows of our house. And that only Uncle John could see and interact with it. And all thanks to him, the name was passed down to my aunt for she thought, at that time, it was an easy way of impacting discipline. We grew scared of being alone in the dark for ' Bot ' would catch us. We hated being left alone with Uncle John and even my grandmother noticed this. She warned him frequently to stop with his stories  and every time, it would always end in a heated argument and he would lock himself in his room throughout that day. We would hear him talk and mutter as if he was talking to someone else even though we knew there was no one else but him and he had no friends.

  He had been the one taking care of my grandfather before the latter died, after battling bone cancer for several years and we were told that had taken a toll on him. We knew nothing of his early days and he had ripped his head off every pictures in the house. Even still, he was our uncle.
  
     That particular morning, he had been in his room as usual while we were busy preparing breakfast. Everyone in the neighborhood had complained about the sudden change in the weather and I can remember the sky being dark and gloomy that day. And as usual, we had heard Uncle John talking violently in his room. This went on for several minutes before we then heard that awful shriek come from his room. At first, we had thought it had been another one of his tricks and no one had paid any attention....that was until we saw the dark red pool of blood seeping from underneath the door hinge. I remembered everyone .... basically everyone, including myself, crying then.  People had crowded the house within minutes. From what I heard, Uncle John had stabbed himself in the heart with a bread knife and his body had been sprawled behind the door.  None of us were allowed to step into the room because it was in disarray and as I grew up, I was told per chance that the walls had been covered with graffiti and sketches of out worldly beings. The books in the room were filled with unreadable and unrecognizable writings. No church volunteered to have him buried, referring to him as an agent of the devil. An evil presence still hovers on this property, they had said before hurriedly taking their leave.

    The third night after his death, Uncle John was buried behind the house and his funeral united the family once again. It had been a simple procedure; A hole was dug and a cheap wooden box was made. His body was roughly embalmed and dressed in his best suit. Then, the box was lowered into the ground admist tears. My cousin never understood what was happening then but I remember her crying inconsolably. A few years time, everything about Uncle John was forgotten, except some of his stories. His room was locked up and the house was repainted on the orders of my first uncle. However, I moved away to the city to stay with my mother while my cousin and her mother decided to live somewhere else at Abuja. Only my grandmother remained at the house. It has been long since I have heard from her and my mother wouldn't tell me anything. Recently, I heard she came down with a high fever and that she requested for everyone to get back together, even it meant for the last time....