STAR GAZERS

THE UNDERGROUND.

THE FIRST UNDERGROUND.

We had christened it The underground, my brother and I.
I thought the name ironical because this hideout of ours was neither on the ground nor below it. It was the roof of an uncompleted building across the street. My brother had however said it was still underground in a sense because we were beneath the sky.

There was where we took shelter any time it began to rain at home; rain cats and dogs. My mum's words were the cats and my dad's fists the dogs.

I didn't even know why they fought. And I couldn't ask my brother since nothing was supposed to have happened.
They rarely fought during the day since they would both be at work. Their quarrels at night, however, were as irregular as NTA news. At such times we snuck out to watch the stars.

My brother said stars were the only perfect things God had created. They were not like the sun and moon that sometimes fought once in four years to rule the day and ended up leaving everywhere in darkness.

Just like our parents did to us.

I had a feeling that every thing he said was related to mom and dad's quarrels, but I couldn't be so sure. My brother usually said strange stuff I didn't comprehend, but I believed him, so I nodded anytime he spoke.

Sometimes, I wondered if mom and dad had ever really loved each other, because all I had ever seen them do was fight. I even had this distorted imagination that their wedding had taken place in a boxing ring, with a referee as the priest, and that after dad had 'boxed' the bride, they were both taken home on a stretcher that read 'Newly wed.'

It was that bad.

Anyway, their constant wrangles were what prompted our hobby of watching stars every night. We even had our personal stars. His was Athena, mine was Zeus.

Usually, we waited for our parents' quarrel to begin before moving to our hideout together. But today when it started, I could not find Gozie. He never left without me. But I suspected that for some reason he was already at the underground.

I was right.

When I sat beside him on a piece of broken brick, he did not look at me, he didn't even bat an eyelid.
I wondered if he knew I was there, so I shuffled my feet to gain his attention, but he just kept gazing at the star studded inky blue sky.

"Are you okay Gozie?" I asked quietly after a while. He nodded slowly without looking at me.

"What's the problem?" I insisted.

He was not okay; I was sure of that and it was unlike him.

You see, Gozie had been coaching me in the theory of mind over matter for a while now. He said if you believed you were not hurt, then you were not hurt. It was what had kept us going since. We never spoke of our parents' endless quarrels and we pretended like nothing had happened when it was over.
Now, seeing him worried really scared me.

"I can't find Athena," he said finally.

oh, really?

I looked up at the sky; his star which was usually beside mine wasn't there. For a while, there was a solemn silence. I did not know what to tell him.

I thought about starting a bout of forced laughter like we usually did, when mom's screams reached the climax and it was too late to go our hideout. I don't know whether Gozie had really laughed those times, but I knew those tears that inadvertently rolled down my cheeks when I laughed weren't tears of joy.

But I didn't laugh.

"You could choose another," I said carefully.

It sounded like something he would say, so I was pleased with myself.
But he shook his slowly.

"No star can really replace another...there's this unique thing that makes them stars you know."

I didn't know.

To me, all stars were the same- balls of burning gas that shone at night. But my brother was special, he always saw something in nothing. He could see a shadow and say 'wow' 😮
I did not say anything again. I just placed my palm in his and gazed at the sky with him.

It felt like something he would do.

I heard him heave severally and watched in terror as tears streamed down his face.

Gozie was crying for real?😱

He cleaned his face almost immediately and began to smile; his mind over matter smile, then he rubbed my shaved head.

His face was glistening because of the full moon, and he looked like the ghost of a ghost.
For the first time, I noticed the dark rings stamped beneath his eyes and how worn out and withdrawn he looked.

I was dead scared.

"You know how change of state occurs?" he asked suddenly.

I couldn't figure out whether that was a statement or question or what philosophical answer I was meant to give if it was a question, so I kept mute.

"The ice has to break up those bonds holding it back so it can be freer as a liquid," he continued.

I looked at him strangely.
He had definitely lost it.

"Sometimes to be free, you have to let out some things within you, get rid of the bond like ice does," he stated plainly and gave me a penetrating look that almost made my eyeballs fall into my mouth.

I cast my befuddled eyes off his face before I had none.

This was really queer.
Of all the gibberish my brother stuffed me with, permit me to say, this was the most gibberish-est. It contravened all the values he had ever taught me. 😕

I was really really worried and terrified by all the drama, so I didn't nod my head as usual today.

"Gozie are you okay?"I asked again trying to conceal my alarm.

His eyelids fluttered slightly like someone just snapped out of a trance, then he tilted his head towards me.

"Eh?" he asked.

"You were talking about ice and water," I said in a tone that made what he had said sound stupid.

Embarrassment painted his face like a bad make up.

"Seriously? Don't' mind me Dodo, I'm becoming old," he said and smiled.

I studied his face thoughtfully, he didn't look so old. It was probably his brain that was sprouting grey hairs.

That wouldn't be surprising.

He regarded me from the side of his eye for a while, then took out a small black ten naira polythene bag from his breast pocket and held it out to me after hesitating briefly.

"You want to use?" he asked.

The bag contained a salt like substance that sparkled in the moonlight.

"What's that?" I asked.

He looked away from me to the sky.

"A friend said it'll help us feel better," he replied.

"We are not feeling good?" I asked.

"Do you feel good?" he retorted.

Was that a trick question?

"Maybe. I don't know. We are supposed to," was my tentative reply.

"Do you want to use?" he asked again.

"Is it...is it like Cocaine?"

He shrugged.

"You don't have to use if you don't want to," he said quietly.

Silence ensued again and we continued gazing at the stars.

"I want to feel better," I said without looking at him.