THE EVIL FOREST OF THE MIND

He hurriedly shoved Aladelola into the queue that was waiting somewhere behind his plantation after waking him up from his bamboo bed. Aladelola was still half asleep, half awake when his father jerked and hushed him so that he won't wake his mother and younger siblings. He would not have imagined what was to be his fate because if he had known, he would have screamed and made a scene such that the Baale and the whole community will jump out of their skin.

"Baami, ni bo lan lo?", he asked after walking for about 50 meters in innocence and with half his head still dazed from the malaria dream he kept having this past week. The silence should have spoken louder than words but he kept faith; after all this is his father, why should he be afraid? The queue of boys that he joined was longer than the length of 10 plots of land and he had walked hundred meters before he realised his father was nowhere to be found.

It felt like a dream! Aladelola paused briefly and looked back but the line was moving swiftly. Baamiiiii, he called out with a loud voice and the reply was the agonising slash of whip on his back. He went straight to the floor, the next boy behind him also on the floor with him, blood all over his teeru, the fabric he sleeps with so as to be prepared for the early morning chores.

The whip apparently have taken flight after it landed on Aladelola's back and took with it the boys' eye, the one directly behind him, leaving blood in its wake. The boy screamed with the pain of a woman in labour; he should be about 14 years of age, just like Aladelola. The boys are pushed up, forced into the line and made to march 1.5 kilometers to shore, walked through the shallow stream that linked ilu Oluyon and ilu Shayeoluyi. The next route they took through the evil forest, a forbidden place for citizens, he was certain that he was going to die.

He looked at the black huge guys that led them from his father's backyard over 2 kilometers and as they hesitated to go into the evil forest stopping at the edge; Aladelola knew he was in for the worse as they handed them over to the white men. If the hefty guards that commanded and terrorised them will not dear to enter the forest, himself and these little boys are definitely ordinary meat for the gods to devour if what his father always told him about the evil forest is to go by.

His father's picture quickly flashed through his mind as he thought of his admonition on the evil forest gist. Why did he send him on this dangerous errand? Why didn’t he tell him a night before about this trip? Why did he not allow him to say goodbye to his mother and two younger ones? Why did he not even hug him after he joined the long queue of boys from the village? So many questions no answers. Wait a minute, these boys are not from his village, are they? Aladelola looked back and stared into the face of the boy behind him, he could still see blood dripping from the empty socket, the boy too shocked to even make a sound.

Why are they subjecting us little boys from several villages to these ridiculous pain and unnecessary torture? Oh, it's not unnecessary torture, it must be the rite of passage that his father always told him, the passage from a child to a man, Aladelola reasoned. The white guys shouted in a language he have never heard before. He has seen them with the King once when he went to deliver a message to the court and was awed by their skin, he never knew there were there to commission the rite of passage for the boys + they are very mean today.

Aladelola realised that they had walked about 300 meters into the forest and there's nothing evil about it. He saw the tall trees and very beautiful flowers. Birds sang in the best of tunes and nature was at peace. The monkeys that moved in the trees and the owls that watched seemed used to this type of exodus and he was shocked to know that nature seemed to have accepted this cruel treatment from man to man, or let me say men to boys in the name of rite of passage.

The first light broke and he realised how tired he was when finally he saw some kind of contraption bigger than the King's palace on the waters far into the horizons. "Ki lo to bi toyi?", he didn’t know when he asked the boy in front of him. "Mi o mo", "I don’t know" replied the boy. And suddenly he was excited about the experience. Was he going to enter that large boat? Was he going to be on an expedition to the high seas? The dream, oh the dream he always had; of his sullen flight to the hidden white plains. Was this dream coming true? Or was he still dreaming.

The white men screamed again and a large stairs came down from the large boat. The boys are  moody, I wonder why the boys are moody. This is an experience of a lifetime. We will be on the big contraption to the horizon of the white plains, just like in my dream thought Aladelola. All the pain from the walk was not compared to the joy of what he is going to experience in this big contraption and in the companion of these rudely tasking white masters.

As Aladelola was about to put his first foot on the stairs, he heard a loud scream and even before he could turn back, he knew that was his father's voice. "E ba mi mu omo mi, mi o ta a mo", Aladelola was confused and bewildered. What is his father saying? Why did his father say he wasn’t going to sell him again? Did he sell him before? Why would he even sell him? Before Aladelola could run to his father amidst the pandemonium, he heard the sound of gunshots in the silent morning and the whole place in chaos. The white guys were just about 5 and the black boys are about 500. Everyone running helter skelter and his father wreathing in pain, a mirror in his hand.

Aladelola lifted his father's head on his thighs and with his last breathe he spoke with regrets. "Omo mi Aladelola, ma se binu si mi" and he gave up the ghost. The gunshots are still raging in the silence and boys were going down at the end of the blazing barrel. He laid there as dead, tired from the trip and exhausted from the dream evaporated. His father's and the one eyed boys' blood on his hand and his teeru clothings. As he laid there beside his father's lifeless body he remembered his mother and the shame she will encounter if the villagers found out that his father tried to sell him. I will make sure that no one ever hear of this, NO ONE! He closed his eyes and before he opened it, the sun was blatantly in the far sky, gradually elevating from the pocket of the sea. The boys, a lot lying dead from the scampering and scurrying from the slave masters, vultures already hovering.

The big contraption have disappeared and if not for the blood on his teeru, he would have almost swore it was all a dream. He forgave his father as he watched him lie lifeless in the evil forest. Aladelola took his mirror and started the journey back to his world.

STOP MODERN SLAVERY!!! WE SUFFERED ENOUGH AS A BLACK RACE, OUR CHILDREN DON’T HAVE TO EXPERIENCE IT NO LONGER.  STOP CHILD LABOUR, HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND ANIMAL POUCHING.