I heard you’re returning to our world again. What do you want here exactly, Orhija? The Earth is dying slowly. It’s losing its sheen and glow. The blackness of the soil that you used to say was as beautiful as mine has changed since you left. It’s redder than black. The air is tense and heavy with smoke. I doubt you can survive it. I’m still receiving treatment for my tinnitus, which makes it hard to tell where the next explosion is coming from.

Have you woven your dadalocks the way you wanted or have you sheared everything off? Those short, thick green vines I would caress and lock around my fingers. Each time I marvelled at how it was possible to grow plants on the scalp. Humans can’t. Yet, I wished I could. How your pachydermic ochre skin matches your green dadalocks is still a wonder to me. Dammit, I still feel butterflies in my belly every time I think of you.

I wanted to be like you, to have juju at my fingertips—the magic that defied the laws of science and reasoning. But you said juju wasn’t everything, that juju can’t solve all my problems. I thought you said that because I once told you that money couldn’t buy everything. Then you weaved out of thin air a wad of one-thousand naira notes and placed them in my palms to go get us some chocolates at the store. You didn’t follow me. Spyrites were barred from entering human stores or any human gatherings, except when invited as at the time of the Káàbò—the Welcoming of the Spyrites. The sign was boldly pasted on the side of the entrance. They had a sign for all kinds of spyrites. There was one for the blemmyes, the acephalous spyrites who bore their faces on their bellies; the intulos, who looked like reptiles but walked just like us; and the dwarf-like tikoloshes, with their horns and spiny backs. They always got it wrong when it came to the ufitis. Instead of using a precise image for their apelike form, they’d rather use a chimp’s. You awwed at the one they made for your kind, the elokoes, because it made you all look cute. As time went by, none of these appeared on entrances anymore, although some walls still had it.

Your kind has a history even from the world where you come. Despite possessing the power to restore fertility to your world you all ignored it till it died. Why? I’d ask every time. But you never gave a reason. You simply said we were all flawed during the ìṣèdáyé and, as a result, there were some things we couldn’t change. Then you’d tell me the story of how humans came to be. You said a deity called Obatala climbed down a golden chain from the sky to the Earth, which was nothing but a body of water at the time, with a cock and pouch of sand in his hands. He poured the sand just as he was at close proximity to the waters, and let the cock fly down so it would disperse the sand with its feet and beak. This dispersion birthed the land and vegetation. Obatala landed on the newly formed earth and saw it was good. Then, from the earth, he moulded men and spyrites, and Olodumare, pleased by his creation, breathed life into them.

Even today, I still find the cosmogony ridiculous. Scientists say the distance between the earth and the sky is millions of miles away! But you said you had a pinch of the juju the gods possessed at the time, add with the fact that you weren’t from our world, so I should believe you. And I did, Orhija. Then we played a game as we lay under the umdlebe tree on the bare earth, gazing at the stars. We wished we could go back in time to that very moment and carry out the world’s biggest and craziest heist ever. We planned to ambush the god of creation, steal his golden chain, break it into tiny million pieces, melt them, and make them into jewellery for ourselves. Then we’d kill the cock, skin it and make its beautiful rainbow feathers into matching agbadas, roast its meat till it was as good as suya, and eat it to our satisfaction. You said you wanted its wings—perhaps it’d give you the ability to fly. I said I wanted the throat so I’d have a better singing voice. Then you said we would take the pouch of sand and pour it in space, in a galaxy far away from the reach of every living being, and make an island planet for just the two of us. That was the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me, Orhija, and, for a moment, I thought our plan was real. I couldn’t help but draw you close till we became one like the earth and trees. My skin, the colour of fertile soil, your skin, the colour of life. We never thought about the possibility of our nonexistence if we perpetuated the crime. But we revelled in our dreams.

Remember when I quoted Andrew Marvell to you, saying: “My vegetable love (for you) should grow, vaster than empires, and more slow,” and you said you loved Wole Soyinka more, and you wanted a love as complicated, yet lovely as his poetry; like the àbíkú in his poem—a child destined to die, bound to be born repeatedly. I told you that in my culture the child was a curse, a punishment to the household. But you said what was love if not the punishment of two souls. How could I have figured out what you meant?

Who would’ve thought what we did that night under the umdlebe tree at the park was wrong. I, a human boy, and you, an eloko girl. I still bear the shame of that night even till this moment. I should’ve suspected you. You were an open book to me, yet I couldn’t read you. All the simple lies you told, the secrets you held back, the questions you asked, the kisses that buried my suspicions . . . I was just another tool. Your mama caught us. She whipped you till your behind was sore and dragged me over to my father’s house. My father scolded me too. He never thought we’d be that close. All he wanted was to make all spyrites accepted and equal with humans. That was why he didn’t mind I was your friend. But he fought for you on the streets in many protests, even at the court. I fought for you, Orhija. But you betrayed us.

The night before you were taken away from me, you took me to our spot and told me the real creation story. There were seventeen deities sent by Olodumare, the principal god, to fill the watery Earth with creatures. You didn’t tell me their names, except the only female deity among them, Osun. After they had made the earth and trees, they made the elokoes, your kind, first, then the other races of spyrites. The sixteen deities weren’t pleased with what they had made and blamed Osun for this and sent her home. With her gone, they created humans in their own image and likeness. They lavished humanity with everything: beauty, wealth, health, wisdom—except rest, which resided in Osun’s bosoms.

In the rise of human civilisation, spyrites were forced to live in the densest of forests and hollowest of earths. With tears in her eyes, Osun pleaded with Olodumare for their sake. Olodumare answered and built a home for the spyrites where they could live safely. The lack of rest in the humans came with so much trouble even the gods couldn’t handle it. They begged Osun for mercy, but as recompense, she refused to help. You said that was why we were restless, never truly happy as humans, and the reason we were always wanting more.

You always blamed the gods for everything we did out of our own free will. Are you going to blame them now for the war your kind wages on mine out of an agelong resentment? Did you even blame them for the reason my kind are doing this to the Earth? On the television and radio, the spyrites say we’ve destroyed the earth, the water, and the sea; and you, “the original owners,” are here to save her from us before it is too late. That was why you came disguised as displaced persons, begging for a home after your world was broken. Orhija, you came to spy on us, to know our strengths and weaknesses. And you lied to me.

Now that you’re returning like an àbíkú to bring pain and disaster, Orhija, if we ever get to have a showdown of guns and juju, before then, let me caress and lock my fingers around your hair once again.