Mẹ́jì Mẹ́jì
An African Traditional Story
Mẹ́jì Mẹ́jì embodies the duality of existence; life and death, love and loss, creation and destruction.
It speaks to the ọkàn-ọkàn (soulmate) bond, where two hearts are so entwined that the loss of one leaves the other incomplete, yearning for reunion at any cost.
The villagers whispered her name with a fear that left hearts uneasy.
They didn't speak about her often, but when they did, it was with hushed tones and in small groups.
Abeni.
"Abeni, the cursed one."
The one who lost it all.
Once upon a time, she was the woman other women envied, her face bright as the first rays of the sun in the morning, her voice refreshing like cool water in the heat of midday, her presence as calm as the evening breeze.
But what is beauty in the face of grief?
That was the saying repeated by some elders as they watched her pass, her frame shrunken, her gaze downcast, and her once robust cheeks hollowed by sorrow.
She had been Adísà’s wife. And that meant something.
A man like Adísà did not belong to one woman alone.
At least, according to the riverside gossip peddled by the jealous maidens and the dissatisfied housewives of the village.
No, he belonged to the world.
His laughter was a thing that men leaned into and his company was light, the kind that softened even the harshest spirits.
Many said he was like the kolanut, strong and bitter at first, but with time, his sweetness would eventually coat your tongue.
A man of depth and wisdom.
And he had been hers. Hers and hers alone.
But when death took him, it did not do so kindly.
He fell the way the ancient iroko tree fell— without warning, without permission, and with a force that left absolute silence in its wake.
One moment, he was standing, head thrown back in jest as he chewed bitter leaf in his compound with his friends.
The next, he was crumpled on the earth, eyes open, mouth slightly parted as if he had one final message that he left unspoken.
There was no sickness, no sign, no warning.
He had risen that morning with the sun, and had departed with the moon as she took her place in the night sky.
Abeni had been preparing dinner when it happened.
The sky was pitch black, but the night was alive with the soft croak of frogs, the hoot of the owls, and the thick with the scent of wet earth.
She was removing the insides of the fish she had bought that morning, silently cursing the fisherman for given her "three at the price of four", when a loud shout had torn through the quiet.
A wail. A shattering lament.
A cry from the oldest of her sons.
"Baba mi!"
She had run but by the time she reached him, he was already cold.
The elders came. The medicine men came. Three respected chiefs came.
Each of them pressing their wrinkled hands to his skin and whispering prayers under their breath.
They searched for signs, any signs, of what might have stolen such a strong man away.
A mark, a swelling, or a disclouration of his tongue.
"Maybe the gods left a clue."
But there was nothing.
No sickness. No wound. No reason.
Only stillness. Only silence. Only death.
They buried him at the edge of the village, as was the way for those who died without reason.
It was an undeserved burial.
A terrible resting place for a man who had lived a righteous and fulfilling life.
But such was their custom, and as much as they wanted to, the way of the elders could not be changed.
The villagers grieved Adísà for a few days.
Some were still left in disbelief at the loss of a titan, some pondered the cruel nature of the gods to remove a man in their likeness from the face of the Earth.
Many say that for the first three nights after his death, the great forest was silent. Even Àyẹ̀kádà, the evil owl that terrorised the night, did not let out a single hoot from the forest.
Then the whispers began.
Low at first, muttered beneath hushed breaths. Then louder, curling through the air like smoke.
"The gods punished her pride. Remember how she walked, like she was the goddess Osun herself?"
"She is an àjẹ́. She feasted on him at night in his dreams and now it's manifested in reality."
"I will love to make her my third wife. Such full breasts can't be left to grieve forever."
Abeni did not argue.
She did not scream or curse the ones who let their tongues run wild.
She did not fight off the men, old and young, who accosted her in corners and crooked pathways.
She let them speak. She let them make their advances. She let them fill the air with their foolishness.
What did it matter?
Adísà was gone.
Her anchor in the turbulent waves of life was gone.
Her strong root in the dangerous jungle of the living was gone.
Her sweet salt in all the bitter and tasteless moments that she had ever lived was gone.
He had simply stopped existing, and the weight of his absence was a wound that refused to heal.
How could she worry about ignorant words and selfish proposals?
She didn't feel any anger or resentment toward them.
All Abeni was… was empty.
At night, she lay in their bed, staring at the ceiling with her heart heavy and eye ducts dry.
In some unconscious moments, her hand would stretch across to the left, reaching for a warmth that was no longer there.
A solace that could no longer be provided.
Then the crushing realisation that he was indeed gone would weigh down on her again and she would turn her face to the wall so no one, especially her sons sleeping on the mat beneath her, would hear her weep.
But the walls have ears, and their mouths hold no secrets, so the villagers heard anyway.
They had gone through all the stages of grief and had stopped at anger.
Anger at Abeni for robbing them of their heart and soul.
They would offer her dirty looks as she passed and tell their children to "have nothing to do with that witch", loud enough for her to hear.
Some of them stopped at resigned acceptance. They didn’t blame her for the death, but they did not absolve her of blame either.
Abeni's biggest fear, that Adísà's death would leave her alone in the world, had well and truly come to pass.
Nobody comforted her.
Nobody brought her fresh goods on market days or sat by her side, as they did for the other widows.
They only watched.
Watched as she moved through the village like a ghost, cumbered by the entire load of the world.
Watched as she stopped going to the market and stopped teaching the young girls the art of basket weaving.
Watched as she stopped joining the women beneath the southern palm trees to tell stories and trade gossip.
Worst of all, they abandoned her sons too.
They just watched as her three boys, old enough to feel it but still too young to understand the cruelty of the world, held her hands and looked up at her with their earnest eyes.
Searching for the mother they once knew.
They understood that Baba had gone to be with his ancestors.
But Mama was still here, so why did she stay silent all mornings and sob tearfully all night?
Abeni was now merely shadow of the woman that had showered them with love and affection and the juiciest part of the goatmeat flesh on special dinner evenings.
She did not speak to them the way she used to.
She did not hold them or kiss their bald heads every morning.
She could barely even look at them.
She tried. Oh, how she tried.
But every time she looked at their faces, she saw him.
She saw Adísà.
And the wound in her soul would bleed anew.
The night the river called her name, Abeni followed.
She walked through the village with slow, careful steps, past the sleeping huts, past the baobab tree the children loved to climb, past the market square where she had once laughed with Adísà as he struggled to drag a stubborn goat that refused to be sold.
The air smelled of rain and damp earth.
The night sky carried an omen of what was to come.
She stopped at the edge of the water and stared at it, her reflection broken and wavering in the moonlight.
For the first time that night, she hesitated.
Her conscience grieved her.
She considered returning home and begging the gods to forgive her for harbouring such a thought almost to the point of execution.
But when she remembered the empty bed, and her nights of endless tears, and his scent that still lingered in all her wrappers, the thought of going back home was too much for her to bear.
So she knelt by the river, her heart heavy with dread and despair, then she silently whispered the words.
"Iya Oṣà."
The river priestess did not belong to the village.
She was neither born nor wedded into it.
She had simply been there, longer than anybody could remember.
They said she was always watching.
Some said she was older than the trees. Other said she was older than the gods themselves.
Nobody agreed on the root of her origins, but everyone, far and near, knew what she could do.
Her little hut was nestled where the land sloped into the river, and when she slowly stepped out of the shadows into the moonlight, Abeni did not startle.
"My child, you are seeking what should not be sought," the priestess murmured, her voice heavy with the weight of knowing.
Abeni bowed her head lower, tears falling down from her eyes on to the muddy ground. "I just want him back, Wise One. Please."
Silence.
The old woman sighed.
It was a request she was too familiar with.
One she had heard many times before.
A request that was proof of the effrontery of man to mess with matters far beyond his understanding.
Once upon a time, the priestess would try to dissuade those who wanted to make any form of contact with the dead.
She would warn them of the far reaching consequences and sometimes plead with them to bear their loss and return home.
"The river that washes your dirty hands can also drown your living baby," she would say.
But they never listened.
Man in his arrogant pride and foolish wisdom always thought he knew best.
As she stared at Abeni that night, she saw that same pride and foolishness, amplified by the weight of her grief.
There's no changing the mind of this one, she thought as she shook her head.
"You know the cost."
Abeni’s breath caught in her throat, her heart racing and fear seeping into her bones.
"I do."
The priestess went silent again, as if giving Abeni a final chance to ponder her decision and the complete gravity of it.
She waited for the widow to come to her senses and run back into the village.
She didn't.
"The river will take your firstborn son."
Abeni squeezed her eyes shut and held back the tears as her stomach twisted into knots.
Not Ọlákúnlé.
Not her first boy that laughed like his father and ran with arms spread wide as though he could command the wind itself.
Not him.
But she had known.
Of course, she had.
She had known even before she stepped into the night.
She had known as she walked through the bushes and toward the river.
And yet she had come.
Iya Oṣà tilted her head, reading the spaces between Abeni’s silence.
"Go home, my child. It is not too late."
"I will do it," Abeni whispered, her lips trembling as tears flowed down both sides of her cheek.
The ritual took place in the dead of night.
She knelt on the riverbank, her knees pressed into the damp, muddy earth, as she held the small wooden statue given to her by the priestess.
The old woman danced around her, singing chants and murmuring strange words.
Abeni's hands trembled as the air thickened around her.
"When you're ready, throw the statue into the river," Iya Oṣà said, her voice still as the river. "You will have your wish, and the river will take what its asked for."
The widow remained motionless for what seemed like an eternity, then she did exactly as she had been commanded.
Nothing happened at first, then suddenly the river seemed to swell, its surface pulsing as if alive, as if breathing.
An outline slowly emerged from the river, head first, then shoulders, then arms, then-
"Abeni."
Her breath hitched.
He was standing right before her.
Adísà.
His form flickered between shadow and moonlight, but his face was just as she always knew it to be— sharp, striking, and full of quiet confidence.
She choked back a sob. "Adísà…"
He took a step forward, frowning. "Why have you done this?"
Tears burned her throat. "I- I had no choice. I could not live. I cannot breathe without you, Adísà. Why did you leave me like this?"
"Abeni, what you have done is dangerous."
"I don't care!" She screamed into the night. "Adísà, I don't care! Do you see what I've gone through these past few weeks? Do you understand? Of course, you don't! You're in heaven, laughing and drinking wine with your forefathers."
The tears continued to flow down her face.
A silence fell between them, thick and suffocating.
Finally, he asked, his voice low, "What did you give?"
"It doesn't matter," she whispered, burying the image of her son's face from rising up in her head. "It doesn't matter now."
Adísà's gaze darkened for a moment, and then he sat beside her at the riverbank.
That night, all he did was listen.
For hours, she talked and cried and she held him, watching his face remain passive the entire time.
She told him everything.
The mockery. The jeers. The pity.
She told him about her new suitors, and the lies they fed to her every day.
Her heart was full as she laughed and they went over old memories, each one different from the last.
She was happy again, the grief and pain of the previous days wiped completely from her mind.
Oh, she wanted it to last. She desperately wished it would last.
But alas, the cock crowed once, then twice, signaling the arrival of dawn.
"Adísà, please don't go!" she cried, the teeming life of the new day slamming her back into reality.
She held him tightly, wishing and pleading for him to stay, or for her to go with him.
Adísà didn't respond.
He just reached for her skin, his fingers brushing the warm slightly, as his touch faded from heavy to light.
And as the first rays of the sun crept over the horizon, he was pulled back into the abyss.
Abeni screamed his name, over and over again, her body shaking with gut-wrenching tears, but nothing happened.
The wind only carried her pleas away.
Adísà was gone and she was alone again.
Ọlákúnlé was already dead when Abeni returned home that morning.
They said he had choked to death as he drank water from his father's old calabash.
This time there would be no screaming, no wailing, no tearing of hair.
Abeni only sat beside his small, still body, with her hands folded in her lap, and her face blank.
Her neighbors stood in the doorway, whispering behind their palms, waiting for her to break.
But she did not break.
She was already broken.
The villagers came and went, offering condolences. Offering food. Offering company.
To lose a husband, fingers could be pointed, they thought. But to lose a son, no mother deserves that pain.
Abeni just sat.
She had known.
Before she stepped into the river that night, before she had spoken his name, before she had begged for him— she had known.
The river does not give without taking.
And when it takes, it's gift becomes insignificant.
Was it worth it? She asked herself. The life of her son just to see and touch Adísà again for a few hours?
Ọlákúnlé had been her firstborn, her light, the one who had made her a mother.
He was a soul. With his own destiny and his own dreams and his own life to live.
His arms had been the first to wrap around her waist after Adísà left, his small voice promising, "I will take care of you, Ìyá."
And now, he was gone.
She had killed him.
Not with her hands.
But with her selfishness.
Her body swayed.
The walls of the hut seemed to press in. The air was thick and threatened to suffocate her.
Abeni swallowed hard.
Slowly, she reached for him.
His skin was already cooling.
His spirit long departed from the land of the living.
Then suddenly a sound escaped her lips.
A low, shrill sound. A sound no human throat should ever make.
Then again.
And again.
Until the sound became a wail, until the wail became a storm, until the storm rattled the walls of her house and the consolers outside shuddered in sorrow and muttered prayers to the gods.
Abeni rocked her son’s body back and forth, back and forth, whispering his name like a prayer.
Ọlákúnlé. Ọlákúnlé. Ọlákúnlé.
But the gods had never listened to her prayers before.
And they did not listen now.
When the river called her again, she answered.
She did not hesitate. She did not waver.
She walked barefoot through the village again that night, her wrapper clinging to her damp skin, the weight of her grief pressing her shoulders down like an unseen hand.
Iya Oṣà was surprised to see her again, so soon, but she did not let it show.
She only shook her head vehemently for Abeni to see, and prepared the ritual for her to perform.
Crying again at the riverbank, the air thick with the scent of wet earth, Abeni knelt.
"Adísà."
Her voice was barely a whisper, but the river heard.
And he came.
This time, he did not arrive in silence.
"Abeni," he growled, his form crackling with fury and with sorrow.
The winds picked up. The trees shook. The river churned.
Abeni flinched. "Adísà—"
"Abeni, this is madness!" His voice lashed through the night like a whip, sharper than a blade.
Tears blurred her vision.
"I cannot do it, Adísà! I cannot live. I refuse to continue on my own. I don't want to be here anymore!"
He turned from her, hands clenched into fists. "Abeni, the living has nothing to do with the dead."
She didn't respond.
She only looked down in shame.
"I know this must be hard for you. But what of our sons? Do you not love them?"
Her breath hitched.
The question struck her like a blow.
She crumpled to the ground, the soil damp beneath her knees, the weight of her guilt crushing her ribs, pressing into her lungs, making it impossible to breathe.
"I love them," she gasped. "I do—I do, but—"
"But what?"
His voice cracked, and for the first time, he did not sound like a ghost that was void of emotion.
He sounded like a man. A husband. A father.
She could not answer.
Because what words would explain the ache? This void where her heart used to be?
The feeling of loss tore her soul, first by the death of her husband, and then her son.
Yes, she was a mother.
But she had been a wife first. And she had loved him first. She had sworn her life to him first.
Adísà looked at her then, really looked at her, and something in his gaze softened.
"I am gone, Abeni," he whispered. "I am gone, and you must live."
"I do not know how to," she replied, her lips trembling. "What good is a body without its head?"
"Abeni-"
"Just stay tonight," she interrupted. "Just for tonight."
Adísà stared at his widow, and although he felt no emotion toward her, he still remembered what they had shared.
So he sat down beside her at the riverbank.
The wind calmed. The trees stilled. The river sighed.
That night wasn't like the first.
There was no laughter or reminiscing or warm embrace.
Just silence.
Two souls separated by a rift too great to put into words.
They sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity.
Eventually, dawn crept forward again, and the morning star began to make its presence felt.
"You must learn to live without me, Abeni," Adísà said. "Goodbye."
And with that, his presence faded.
Abeni sat there in the mud long after he was gone, rocking back and forth, whispering his name, over and over, like a woman trying to summon a dream.
Three days later, her second son drowned in the river.
Olúmidé died in the afternoon.
The sun was high, and the village pulsed with life as always, filled with the pounding of pestles, the boastful banter of men, the endless noise of animals.
Till that moment, it was just an ordinary day.
But then, the children came running.
Barefoot. Breathless. Bewildered.
Their words tumbled out in panicked bursts.
"Olúmidé—"
"He went too far—"
"The river took him—"
Abeni had been sitting on a stool in her compound, sifting rice from chaff, her hands moving with an absentminded rhythm as her mind was a distant world away.
She did not stand. She did not speak. She hesitated.
For a long moment, she only stared at them, their wide, terrified eyes, their bodies slick with river water, their small hands trembling.
The river never gives without taking.
When she finally moved, she rose slowly, her feet unsteady beneath her.
She walked past the children, past the murmuring villagers who had begun to gather.
She walked to the river.
The gods must have a cruel sense of humour, because as she approached the riverbank, his small body floated toward her, dead and lifeless.
Abeni staggered forward, her hands reaching, grasping, pulling him into her arms.
His skin was cold.
His lips tinged blue.
His eyes were open, staring up at her with something she could not name.
As if he had not wanted to go.
The weight of him, heavy in her arms, knocked the breath from her chest.
She had lost another son.
A sound tore from her throat, raw and broken.
She rocked him.
Shook him.
Begged him to wake.
"My son, my son, my son."
But there was no answer.
The villagers did not touch her.
They did not try to pull her away.
They only watched.
Because this was no longer misfortune.
This was an act of the gods.
A vengeance for something they did not know.
And when Abeni finally rose, her son in her arms, her body swaying like a woman drunk, they did not whisper.
They only made way.
She walked back through the village, past the familiar faces and laid her son beside his brother.
That night, she sat by their graves, silent.
She did not eat.
She did not sleep.
She did not pray.
There was nothing left to ask for.
The days after Olúmidé’s death passed in silence.
Abeni no longer cried. Neither did she speak.
She only moved, mechanical and hollow, as she drifted through the motions of a life that she was no longer bothered to live.
She swept the floor of her hut, though there was no one left to scatter the dust.
She cooked, though her hands no longer remembered how to measure or how to season or how to care.
The food burned. She did not eat.
Every day, she sat by the graves of her two sons, her hands tracing the earth, pressing down as if to confirm they were actually there, as if to convince herself this was all real.
Inevitably, the village whispers that quietened after the death of her firsts son, started up again.
"She does not cry. A grieving mother who does not cry, what kind of woman is that?"
"She is an àjẹ́—a witch who is feeding on the lives of her family members."
"The gods forbid I marry her, with her ugly face and her fallen breasts."
She heard them speak.
But there was nothing she could say in return.
Would she say that she had made a mistake? Or that she had not known what the river would take in return? Would she say that some part of her, deep down, had no regrets?
She did not sleep.
When she closed her eyes, she saw them.
Ọlákúnlé, eyes filled with light, laughing.
Olúmidé, his small hands tugging at the hem of her wrapper, calling with that sweet, soft voice of his.
Now, they were silent.
She desperately wanted to feel something.
She wanted to the sorrow to split her open, and the earth to swallow her whole.
Days passed. Then weeks. Then months.
Oh, the river called unto her.
Every moment of every day.
But she did not return. Not yet.
Not until the weight of the loss and the silence and the knowing, became too much to bear.
Not until she realised that the whispers would never stop, that the villagers would always look at her with their eyes filled with something between fear and hatred and pity.
Not until she accepted that grief was now her middle name, and she would never escape it.
Not until she understood, finally, that she had nothing left to lose.
Then, and only then—
Did Abeni return to the river.
This time, Iya Oṣà could not bear to come out to meet her.
Once was an abomination, one people never recovered from.
Twice was an impossibility, nobody ever came back the second time.
But thrice? Thrice was unheard of.
Especially at the cost that this woman was paying.
The old priestess herself cursed death, and cursed grief for driving Abeni mad.
As the widow reached the river, the wind howled violently through the trees, as if trying to push her back.
The river churned, restless, uneasy.
The spirits knew and even they did not agree.
But Abeni did not hesitate.
Her lips parted, she raised the statue, and a whisper carried his name into the night.
"Adísà."
The air cracked.
The ground beneath her trembled.
And when he appeared, the sky wept.
This time, he did not come as mist or shadow, nor as the flickering, uncertain shape she had summoned before.
This time, he burned.
The air around him shimmered with fury and his presence was thick as a storm cloud.
The river swelled, waves lashing against the banks as though mirroring his rage.
His face—oh, his face.
Once, she had only known it with love.
Once, she could not look at him without reaching for him, without feeling the pull of him in her very bones.
Now his face carved from sorrow and wrath.
"Abeni!" His voice thundered.
She lifted her eyes, but she could not behold him.
"Not again! You made me a promise," he growled, each word sharp as a blade. "Abeni, why do you disturb my rest?"
Her breath hitched, her body wracked with sobs. "There is something I must tell you, Adísà."
His jaw clenched, his fists trembling at his sides.
He turned from her, as though the sight of her burned him.
"I don't want to hear it! Why do you do this to yourself? Why do you do this to me? You have a life to live! Our children have lives to live!"
She flinched.
How was he capable of being angry, yet he could feel no love? What cruel design did the gods appoint to the spirits?
"Don’t you think you should at least try? At least, for their sakes?"
Her face crumpled, her body folding into itself. "I do… Adísà… I…"
"What do you have to say for yourself, Abeni!? What!?"
The rage in his voice made her tremble, and she fell down to the ground, with tears in her eyes.
She could not answer.
The silence stretched between them, thick and suffocating.
The wind was still rushing through the trees, and the river roared even louder, the earth itself seemed to ache with the weight of what was unspoken between them.
That was when something shifted in the air between them.
Adísà turned back to her, his anger shifting into something colder, something darker.
His eyes bore into hers, staring into the depths of her soul, unbarring the essence of her existence.
"Abeni…" he said, voice low. "Tell me… How are my sons?"
The world stilled.
The wind quieted.
The river calmed into stillness, as if also waiting for her response.
She did not speak.
She did not need to.
His breath hitched.
The fury drained from him.
The weight of realisation settled over him.
His lips parted, but no words came. His eyes only looked ahead.
Still and broken.
The dead man felt no emotion.
But he understood.
She had given up a son to see him again.
Three summons.
Three answers.
Three sons.
The truth was sharp and cruel.
"Spirits don’t cry," the old often ones say. "The dead have no more tears to shed."
But that night, Adísà did.
A single tear slipped down his cheek, vanishing before it could fall.
And then, without another word and with a look of brokenness in his eyes that Abeni will never forget, he was gone.
The last fragment of his connection to the human world severed forever.
The boy’s name was Kọ́láde.
He was her youngest, and every time she looked at him, she saw Adísà.
Kọ́láde had always been the quiet one, the watcher, the one who listened before he spoke.
Even as a child, he had an old soul. His eyes always seemed to say something unspoken.
The village women did not let Abeni see him. Or touch him. They just carried him away.
The widow did not resist.
She just bared herself naked as she rolled on the ground, invoking the gods to kill her too.
The villagers turned away.
It was too much, too terrible to witness.
They thought she was grieving. A woman maltreated badly by forces beyond the world.
But she only cried because she understood.
She had called for Adísà.
And the river had answered.
This was the price.
And she had paid it in full.
That final night did not stir.
No wind. No rustling leaves. No sounds from the night animals.
The world itself held its breath, as if waiting. Waiting to see.
Abeni walked past the fields where her sons had played and the huts where her husband had drunk himself to a stupor with the other village men.
She walked past the trees where Adísà had once stolen kisses, where he had pressed his forehead against hers and whispered secrets only the night could keep.
She walked past the graves of her children, mounds of earth that held destinies that would never come to fruition.
Abeni did not stop to weep. There were no more tears left to give.
She walked, because there was nowhere else to go.
The river was waiting.
It stretched before her, endless and dark, the moon casting silver ripples across its surface.
She unwrapped her cloth and let the night air kiss her bare skin.
The water lapped at her feet, cool and knowing.
Abeni stepped forward.
One foot.
Then another.
The river pulled her in, gentle at first, like a lover’s embrace.
It curled around her legs, wrapped itself around her waist, pressed against her ribs.
She let it take her.
No one saw her go.
No one called out her name.
No one knows where she went.
But the village remembered.
In years to come, they would tell her story in hushed tones, around flickering fires and beneath the glow of the moon.
They would whisper of Abeni, the cursed one.
The woman who had lost beyond measure.
The woman whom the gods had dealt with so cruelly.
The woman who suffered for no apparent reason.
Some say that on still nights, when the river is quiet and the wind refuses to blow, you can hear her name carried in the silence—
Abeni.
A cry. A warning. A plea.
This story was inspired by this beautiful song.
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I don't know whether to feel sad for Abeni of hate her for her selfishness.
May we not know grief like this 😞
Guyyyyyy what?? I have never read a sadder story in my life and this was so freaking well written, omg.......you're so talented, this story was sooo touching, painfulll 😭😢😢😥