She called my name “Femi,” and I answered “ma.”

“I want to tell you something you don’t know,” and I sat down on the floor, my legs interlocked like a Fulani man on his prayer mat; like a village boy who was about listening to one of those moonlight tales.

I tried to see may be I could see her face for descriptive purposes but she looked faded, very faded like atmosphere, I couldn’t see her face.

I felt a sharp pain in my heart but it didn’t prod me to move since I was with my grandma, I was safe. Although she didn’t clasp me in her hand, held me tight to her fallen breast; very fallen like those Igbo head warmers-but I knew I was under a protection.

“I want to tell you about your father,” she said.

[]A very black man that made people nicknamed him ‘black mamba’ when he was young-with an oval bald head.

“You see my son! When your father was young, he went through this world. He suffered a lot and was tortured by terrestrial powers.

It all started one day, when I got a message from his headmaster at St. Matthias boys’ that your father was always leaving class when lectures were on. He would just leave, even when a teacher was in the class and walk all the way from Lagos Island to the Bar Beach situated at the Victoria Island. He would be seen sitting at the bank of the beach, talking in derision as though he were discoursing {discussing} with a terrestrial being in the water. Though it was reported to me but I dismissed it as if it were a usual thing to see a child doing, when he doesn’t want to be in school.

Afterwards, he was admitted at the Osogbo Grammar School, Osun State. The principal of the school being a typical Yoruba man who was inclined spiritually-called my attention to it again; that your father always left class whenever lectures were on. A week or more, he wouldn’t be seen. It was then he told me I needed to look for a solution to his problems as it was more than the eyes could tell.

He was sometimes found very far from Osun; sometimes he could be found in Oyo State; sometimes in Ilorin. He would beg alms and ask people to assist him as he couldn’t figure out where he was. I became fed up until he was able to open up, a hand was always calling him out of the class and he would follow the hand to whatever location it so pleases it. He was the only who saw the hand, no one else did.

Being someone who was born into a traditionalist family, I had to run to my fathers’ people at our family house for help but all effort from them were in vain, as they couldn’t help me. I felt may be their powers all became impotent when it got to the time I needed it but other people were testifying finding solutions to their problems whenever they got to our house.

No, it's not the fear of Cher, as the name might lead you to believe. It comes from the Greek word "chero," which means "to rejoice." People who suffer from cherophobia are often afraid, cripplingly so, of doing anything that might lead to happiness. This includes participating in fun activities and rejecting opportunities that may lead to positive outcomes. This form of anxiety disorder should be treated with medicine much stronger than laughter: love (and therapy).