Guess whom he blamed when he was seized? His hands!

“My hands did it, I swear. My hands did it,” he pleaded. 

Now, a few weeks ago, Uncle Nnodi had been troublesome. 

Like at Brother Eno’s wedding, when he walked down the aisle to the dapper couple ahead, and what we thought would be a spraying of naira notes turned into a reverberating, hot slap on the bride‘s face.

The wedding turned chaotic as Brother Eno pounced on Uncle Nnodi and would have strangled him for ruining his wedding if not for the intercession of the people around.

After being pulled out of Brother Eno’s grip, Uncle Nnodi was scolded and then queried about the reason for his action.

“It was not my plan at all, my people,” he begged. “I merely went to spray cash on them when my hand suddenly flung forward and slapped her face. I don’t know what came over my hand. Forgive me.”

All the people around laughed at the stupid excuse he gave, and then sternly warned him to desist from drinking palm wine before attending a wedding.

Then the time he was caught dragging away a neighbour’s pregnant goat at the dead of the night. And guess whom he blamed? His hands. 

He argued that he only came out to pee when his hands forcefully reached for the rope the goat was fettered with. Nevertheless, he was fined heavily.

Like the time he pressed Mama Bomboy’s breaāst at the local market. The lactating mother cried that he fondled it so hard that milk trickled out. 

“Believe me, it’s not me. It’s my hands, something is wrong with them,” Uncle Nnodi claimed when he was summoned to defend his amorous action. 

People said he was going crazy. Others said it was the palm wine, a few others claimed it was intentional.

Well, the height of it came when he doused his daughter with sizzling water.

We were all in the backyard discussing, when Uncle Nnodi walked past, to take down the water that was kept boiling for our slaughtēred chicken.He brought it down from the stove, and without wasting a second, drenched his daughter with it.

The rest of us were lucky to jump away in time from the resulting splashes. 

Guess whom Uncle Nnodi accused when he was collared? His hands!

No one was ready to listen to his fairy-tale and neither were the policemen that came to pick him from our house. 

“Please, it’s my hands. It’s my hands’ fault,” Uncle Nnodi kept screaming as the police van pulled away from our house.

That evening was quiet and the only sound that could be heard from our compound was the groans of his daughter whose body the local nurse was applying some ointments on.

The next morning, my mother gave me food to take to Uncle Nnodi at the police station; he’s family, after all.

When I reached the station, tasted the food as required, the tall officer jangled this keys as he marched toward the dark corridor, to unlock the cell holding Uncle Nnodi so he’d come and take the food, but the jarring scream that erupted from his lips had me and the other policemen dashing forward in concern.

There, in the middle of the dim cell, was Uncle Nnodi’s body, dangling loosely from his shirt secured to the bar of an upper window.

What’s more? His two hands were missing! Totally gone. They had been broken off from the wrists, leaving nothing but battered, bloōdy flesh. 

The strangest thing about the hands' disappearance was the cell's door. It was locked and had been locked since the previous day.

© Desmond Ben