By Hassan Arouni
I was looking for some earthenware pots. The kind made by hand, heavy at the base, breathing clay. Something to hold plants the way the earth holds dreams.
So I asked Bashiru—farmer, fixer, storyteller—if pots were still made in Mano, the bustling heart of Dasse Chiefdom.
“Hmm,” he said, brushing dust from his palms. “Long time now, no one makes dem ting. But there was a man…”
His voice dropped slightly, as though words might awaken something sleeping.
“There was one man who used to make pots, yes. But he was not… from here. I mean—he was from somewhere else. Died there. Then came here.”
I frowned. “Died there? What do you mean?”
“He was a die man,” Bashiru said flatly. “A dead man. Come back to life. Lived among us like nothing happened.”
I blinked. “Bash… how can that be?”
“E dae be ya,” he said, nodding. “Mesef been sabi wan. I knew one.”
I waited. The afternoon air was thick, still.
“His name was Orjagu,” Bashiru continued, voice hushed. “Not his real name. That was the name he gave himself. He came quiet-quiet, started living here in Mano. He didn’t make pots—he fixed electronics. Radios mostly. Even my own radio, he fix am good.”
“So he was your friend?”
“Yeh, we bin dey jam,” Bashiru said softly. “He was cool. We used to sit, drink tea by his workbench, argue about football. But he never talked much about before.”
One day, Bashiru told me, a stranger passed through Mano. Someone from a far-off village. He came into Orjagu’s small workshop, saw him bending over a cracked radio.
He stood there quiet for a while, then said: “Orjagu? Is that you?”
Bashiru said Orjagu looked up, froze. Didn’t say a word. Just packed nothing and left everything behind. His tools, his teacup, his half-fixed radio.
“Just like that?” I asked.
“Just so,” Bashiru said. “We never see am again. Gone.”
The shed still stands, rust biting its roof. The radio lies silent, innards exposed. Some say Orjagu was a restless spirit, granted a second chance. Others say he broke the rules: a die man must never be recognised.
Bashiru says nothing more. Only stares at the floor when I mention Orjagu’s name.
But I wonder: when we fix broken things, are we also trying to fix ourselves? And when the past catches up, where do we go?
Sometimes, the radio crackles late at night in Mano. No station. Just whispers.
And if you ask Bashiru, he’ll only say: E dae be ya.
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Copyright © Hassan Arouni 2025🇸🇱
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