All is vanity, as each day passes, I have more reasons to see humans as fragile things, weak things and helpless things more than the human imagination can even dare to imagine.

Complexity in this world often times stems from the things that can not the held but felt, think about love, about hate and most especially about death.

Death is really mysterious.

In African cosmology, the Yorubas from the western part of Nigeria have certain beliefs about death.

• Death is sometimes portrayed by them as a living being or as a visitor. So it's not unsual for them to use pronouns while referring to death.

• Death is referred to as the great beyound. Hence, the yorubas do not say, someone died. They say, he passed on. This is particularly significant of royal titles.

• Death is life itself. They believed in a continued existence after death.

"Do not eat earthworms, you should eat whatever they see there"

The line above is from a yoruba dirge where the dead person is urged not to eat earthworms but whatever is offered in the other world.

They believe in the existence of three worlds.

• The world of the unborn
• The world of the living
• The world of the dead.

There are alot that humans are yet to reveal about death, some they would find out through observation and the best way to find out is through experience but can a dead person come back to the world of the living to tell tales of their death?

Some questions plague my mind?

• What dwells in the thought of a dead person as he lives his last seconds?

• Is death painful to them? How can this pain be measured? Maybe dying is the most painful feeling humans will ever encounter in their life.

There are also alot of myths, believes about spirits.

The yorubas and other tribes in Nigeria believe that when a person dies prematurely, the spirit of the person still roams the surface of the earth.

Spirits are believed to have powers.

"Do not sleep, make sure you take revenge on all those who took your life"

That's a line from the yoruba dirge that also portrays the above statement that spirits have powers.

Often times, a lot of people share experience of seeing ghosts.

My aunt who visited about a month ago while discussing with my mum also shared her spirit experience.

She talked about the times, he appeared to her in her dreams, advising her. She talked about the time when she was attacked by negative spirits and her father came to her rescue in the dreams.

Alot of people do not believe in the existence of negative spirits, I for one never used to believe in the existence of witches, marine spirits and black magic.

Truely, these things exist!

Anyone may be wondering why such a post in the early hours of this morning, well, I lost someone.

A good friend, a very hardworking fellow. All he did was struggle and struggle in this loathsome world.

Some months ago, we were discussing and he talked about his intentions of studying hard, making money and getting married because according to him Time wasn't on his side anymore.

What a gentle soul he was!
What a caring soul he was!
His beautiful big eyeballs, his cackle, his masculine voice..... What a gentle human, easygoing, humble fellow, friends to young and old.

How could he go all of a sudden? To think that I shook his hand a day before he died, to think that I saw him a day before he died? To think that he told me that after all the stress from camp, I still look good? To think that he was at his workplace teaching his computer students?

How could death take him away? I never knew he was that weak. So when I saw him a day before he died, he was already living in his last moments. He was a walking dead, a ghost.

Did he fight death in his last moments? Who were those he thought about when he realized he was dying? Did I cross his mind? Ouch!

The fellow struggled hard but couldnt even eat the fruit of his labour.

Emmanuel Nkama Ifeanyi, you left us too soon, too soon, my friend.

We still had alot to talk about, alot of things to laugh about, a lot of ideas to share.

What now would happen to everything you lefy behind, my friend.

I won't see your round face, your eyeballs anymore. You still had lot to give to the world but I believe and know our creator loves you even more.

You left too soon, my friend! We didnt see this coming.

Rest well, my friend.

Till we meet again.... Nkama.

---

My Pen Bleeds!