They built a shrine anyway. The blind still visit. Some of them see. End of draft.
A job description. Paul Nwokocha knelt beside Adwoa’s stretcher. He placed one hand on her eyes and one hand on her heart. The old song rose from a place deeper than memory—the place where time began, where time ends, where time is merely a suggestion.
His mother, Beatrice, had fallen asleep while braiding his hair. The comb slipped from her fingers, and her hand went cold. In the village of Umueze, the women wailed and the men shook their heads. Malaria, they said. The rainy season’s curse. Paul Nwokocha - Ancient Of Days
The villagers called it a miracle. The pastor called it an act of God. But Paul knew something they didn’t: the song had not come from memory. It had come through him, from a place older than his own bones. By the time Paul turned thirty, he had built a reputation that stretched from Lagos to London. They called him "The Healer of the Delta." His crusade ground was a half-acre of red dirt ringed by plastic chairs and rusted speakers. Every night, the sick came—women with tumors like hidden fruits, men with legs twisted by polio, children who had never spoken a word.
He saw his mother, rising from the dead at seven years old. He saw the thousands he had healed—farmers, beggars, prostitutes, thieves. He saw each one walking, talking, breathing because he had given them pieces of his own thread. They built a shrine anyway
And every night, Paul laid hands on them, closed his eyes, and called upon the Ancient of Days.
But the camera operator zoomed in on Paul Nwokocha as he stood up, swaying. End of draft
But Paul placed his small palm on her chest and whispered the song his late grandmother used to hum—the one about the One who was, who is, who is to come. Beatrice opened her eyes. She sat up. She asked for water.
The first time Paul Nwokocha healed someone, he was seven years old and didn’t understand what he’d done.
After each healing, he aged.
And also—strangely—ageless.