"HUNTING THE HUNTERS": Creative Non-Fiction by Famous Isaacs

This piece was written in 2013, in special dedication to Ikhide Ikheloa, Nigerian essayist and literary-cum-sociopolitical critic. It was published on my former blog until the was shut. Here is a republication of the creative non-fiction piece, "Hunting the Hunters" by Nigerian poet Famous Isaacs.

I recently announced on my twitter handle, that I’ve picked up a new hobby: snail hunting. I was born and bred in a village in Edo state, and grew up under the love and care of my grandparents, until, well, after they died, and then I had to come live with my real parents- still in a village. In the village, snail hunting has always been for people, not a hobby, but a job- only not a job I really ever cared about. I grew up an only, and I was never really allowed to play or do anything out of doors, but that is another story. So, snail hunting had never particularly appealed to me until three days ago when I found a cutlass to clear up the little bush that was beginning to grow just in front of my room here in Imo.

As I cleared, I discovered that especially in the dirtier parts of the little bush it was easy to find lots of snails. In those parts only I found about fifteen snails, matured snails, and was celebrating my success at hunting when a neighbour told me that at night I would be able to find even more. I would have loved to think, to assume, that snails should be sleeping at night like every other animal. So at about 9p.m I had my torchlight on search, hunting for snails, and just like my neighbour had prophesied, I actually found even more snails. On counting, I discovered that I had caught as many as fifty five snails in an area only just about the size of the average Nigerian bedroom.

I brought the snails into my room, and, suddenly, something I’d never given thoughts to, came up as a major problem: where to keep the snails for at least three days. Here I was, a male corps member, who particularly never fancied the buying of containers. It took me some moments of deep thought to remember that there was a small no-longer-in-use little pot somewhere outside my gate. I went out and brought the pot in. I packed the snails, all of them, in the little pot. There was hardly any space for them to move their shells; then I found a piece of heavy brick and placed it on the pot cover to keep the snails from attempting to escape in protest of their solitary confinements. I went to sleep.

I woke up about 4a.m yesterday morning to the sounds of the snails evidently pushing against each other, fighting for space. At first I smiled. Hmmm, I sighed, but I soon stopped smiling. I was surprised to how swiftly my mind went back to my days in the NYSC Orientation Camp- when I stayed for twenty-one days in a not-so-spacious and very poorly ventilated hall, with nothing less than ninety of us packed in the hall, hardly able to have enough space to relax comfortably; I knew what that felt like. My mind also went back to my days in UNIBEN hostel, when in rooms just about the size of a normal bedroom, we students in Hall 3, as the hostel is popularly known in campus, contained ourselves in the room. Then we were 16 in number, some friends squatting and others being squatted, having to sleep together on a six-spring foam placed on iron bunks as if we were the snails in my pot- as if we were prisoners. Two people sleeping together on a six-spring foam was surely not a funny game to play, but I did experience those days because that was what the school system made students resolve to doing by not building more hostels for the students. What could we do but to help each other? I couldn’t have been sleeping alone on the foam, while I had a friend sleeping in the gutter. But I did experience those days, and I knew what it felt like. It was nothing like the life I lived at home where I was raised as an only and often had the whole house to myself during the day, and at night I had a whole room and my family-sized foam to lay the eggs of my night dreams on.

So when I began to hear the pushing-against-each-other sounds of the snails fighting for space, I felt bad. I felt just as guilty and as nothing different from the NYSC authorities that place me- us- under those conditions in Camp, under those horrendous conditions in Camp. He who has never been in the world cannot satisfactorily explain exactly why God lives above. I began to picture the snails as humans, as corps members in an NYSC Camp, in the little pot in which I’d stocked them. I began to picture the snails as UNIBEN students in Hall 3 where I stayed for four years in school- FOUR years of squatting each other, of trying to make gold out of wood, of trying to make the best available use of the little space in the room available to us. We were like those snails in the little pot. Back then in those circumstances, I learnt a very important lesson: life wasn’t about comfort; it was about survival. Who knows, I thought last night, the sounds I was hearing from the snails were actually sounds of protest: as if from corpers, as if from UNIBEN students.

I began to consider the possibility of setting them free, but it seemed to me that that possibility was not one to be attained in the fewest possible hours to come. Freeing the snails meant one of two things: killing them and dishing for food, or, throwing them back into the whereabout I’d picked them from. Both options were like Vision 2020 for me, and for good reasons.

First, I have learnt how to prepare snails for food. I have never had to learn it because I have never felt that I would ever need to use the knowledge. So if I killed the snails, they would simply be a waste.

Then, too, if I threw the snails back into- well, the-now-cleared-and-no-longer-to-called bush,- it would mean that I’d successfully made a waste of the precious, viable time I’d invested in searching for them in the first place. The idea of wastage has never appealed to me; I have seriously never supported it. But there I was, an Israelite standing between Pharoah and the Red Sea, confused as an undecided Goliath on seeing the stone flung at him by little David- by little snails.

However, I was still deep in my musings when it suddenly occurred to me that I was no longer hearing the sounds of protest from the snails. “Ahaaa, they’ve gotten tired of grumbling,” I said to myself, but I was wrong; I was very wrong and I didn’t know it. A moment later I felt thirsty. My water can was just by the side of the pot in which I’d kept the snails; so as I bent down to pour some water from the can into my cup, I was shocked at what I saw. Lo and behold: the cover with which I’d covered the snails had been pushed aside, the weight of the brick was still on it; but  through real teamwork and a spirit of not giving up until they got their freedom, one on the other they pushed the cover aside carefully and made their way out. Freedom, cherished freedom had come.

“BRAVOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!” I screamed, shouting aloud in celebration with them on their victory. I had not drank the water I had intended to, but thirst had fled from me as darkness flees a room when light is let in. I would realise later after some minutes, that the time had clocked just about 5 o’clock in the morning. At 5, my neighbours were still on their beds, still deciding whether to wake up for the day or to continue sleeping. I’d shouted so loudly in celebration for the snails’ freedom, that before long I had about eight neighbours rushing to my room, obviously to come to my rescue if I’d gotten into trouble with anything, which had made me shout like I did. I explained matters to them, but they did not understand, they could not understand, they could not have understood, I did not expect them to understand- that I was celebrating freedom for the very snails that I had, myself, imprisoned.

Well, I did have reasons to shout. I did have reasons to scream. I did have reasons to celebrate. I had become a Nobel Laureate in my own world, having discovered a key, a weapon that sets us free from enslavement. When America asked for freedom and did not receive it, they fought for it, and they got it. So have many nations fought for their freedom, and won; yes, so did my snails. What is the case with Nigeria? Freedom, the snails have taught me, as America reminds me, is not meant to be begged for; it is meant to be fought for, and victory in that fight requires unity- unity of thoughts, of purpose, of dreams, of visions, of power, of emotions, of resources, of weapons, of whatever leads to good. Yes, unity.

Indeed, like the snails taught me, we cannot continue to wait for Godot.

When you cannot find the key to the room of the success you desire, BREAK THE DOOR.

When you are the fertile husband of the fertile wife, who has waited for decades on end for the beautiful ones to be born- decades of patience, of which, now you are fast running out; decades on end like the many hours which the snails spent in their incarceration in my little-spaced pot; when that woman is fertile, but not fertile enough to give you the beautiful ones of children you desire to have, CLONE THE CHILD.

The snails had worked together to attain their freedom. So must Nigeria. The easy way out- hunt the hunters.

(c) 2013 by Famous Isaacs
All Rights Reserved