Finding Butterflies

An essay by WINIFRED ÒDÚNÓKU

The first time I felt butterflies in my belly, their wings were light, and a boy named John, whose eyes took mine in, blew the air that made the butterflies fly and fly. I was 17— fresh out of secondary school, pious; not wearing earrings or trousers, ignorant to matters of the heart, and being monitored by a spiritual mother whom my mother gladly accepted as her right-hand woman. “Listen to Aunty. I know that woman can never mislead you,” my mother would always say. So I listened. Like all daughters are expected to do. Especially only daughters.

The first time I met John, he was lying on a couch, legs resting against the wall, in my uncle’s apartment. This house, nestled in the outskirts of Ijebu-Ode was only a stone’s throw from my father’s, which was situated deeper inside the area. Because the house was closer to the Express road, it always buzzed with the sounds of vehicles and hawkers. The air around there was thicker and carried the exhaust from vehicles and sometimes the smell of dead fish from a fish pond nearby. For me, visiting my uncle was always an escape from the boredom at home; a chance to walk the streets and get to a house full of people aside from my immediate family. On this day, little did I know that I would be meeting a boy who would plant a seed of amorous desire in me. As I entered my uncle’s apartment that day, and saw John sprawled on the couch as if he had all the time in the world, the air changed. “Who be this one?” I thought. How dare he feel at home in a place that was not his home? My uncle was not in. I greeted my cousin, dropped my bag on the plastic table, pulled out the chair, sat, and stretched out my long legs, making them as wide apart as possible. For me? This was home. Rightfully so. 

I heard his voice before I saw his face.

“Ah. Sista Abi, taleleyi?” 

He spoke like he owned the house. His accent was different and struck a chord— it made me yearn to hear his voice again.

“Àbúrò mi ni. Bunmi,” my cousin replied.

I turned in his direction, ready to challenge him. Shouldn’t I be the one asking that question? Who be this one? When I turned, I saw the most handsome man in the world. Our eyes locked and someone threw away the key. It was as if a spark ignited between us, and we were both watching the fire glow. I lost my voice and my heart began to race. Suddenly, I became aware of my appearance. What I didn’t wear. What I should have worn better. How my hair looked rough. How I didn’t apply lip gloss before leaving the house. These musings enveloped me as John’s gaze fell on me intently.

I think I blinked, then I found my voice.

“Yes. My name is Bunmi,” I repeated after my cousin.

“I’m John.” His accent was unmistakable this time; a sharp Ondo accent with its characteristic melody and tonal inflections. 

He stood up and offered his hand with a smile that melted my heart. 

I stood up too, taking not only his hand but also his heart, as I would later learn.

He was tall and towered over me. His voice was deep and magnetic, making his thick Ondo accent more melodious in my ears. His skin? Radiantly fair. His eyes were pretty; they drew mine in and asked them a thousand and one questions within a minute.

We were lost in our world.

Until my cousin broke the spell.

“So Bunmi, you said you wanted to score a song?” 

Goodness me! I had forgotten why I was at my uncle’s house that day. There was a song that our church choir couldn’t quite master, but I remembered that my cousin could sing it well.

“Ah, yes.” 

I rummaged through my notebook, looking for where I had written the song. “Jesu Olugbala,” I announced the song title, and I could swear my eyes caught a smirk on John’s face.

Soon, I started visiting my uncle at the slightest excuse. My mother knew there was more to it, but there was no way she could stop me from visiting her brother. So, she indulged my requests but always accompanied them with set instructions every time. You have till 5 pm to get back to this house. I’d reply yes ma, and dash out, donning my best slippers.

John began to frequent my uncle’s apartment, too. If he wasn’t already inside, claiming his territory, he would appear as soon as he heard my voice. Until then, I had never thought my loud voice would do me any good, yet it was that same loud voice that always announced my arrival to John. He began to win my heart with his witty jokes, infrequent winks and the stroking of his beard. These all got to me that my voice became louder, not of my own volition.

Our love began to grow. Or something like that.

We started getting to know each other better. His parents lived in Ondo, but he came to spend the holidays with his elder brother, who lived in the same compound as my uncle, here in Ijebu-Ode. I told him I’d spent the first thirteen years of my life in Jos, and how we were forced to relocate because of the incessant crises. We lived vicariously in our birth cities through each other, even though it was for a short while. He was born into a Christian home, like me. Unlike me, he wasn’t religious. We had a lot in common, yet we were so different in our similarities. He was a science student, like me. Unlike me, he hated mathematics. I had written the entry exam for Obafemi Awolowo University, like he had. Unlike me, he was already a fresher. I hoped our love story would continue at Obafemi Awolowo University when I eventually got in. 

I believed I was in love, and I could swear he was too. We were a thing until we weren’t. It happened too fast. Like two candles on a candelabra sharing their light, then suddenly the wind blew, and the candlelights both whoosh to death. 

Here’s how it happened.

The year was 2013. My church’s week-long annual convention program—which took place in a place we simply called Camp—was fast approaching. I had passed the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) exam with a beautiful result and was preparing to take entry exams into 2 other choice universities. As expected, one of the prayer points I was taking to Camp was for God to give me admission that year and provide for my parents to fund my university education. All through secondary school, I had maintained a no-boyfriend policy, but John came along, and I watched helplessly as his love consumed me. Maybe it was to prove his undying love for me or to impress me further, I wouldn’t know, but John requested to follow my family to Camp for the convention that year.

On our way to Camp, in my father’s old Opel car, I sat like a gentle maiden, with two of my brothers to my left and John to my right. That was the closest we’d sat next to each other [in public], and chitty-chatty as he was, John kept saying things that made me laugh, breaking my defence. The good thing was that his jokes made everyone laugh, so none of my family members—especially my parents, who sat in front—sensed the bond we shared. Or so I thought. Once or twice, I caught my heart racing and my palms sweating, but his continuous jokes helped me ease off. And on the few occasions when I was bold enough to search for his eyes with the corner of mine, I realised he never let them stray too far before he brought them back to me. How sweet!

When we arrived at Camp, we joined Aunty and her family at Block C, intending to stay together throughout the convention. Unlike my mother, who was getting used to camp life as this was her first time, Aunty, my spiritual mother, was quick to notice the chemistry building between me and John. The way he always came to sit beside me during every programme. The way he put his hand behind me on the long pew bench. The way we stole glances at each other when we thought no one was watching. The way I giggled and shone my teeth too often. They were all conspicuous to Aunty’s eye.

Aunty, it turned out, was the weapon fashioned against me and John.

As most spiritual mothers do, she poured a drum full of water on the fire that had started to burn ferociously between us. She turned everything to dust and ashes. Isn’t that the power of the Holy Ghost in her that is at work? 

First, it started with non-verbal cues. Facial expressions. Different versions. 

Once, I was deep in conversation with John. Then I heard my mother’s voice and I turned, but it was Aunty’s dark brown eyes I met. She planted them on me, then on John’s back, and when those eyes fell back on me, they were rolling like the tyres of a speeding car. I got her message but pretended not to.

When the non-verbal cues failed, Aunty came with fire-branded, spirit-filled, God-sent, strong instructions voiced with authoritative tones.

“Bunmi àti John. E ò lè jókòó papọ̀ oh. Óyá,” and with her two fore-fingers pointing here, and the other, there, she’d separate us for that day. She would repeat it the next day. And the one that followed. And the next one. Until the last day, when we left for home in my father’s car. John sat next to me again, and we tried to give our love another chance. 

I didn’t sit like a gentle maiden this time and I didn’t cover my mouth to laugh when John cracked jokes. He made me watch some funny videos on his Blackberry, and we got lost again in our world, like the first time we met in my uncle’s house. I loved the way our skin scrubbed each other. How our breaths collided. The way his hands brushed mine. How his voice cooed into my ears when he laughed heartily. No one seemed to bother us for most of the journey. We were at Ilishan axis of the Sagamu-Ijebu-Ode Expressway when my mother asked my father to pack, claiming to hear a sound coming from the bonnet. Though engrossed in the moment I shared with John, I could hear my mother warn my father several times. Like my father, I paid no mind. 

I placed my arm on John’s thigh and asked him to play the next video. 

Two minutes passed.

Then three.

Four. Five.

I had still not gotten the funny element in the video, but my lips were already parted, waiting to let the loudest laughter escape through them. My heart too, prepared for the ecstasy and spark it would share with John’s.

Six minutes.

And then, all of a sudden, the world tilted to one side.

My father had lost control. The car skidded off the road, somersaulted three times, knocking John’s Blackberry off his hands, and crash-landed inside a bush. My mother was shouting “Blood of Jesus”; my brothers, shouting her name; my father, asking everyone to calm down; me, holding on to John like he was my saviour.  The last thing I remember were the many voices playing in my head, saying so many things all at once. When I came to, I was being helped out of the now-leaking car and led out of the chafing shrubs to the tarred road. By this time, the spark of fire that was beginning to find root inside me had ignited something else in my heart: fear of death.

The world stopped.

Some good samaritans stopped to help, a few made calls, and others shouted “sorry o” as their boarded vehicles sped by. We asked for help, and we got it. One of our neighbours back home who had a towing vehicle was on his way to pick us up, and my mother insisted that we must have a Thanksgiving service once we got home. Everyone in the car owed God thanks, she said, and that included John. 

I was dazed throughout the rest of the journey.

John was yet to find his phone but my father was sure it’d be in the car, muddled up somewhere amidst the upturned loads. My mother muttered prayers, and threw jabs at my father in between, for not listening to her warning earlier. For us at the back, everyone just sat, silently, wanting the road trip to finally come to an end. Hours later, we arrived at my father’s house, and the Thanksgiving prayer started in earnest. It was during the prayer session that I caught John looking at me.  

Everyone’s eyes were closed but his were wide open. Was he still dazed from the accident? Was he admiring the black beauty in front of him? I looked back at him for a moment, then closed my eyes immediately to resume the prayers. 

That day, after a narrow escape from death, with dirty bodies and bedraggled clothes, eyes catching each other at odd times during the prayer session, lips moving and whispering things to God or maybe each other, and hearts yearning for each other would be the last time I’d see John. He never found his phone, and we never got to talk about what the future held for us. When I visited my uncle three or so days later, in hopes of continuing our love story from where it stopped, I met John’s absence. My cousin told me he had already returned to Ondo.

That was the end of our love story. 

I didn’t gain admission into Obafemi Awolowo University that year, nor ever. And when I would connect with John a few years later via Facebook, after desperately searching everywhere for him, the chemistry we once shared would have died. He would have moved on a long time ago. What was I still waiting for? 

A decade has passed. 

I'm 29 now—writing for a living, pious but wearing earrings and trousers, no longer ignorant to matters of the heart, and with two relationships behind me. Yet, I’ve not had the kind of thrill that meeting John gave me; those light butterflies in my belly. If I could go back in time to restructure my love story, I would have been rebellious to Aunty in that camp, just like I stopped her and her husband from calling me Ìyá Ìjọ, Mother of the Church, years later. I would have snuck closer to John, escorted him to the camp market, and we’d have gisted while holding hands. I would have leaned into his shoulder that one time he placed his arm behind me on the pew bench, just before we were separated. If I could go back in time, I would have returned his jokes, maybe even cracked mine so we could share the laughter in equal ecstasy, without a care in the world about who was watching or who was not. I would have whispered things into his ears, confessing my love for him. And when I caught him staring at me during the Thanksgiving prayers after the accident, I would have held his gaze for much longer instead of closing my eyes and feigning to be serious with the prayers.

But here I am, today, searching.

If you ask me what I want, it is to find those butterflies. Again.

* UTME is a standardized examination for prospective undergraduates in Nigeria, administered by the Joint Admissions Matriculation Board, and used as part of requirements by higher institutions to offer admissions to candidates.