Ike Darlington was actually the first to call me that name – “bonzo”, the name stuck like “the chameleon faeces” in Kofi Awoonor’s Songs of Sorrows. I tried to clean it, it would not go. (I actually called him the name first in a quarrel in the then Js1c, where he had a brief stint in our first term or so. And he flipped the switch, and the name became mine for keeps. You know what they say about turning tables). Then the name gained notoriety, and the mischievous guys (himself inclusive) started weaving tales around the name, which saw me becoming a legendary figure reputed as the best smuggler of beans from the FGC Okigwe CIA manned dining hall, using the instrumentality of my pockets!
Today makes it two years since he left us with a sudden snap, it was shocking because we were just beginning to reconnect after three years of leaving secondary school in the weeks preceding his death; talking on phone, texting and chatting on facebook. He planned on visiting Calabar for a medical conference, and I couldn’t wait to host him. As with most human plans, something else came up at the nick of time and he said on phone that he wasn’t coming anymore. We still talked a couple of times more, I remember him asking me what Tinapa was all about, and later why our school was closed down (Aug. 26th Movement). It wasn’t long afterwards when Obed told me one early morning, “Darlington is dead”. I lack words to describe that sudden emptiness that engulfed my soul, I kept asking, why this one?
I was bitter when he made a whole mountain out of the name bonzo, I mean, who wouldn’t be? But then I later forgave him, after all, we were just schoolboys; we had to be creative with names! His death and all just keeps me thinking about the cliché “the dead are always with us” In my days of deepest grief, when the years kept taking people from me; from Etim to Aunt Koko, I found out that the truth is, the dead though near in mind are asleep. We might remember them at all times, but they’re not just an active part of our lives anymore. We love them, but we can only go to meet them, not the other way. When a friend dies, nothing is ever the same. The best we can do is to remember them for how they lived, and in Darlington’s case, he was a free bird. We live the best way we can to honor their memories.
I’ve learnt that a minute of making the world around you happy can never be quantified in money. Darlington left at 19, but he left an impression on most of us. He had a word of support when necessary and a word of reprimand when it was needed. A friend posted nwa oma, je nke oma on his wall when he died. Truly, he was nwa oma. I miss him, the great doctor he would have made, and all. I was all the more sad when I remembered that he was the only son. I consoled myself with his native name Chibueze (God is King), whether it was a wrong turn or simply fate, God is King, he saw the waters of Otammiri that took him, He could have stopped it but didn’t, He knows all. What do we know? It’s sad that my mind plays tricks on me; I keep seeing him walking down the asphalt at Peace House back on his way to Hope House from the car park area…with his blue ID card holder around his neck. Whenever he comes to the dorm for anything, he shouts Nosa’s name right from the pavement! That brother was the realest Chelsea fan/Drogba freak there ever was. He wasn’t perfect after all, even the great Homer nods, but wherever his loyalty lay, he protected such! He was intelligent, and whatever he lost in size (he later outgrew the name atom); he made up in resilience and speech. I know Grant, Chimdi, Nosa, Joey, Old Soldier, Obite, Randy and all those guys miss him too. Someone said we only live once, but if we do it well, once is enough. May we take a minute to be silent in honor of a great friend, and to pray that our lives will brighten the world around us, so we can in quoting Horace, at the last moment say that we have lived a happy life, and content with our lives, we can retire from the world like satisfied guests.
Goodnight Atom, you’re truly free!
Bonzo.
