By ANGELA NWOSU
MSC Okolo’s collection of short stories is chameleonic in its simplicity. This simplicity by extension is aesthetically strengthened through the use of humour in three major ways: satire/sarcasm, wit, and irony.

The stories elicit laughter but not in a comedic way because the comic is sharply underscored by the tragic realities that permeate all the stories. In this regard, the tragic manifest itself through the looming shadow of the environment or society.

There is a way in which all the characters are impacted by their milieu, whether it be culturally, politically or economically and to a large extent through the unexplainable phenomenon of destiny or fate. In this collection, the above issues highlight the problem of identity and otherness in an indifferent environment and the consequent effect of separateness or the insulated self.

The first four stories, which have the ambience of a biography, are organically related in the sense that the narrator, so to say, tells the stories, although in one of the stories others have a chance to tell their own stories during a reunion.

The character is a nameless female who is being raised by her aunt because her biological mother cannot stand her physiological imperfections. She is ugly to the extent that she could well pass for the suburban version of the Medusa.

Lack of compassion

The society in which she finds herself does not show her or her aunt any form of compassion. In fact she is seen as a taboo and an image of shame which could only be a result of unatoned sins. Her aunt, who in contrast is a paragon of beauty and who is constantly mistaken for her mother, is therefore seen as a scarlet woman; she suffers as much as the nameless character as even her male callers flee the moment they behold her niece.

In secondary school, she is forced to become a Day student because the boarding students complain that she causes them to have nightmares. There is only one way to insulate herself from open hostility — the world of books and ideas.

At the university, her classmates become a sort of family to her. She describes their characters in detail, highlighting their idiosyncrasies and their unique form of otherness. Each is different, yet each is similar in the sense that they are all flawed in one way or the other.

The next three stories can also be said to be related, although Dancing Shadow is slightly different in the sense that it uses a double point of view that is linked to the same character-narrator. The other two deal with the issue of marriage and how a spinster is almost regarded as an aberration in an unkind environment – in this case, the family environment.

In Me, Ms, Sister Martha, who sounds and feels like the narrator in the first four stories, is treated with contempt by her family because she is considered a miserable spinster. Her youngest and beautiful sister Doll is getting married and she has the responsibility of making the wedding a success, the same way she had been responsible for making her sister’s suitors not notice how dull Doll was.

She had done that by positioning herself within the vicinity of Doll and her suitors in order to provide intelligible answers. On one occasion, however, the caller was a first-class honours graduate and Ms could not wade in to save Doll.

First Class, as he is called in the story, says he does not like the name Doll and asks what she prefers to be called. She answers: “I prefer the preferences.”

“Meaning?”

“I preferences the prefer.”

Thinking there must be a mistake somewhere, First Class asks a political question – Doll’s opinion about the Yar’adua – Goodluck  combination. And Doll replies: “If Yar’adua has goodluck, it is luck.” The surprised graduate rephrases his question asking again about the combination. Doll’s response: “If they combinate, the president can vice.” When First Class leaves and never comes back, Ms is blamed for not helping out a younger sister in need.

The last three stories have to do with fake pastors who dupe people of their money by making them believe a family member is responsible for their ill-luck. Mr Uchemka is about an egocentric character who believes all his children are fools like their mother and that he alone is intelligent, yet he is constantly outwitted by the so-called foolish children. The last story is somewhat a twist of fate in which a brother unknowingly marries his sister.

The stories transcend mere narration because they are cathartic and point to the rejuvenation of hope. They are also mirrors of a very flawed society. Minimal is imprisoned many times for no just reason. Another becomes a drug dealer at some point in his struggle to survive and even Anadinso becomes a fake native doctor, acting as a psychic just to survive.

This could also be his way of getting back at society. These stories act as food for the soul. During the reunion, for example, there is no edible form of refreshment; the characters share their stories and depart filled with hope and the need to help one another. Even the last story, which is a tragic case of incest, has a tone of optimistic continuity.