The Dance of Omote Ovie

The dance of Omote Ovie (Josh Ziregbe)

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Episode I - The Prince

“There’s this new word I hate so much, ‘Normal’”, she said as her voice drowned in the water but echoed in my head. I guess the currents carried them because now she was in my mind and suddenly I hated the word too. "Constantly misleading the one that says it and the one it’s being said to", she continues.

“It's normal...” they say referring to the ever shortening Harmattan or “It’s not normal...” they say, trying to tell you how to live your life. Her emotions seem to be rising, I can feel her anger.

I’ve come to realise that "normal" only means what we're used to and usually has nothing to do with right or wrong, yet being on the receiving end of “that’s not normal” sounds to her like a scolding and this is why I... she hates the word. I think I'm in her mind as well.

She explains to me that females that come of age are paired and forced to fight. The victor absorbs her opponent and they say “It’s normal, it’s more of a dance.” She has hated this ritual as far as she can remember, it is a dark part of their world. 

I swam close to her and instinctively hugged her to make her feel better but then suddenly time seem to warp, the present became the past, and the ritual had already begun; she had come of age and it was her time to fight. A choice to forfeit would have been worse than death, her gills would have been ripped out and she, pushed to the  outer edge of their ocean.

She was swimming, 'dancing' and suddenly I realized our minds never separated because as she absorbed her opponent, I could feel it all. 

This wasn’t just a barbaric ritual, it was a lesson to show exactly where you were on the food chain of consciousness. We are not just our bodies, our souls or spirit, we are all three and this was a lesson for the soul. 

The words came to my mind as she realized them herself and I could hear her voice echo mine as I said them, “We constantly lose parts of ourselves, yet lost pieces are the only parts that are safe because they can never be lost or stolen ever again.”

Her friend's life was lost but it would remain safe in her. At this point I was completely confused but the battle was over.

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