THE NIGHT THE DRUMS REFUSED TO STOP

 

THE NIGHT THE DRUMS REFUSED TO STOP

In Oke-Ayé, silence was never empty. Even at midnight, something always breathed—crickets, distant generators, the old silk-cotton tree whispering secrets older than the road that cut the village in two. But on the night the drums refused to stop, silence fled entirely.

They said magun had been set.

Everyone said it differently. Some whispered it into wrappers pulled tight around their chests. Others said it boldly, as though courage could protect them. Children learnt the word without knowing its shape, only its fear. Magun was not just a charm; it was a sentence passed without a court.

Kúnlé returned that evening with city dust on his shoes and laughter still learning to fit his mouth. He had left as a boy and come back a man, with a phone that glowed like a second sun and a confidence that unsettled old walls. He hugged his mother long and promised to stay. He greeted elders with bent knees and wide smiles. When he saw Morẹ́nikẹ́, the laughter softened into something like prayer.

Morẹ́nikẹ́ had eyes that asked questions before her lips did. She sold palm oil by the roadside and counted change with care that made people trust her. They had known each other as children, chasing tyres and rumours. Now, they spoke in careful sentences, aware of the watching world.

The rumours started before dawn.

They said Morẹ́nikẹ́’s past had teeth. They said a jealous hand had buried a warning where love would not look. They said magun had been laid to punish betrayal, to make a lesson walk on two legs.

Morẹ́nikẹ́ heard the rumours like thunder under water. They did not ask her permission to exist. They arrived at her stall, at the well, in the pauses between greetings. She denied nothing and explained nothing. In Oke-Ayé, explanation often fed the fire.

Kúnlé laughed when someone tried to caution him. “Fear is a story people tell when they cannot prove a thing,” he said, tapping his phone. “We live in new times.”

Old Baba Adégbìtẹ̀ watched him with a face carved by years. “New times still borrow bones from old ones,” the elder said quietly. “Wisdom is not cowardice.”

The drums began after the moon climbed. They were not festival drums—no dance followed them. They beat without joy, a steady insistence that made doors close themselves. Women lit lamps and men pretended not to listen. The talking drum spoke without words, telling everyone that a line had been crossed.

Morẹ́nikẹ́ stood alone in her room, palms pressed together. She was not afraid of death as much as she was afraid of being misunderstood by it. She had loved once, trusted once, and paid with her name. When the charm had been placed—so they said—she had not known. By the time she knew, the village had already decided who she was.

Kúnlé came to her door. “They are beating lies,” he said, trying to sound certain. “Open.”

She did. She did not touch him.

“There are stories you do not outrun,” she said. “Not because they are true, but because belief sharpens them.”

He looked at her like a man looking at rain, unsure whether to run or lift his face. “Do you believe it?”

“I believe fear,” she replied. “And I believe you.”

The drums grew louder, then stopped.

At dawn, a cry tore the village open. Not the cry of blood, but the cry of shock—the sound people make when they realise certainty has limits. Kúnlé lay on the path near the silk-cotton tree, breathing shallow, eyes open to a sky that did not answer questions. He lived, but something had broken—his bravado, his laughter, the easy certainty that modern words could unmake ancient dread.

They carried him to the healer.

Mama Sàdíyà did not chant. She did not accuse. She asked for water and silence. She asked Morẹ́nikẹ́ to sit and tell the truth, not to her, but to herself. She asked Kúnlé to listen.

“There are powers,” Mama Sàdíyà said at last, “and there are people who borrow their names. Magun feeds on secrecy and arrogance. It grows when love becomes conquest.”

She mixed herbs not to fight a charm, but to calm a storm. She told them to bring the one who had laid the thing—if it existed—not to punish, but to unbind.

By evening, the truth limped in on two feet. A man with envy in his pocket and shame on his tongue confessed. He had wanted Morẹ́nikẹ́ to wear his regret like a veil. He had wanted a story to end a story.

When the unbinding was done, no thunder fell. The village did not split. The drums stayed quiet.

Kúnlé recovered slowly. He spoke less. He learnt to greet fear without mocking it. Morẹ́nikẹ́ returned to her stall and sold palm oil that tasted the same but meant more. The village learnt something it would not admit aloud: that the most dangerous charms were the ones people cast with mouths and silence.

Years later, when children asked about magun, elders told a different story. They said, “Power lives where truth is hidden. Love lives where truth is shared. Choose wisely.”

And at night, when the silk-cotton tree whispered, it told Oke-Ayé what it had always known—that belief can wound, but humility can heal; that stories kill faster than knives; and that courage is not denying darkness, but walking with a lamp.

The drums never refused to stop again.

By 

Ikechukwu Frank