By Damiete Braide
Mmirinzo: The Ones Who are Rain, Achalugo Chioma Ezekobe, Winepress Publishing, 2020, pp.283
Achalugo Chioma Ezekobe proves to be a free spirited writer who infuses drama shrouded in mystery in a way that the essence of both thematic expositions does not play out as two jest not too mysterious.
She juggles alongside her major subject matter other regular notions of sisterhood, romance, friendship, reincarnation and more in her fiction, Mmirinzo (The Ones Who are Rain), and beautifully interweaves them all to become a not so regular story.
In one moment, the main character is dining with friends and, the next, she is in trance speaking to people only she can see. Olivia, our protagonist, fondly called Livvy-Nne, has to figure out what or who she should be before her 28th birthday. Before this realisation hits home, she has had to endure unnecessary attention at different places, that is. at work, during a seminar, at a hotel for passing out, a condition which always saw her ending up at the hospital but still defied medical treatment.
Prior to this, Olivia was a jolly good fellow. The perfect sibling to Nwanneka, a bestie to Lola and Joachim and eventually Leonard’s woman, though she labelled him the office shark.
There is Nwanneka’s wedding to plan, and the few weeks leading up to it is where most of the story gets thick. In between, we see the trio of Lola, Olivia and Joachim working towards ticking the bucket list they came up with at a restaurant Lola found out somewhere in Ikoyi. Meanwhile, work is blowing up at the office. A handful of decoys are deployed in the story to entice the readers. Some parts aren’t just needful.
Despite the many distractions, the reader is bent on wanting to get back to the incessant trance Olivia falls in, because, when this happens, she is usually taken to the spot where she uses two women always in some sort of back and forth about a certain «baby rain». Olivia herself took a while to understand that she was «in the bone of contention».
As a child, she once came down with an illness that required her father take her down to the village to visit one Eloka, who eventually cured her of a strange ailment. This episode in her life was to remain a secret, even from her sister. It was discovered then that she was born with one of the four elements. Hers was water.
Fast forward to barely two weeks to her sister’s wedding, Olivia concluded she had had enough of fainting at the sight of water. She discussed it with her sister, and, eventually, they both agreed she had to go to the village like the woman in her trance says. Things were happening pretty fast, and there was little time. The story moves with a steady rhythm, establishing that there is just a thin line between the conscious and unconscious state of life.