The Gods Are Silent

By Daniel Dickson Boateng

As a custodian of the gods was handed down to him by his father, Papa is popular and powerful, feared and revered as the most potent priest in the village of Adiembra; builds confidence in himself; and believes there is no power above his gods. However, there is a problem that tears him apart: his last wife is unable to bear him a child. Papa consults a god in the North who makes his last wife conceive, with a condition to make a sacrifice every new moon. During labor, she struggles to live but dies. Papa soon forgets the pain and hurt of death as the beautiful baby girl grows. Papa forgets to perform the sacrifice on a few occasions as the god of the North asked. The god strikes, bringing punishment on the little girl with an abscess that causes her to decay till death. Papas boys rebel and elope, turning against him and his gods. In anger, Papa beats up wives and sends them away to their families, living his life alone. He makes love to a prostitute during a visit to his friend. An ant falls from his penis; he bleeds until his health deteriorates. Papa loses connection with the gods and his family and consequently commits suicide.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543474015

Daniel Dickson Boateng

Daniel Dickson Boateng lives in New York City and teaches English language and writing in the higher education levels in the Tristate areaNew York New Jersey. The author went through education in Africa, China, and in the United States, graduating with a BA in English and Music, MA in English Literature, MA in English Language and Creative Writing and a PhD in Educational Leadership. He is saturated with the passion of writing fiction and memoirs. The gods are Silent was written in China and finally got published after 8 years; its exciting for a long-awaited dream to leap into the fruition of reality.

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Copyright © 2018 by Daniel Dickson Boateng.

Library of Congress Control Number:      2017919463

ISBN:                   Hardcover                        978-1-5434-7399-5

                             Softcover                           978-1-5434-7400-8

                             eBook                                978-1-5434-7401-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 01/24/2018

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Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Author’s Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Dedication

To the Creator of the Universe, the Lord God Almighty, who endows wisdom for all accomplishments; to Him be Glory. To 46267.png , whose constant encouragement, whose unfailing support and motivation, whose sleepless nights of typing brought this book to life. To Dr. Samuel S Boateng, my Dad, whose stories told to me as a child excited my talents to write. Finally, to Beloved sweet wife, Henrietta; my children, Boatemaa, Dorothy, Dillyn, Tristyn and Glory, whose presence in my life bring my accomplishments to the fullness of their establishment.

Acknowledgements

The debt of appreciation I owe is heavy and weighs beyond imagination. That the The gods are Silent be able to transition from the depths of the imaginations through its actualization into its concrete existence is evident of the fact that it could not be without the presence of noble and precious individuals who contributed to the fullness of the length and breadth of my life as I struggled to make this novel spring into reality. Thusly, the following people deserve my mention for their immense input into this endeavor:

Professor Betty Doyle of Bronx Community College, your sleepless nights over this novel has brought it this far. My beta readers, Benjamin Boateng, Gifty Gyimah, Godfred Brobbey (my inspirer), Anna Jackson, Annette Owusu Asare, Alison Bamfo; your comments and beautiful thoughts were and are still priceless. Finally, my deepest appreciation goes to my professors and the 2014 graduate class of English and Creative Writing of Southern New Hampshire University, whose critique and suggestions carried the highest efficacy in shaping into existence, The gods are Silent.

To you all, I say your positive projections towards this novel will continue to reverberate in the minds of millions of readers who interact with the story of this novel.

Author’s Preface

In spite of how it might be described, one thing is worthy of mention; the precolonial period in the life of the African was one that was colored and saturated with rich cultural values. The belief in deities was one of great importance. Great respect and reverence was accorded the gods—deities. They were the rulers of the people. They were consulted; their decisions were sacred; they were the directors of the lives of the people.

The main character in the The gods are Silent. happens to come from the lineage that holds custodianship of the priesthood and power of the gods. The generation before him passed the legacy of custodianship to the next generation; and the next generation to the next generation, until it is the turn of his generation. However, it is important to register that the way of life of a people remains not the same; thus, making the assertion highly true that culture is dynamic. Just as people change, the gods who are even spirits also change their ways. Thus, they control the way of life of the people because as they change, they affect the people.

The protagonist of this novel relies entirely, body and soul, on the gods, who turn mute to him because of the smallest mistake. Things that are supposed to be in the normalcy soon begin to de-stratify, disintegrate, and dislocate. The children in the house get rebellious and shed off the skin of their love for their generational adherence to their father’s gods; they elope to believe in another new deity, never to take the old back.

Change is an indispensable cultural element of man. Those that give way and room to embrace change resonate positively with society. The trends of society gallop fast towards change and those who fall to the spell of conservativeness to old traditions survive not. Those that resurrect out of the old ways to yoke gradually with cultural dynamics find their feet on the solid grounds of society.

CHAPTER 1

A DEEP EERIE quiet could be felt everywhere in the village; it was a heavy silence that could betray and expose any minutest decibel of sound. Everyone was in bed except Papa who sat gazing into the dark black sky. He could hear evil birds squeak their dissonances as they flew past above his house. Papa had not heard the evil birds squeak for a long time. Deep down within, he felt a little fear strike like lightning through him, but he shook it off with his patriarch pride; Men do not get afraid.— He thought to himself. He knew very well that hearing those birds at that time of the night above his house was weird; it was a bad omen which always brought death into a household. People in the village never saw evil birds, but at least a three-year-old knew about them. Papa remembered stories his mother told about evil birds when he was five years old. At age fifty, it was still vivid in his mind’s ear. His mother told him forty-five years ago that the squeaks of evil birds were the sirens of bad omen. He reminisced luculently about how he felt as a child anytime he heard their squeaks; they sent strains of shivers through him; other kids who were awake felt the same. A child who would not let its mother sleep froze at the sound of an evil bird. Adults would always want to scare children who were stubborn by merely chanting the folk song—

Hear the evil long beaks fly over the house

They carry death around and over the house

Sleep, Sleep, cock my ears

Sleep Sleep, cover my eyes

The evil birds, hear their squeak

Over the house, they fly, long beaks

The song carried in its rhythm, fear, and it was terrifying enough to sedate children with ease; with it, mothers lullabied their stubborn kids to sleep.

Hearing the squeak of an evil bird was not enough to make Papa shiver, even though he was sure it was not a good signal. As he thought of these, he suddenly went blank in his thoughts; it felt like his mind was vacant of anything to catalyze thinking; and all he felt was the breeze of the night. As he laid in his rest chair, he could feel the cool breeze blow on his body. He had only his traditional black pair of knickers on, with a singlet on the top. He stood up with his hands thrust in his pocket, and began to pace to and fro in the compound of his house.

In the dark of the night, insects chirped, and frogs croaked from their ponds. Their noises in the background of the night intensified the silence so much, that it felt as though not only could one hold it, but touch it as well. It was an eerie dawn; and the rooster had already crowed the second time. At that time of the night, people in Adiembra never walked about for any reason; it was believed that evil spirits were present; and people who were not asleep and were out at that time were not safe; they could meet some of such spirits, who could possibly harm them.

Mothers feared and dared not come out to pass urine. In the village, every house had their toilet about three hundred meters away from the house; it was in the bushes. The bathroom was not only for bathing but one could also pass urine. Bathrooms were made with bamboo sticks. The sticks were stuck into the ground in a circular shape which had an opening into them. The Bathroom was a small structure with no roof. It was about seven feet in height. A movable door was made that was simply raised to open and placed in front of the opening to close. Its floor was usually made of small beautiful stones picked at the riverside. This was where one could pass urine and wash down. The bathroom was located about hundred meters away from the house, but was not as far away from the house as the toilet. A drain was dug behind it and water flowed away meandering through into the bushes. Every mother kept a chamber pot for herself and her children to pass urine instead of coming out at night to do so in the bathroom.

Almost everyone in the Adiembra village was familiar with the story of the old blind man, Akuoko. Some years ago, he was not blind. It all happened one midnight when he had come out to find out what had caused a strange noise in the compound of his house. He was not asleep at that time of the night. The noise he heard was quite unusual. Whilst all his children and wife were in bed, he opened his door quietly to avoid any creaky sound, and stepped into the compound.