Whisper by the river

There was no ceremony.

No announcement.

But change arrived anyway—walking barefoot, carrying chalk and questions.

It came in the form of the children.

Not as followers.

But as founders.

They Gathered

At first, it was a circle.

Six of them.

Then twelve.

Then twenty.

They met beneath the Iroko tree where the Queen's first drum had been placed.

No one told them to.

They simply… arrived.

They brought nothing but:

Empty gourds

Fragments of song

Paper filled with spirals and names

Some were too young to remember the silence before the remembering.

But all of them heard the pulse beneath their feet now.

They called themselves:

"Àwọn Ọmọ Kejì Odò"

The Children of the Second River

What They Built

Not a shrine.

Not a school.

Something in-between.

A space.

Formed of clay, water, story, and choice.

They called it:

"Ilé Àgbọ́ràn"—House of Listening

It had no walls only woven reeds and open sky.

No altars only drums left unstruck until the time felt right.

There, they taught themselves how to:

Weave stories without chains

Reclaim names without fear

Breathe rhythm back into dry bones

They studied not from textbooks.

But from elders' silences. From ancestors' hums. From the river's memory.

Ola Visits

He arrived one morning with no announcement.

They greeted him not as a prophet but as one who had listened.

One of the children, a girl named Rerẹ́, stepped forward with a question:

"What happens if our story becomes old too?"

Ola knelt.

He touched the soil.

"Then you break it open.

And let it bleed into the next one."

Another boy asked, "What if someone calls it blasphemy?"

Èkóyé, who had joined silently behind him, answered:

"Then they are confusing God with comfort."

A New Verse

The children began composing a song.

But it had no chorus.

Each line was written by a different hand, on different days, under different skies.

They called it "Orin Tó Máa Dáyé"—The Song That Will Become the World.

It sounded like:

A whisper from a girl who found her grandmother's real name in a dream.

A beat from a boy whose father once banned drums in their house, but now sits listening.

A verse from a stammerer whose silence became a rhythm too deep for words.

They didn't memorize it.

They lived it.

Tensions Rise

But not everyone welcomed this rebirth.

Some elders feared the children were changing too much.

"If we alter the rituals," one said, "how will we preserve what we fought for?"

Iyagbẹ́kọ responded softly:

"Preservation is not the same as resurrection.

One seals a jar.

The other opens a grave with reverence."

Others outside Obade began to accuse the village of myth manipulation, of crafting new traditions "for attention."

But the children did not reply with press conferences.

They answered with rhythm.

They answered with joy.

They answered with a parade.

The Procession of Becoming

It had no permission.

No permit.

No leader.

The children marched through Obade carrying symbols of stories yet to come:

Empty gourds painted with spirals.

Broken sandals sewn with river threads.

Calabashes holding the names of unborn daughters.

They chanted a new call:

"We are the river's second breath—

Not to replace, but to release."

The villagers followed.

The elders joined.

And the Queen—wherever she now rested—listened.

Final Scene

At the river's edge that night, Ola stood beside Iyagbẹ́kọ and Èkóyé.

Rerẹ́ approached once more.

"Will the river ever forget again?" she asked.

Iyagbẹ́kọ smiled.

"No," she said. "Because now, you are the river."

And somewhere beneath the surface, a soft, eternal rhythm answered.