Akanna Okeke: No Seeds in the Soil

There was once a farmland in a town far, far away. On that farmland, lived a community of soils and seeds. The soils were beautiful in appearance. Sometimes, they came in different shades and textures. They looked very attractive to the seeds who, quite interestingly, had their own unique ‘types’ of soil to whom they were attracted.

There came days on the farmland when the weather conditions were perfect –it was cool those days, sometimes due to the rain. The weather on such days is likened to the same one referred to ‘weather for two’ in recent times. On such days, the seeds would lay with the soils and get to know each other very deeply.

The result of this deep knowing was usually the offshoot of fine-looking crops, which the soils would bring forth, shortly after.

These crops would sprout out shyly at first from the soils; trying to acclimatize to the new environment – the farmland which was often characterized by more light than they had seen and more elements such as wind and water to which they hadn’t yet been accustomed.

After a while, though, these elements proved so beneficial to their surviving and thriving, that they would begin to shoot out upward, so elegantly and so virile with multiple seeds of their own inside of them as well.

They would feed the community; they would bolster its economy. The continuous appearance of these crops and the cycle of the seeds that they bear, ‘knowing’ the soils intimately again was a phenomenon that the entire community came to rely upon as a given. For life as it were to be sustained in the community, farm and township, this cycle had to continue –forever!

Generations came and passed, and a new group of seeds emerged from certain crops.  Something was ‘off’ about these ones. One of the problems was the obvious lack of necessary interpersonal skills with which to relate with the soils.

They often complained about the soils. “The Loamy ladies are just too pompous.  They think they’re too beautiful to be talked to”, “The Sandy ones are too shallow, “And what about the Clays? Oh, they are just too clingy. They stick to you and smother with way too much attention!”

The seeds began to find less satisfaction in the soils and began to develop more interest in themselves –with one another, each of the same kind.

Soon enough, when ‘weather for two’ season arrived, the seeds stayed together, abandoning the soils.  They had hangouts with one another; sometimes in twos, sometimes in threes and sometimes more.

They began to know way too much about one another than they normally should, and found out that they had a whole lot in common than they had imagined. So it became easier to get along, one with the other, than it was to get along with the ‘problematic soils, who usually seemed irrational about most issues.

As time passed in the farmland, there couldn’t be seen any more elegant-looking crops sprouting up from the soils, full of virile seeds.  The soils laid barren, and as a result, there were no more grains left to feed the community with.  The farm was dead and the economy of its surrounding township was crippled. The farmland, which was once well known for its economic viability and virility, slid into oblivion.

Everyone soon forgot that it ever once existed and as expected, other farms rose up to take its place on the map of prominence; thus becoming the new shapers of the surrounding towns and communities.