12/01/2026
I am writing this here because I can’t talk about it where I live now. People already think I am strange. I don’t want them to think I am mad. What happened to me was real. It happened in the open. It happened in a place people still live in.
I grew up in a small town in southwest Nigeria. Nothing special about it. Red soil. Small shops. Loud generators at night. Goats walking around like they own the place. If you shout in the morning, five people will answer you.
Behind our family house was an iroko tree.
It did not grow inside our compound, but it was close enough that its shadow touched our back wall in the evening. The tree was massive. I don’t mean tall. I mean heavy. Thick. It looked like it had been standing there before houses were built.
No one sat under it.
No one tied animals to it.
Children were warned not to play near it.
When I was younger, I once asked my mother why. She did not answer. She just pulled me away and told me to wash my hands.
My father never talked about the tree. If someone mentioned it, he would go quiet. He was not a fearful man. He was a carpenter. Strong hands. Loud laugh. He believed in hard work and prayer. But when it came to that tree, he acted like it did not exist.
Then one evening, he came home tired. He sat down. He drank water. He stood up.
And he fell.
No shout. No pain. Just dropped like a bag.
We rushed him to the clinic. They said his heart stopped. Just like that.
Three days later, we buried him.
After the burial, the house felt wrong. Too open. Too empty. Sounds echoed. My mother moved slowly, like she was underwater. I stayed awake most nights, staring at the ceiling.
On the fourth night, I heard the tree.
It was late. Maybe past midnight. The power was out, so the whole area was dark. I was lying on my bed when I heard a deep sound. Like wood shifting.
I ignored it.
Then I heard breathing.
Slow. Heavy.
Then a voice.
“Come.”
It was quiet, but it was clear.
I sat up in bed.
I told myself it was someone outside. Maybe a drunk man. Maybe my neighbor.
Then it said my name.
The way my father used to say it.
Not fast. Not angry. Just tired.
I did not sleep after that.
The next morning, I asked my mother if she heard anything during the night. She stopped washing plates and looked at me.
“Don’t answer it,” she said.
I asked her what she meant.
She said, “Just don’t.”
That was the end of the talk.
The voice came back the next night.
And the night after that.
Always after midnight. Always from the same place. Behind the house. Near the iroko tree.
Sometimes it only said my name.
Sometimes it said small things.
“Come.”
“Sit.”
“Listen.”
I started sleeping with earphones. I played music to block it out. But sometimes, in the quiet parts of the song, I could still hear it. Like it was under the sound.
One night, it said something new.
“Your mother is tired.”
That sentence hit me hard.
That was my father’s sentence. He said it when he wanted me to help her. When I was lazy. When I was being useless.
I removed the earphones and sat up.
“Papa?” I whispered.
There was a long silence.
Then the leaves shook.
There was no wind.
“You hear me now,” the voice said.
I ran into my mother’s room. I woke her up. I told her everything. She listened without interrupting. Her face looked older than it did a week before.
She said, “That tree is not your father.”
I asked her what it was.
She said, “It keeps things.”
That was all she said.
The next day, I went to ask around. Quietly. Carefully. I talked to an old hunter who sat near the market. He looked at me for a long time before he spoke.
“That tree is old,” he said. “Older than the town. Older than the road.”
I asked him about the voices.
He nodded.
“They learn,” he said. “They listen. They repeat.”
I asked him why.
He said, “Because people talk to them. People cry to them. People die near them.”
That night, the voice spoke longer than before.
It told me about my childhood. About when I fell into a gutter and broke my tooth. About the day my father beat me for stealing mangoes. About things no one else knew.
I covered my ears.
“Stop,” I said.
“Come closer,” it replied.
I don’t know why, but anger filled me. Real anger.
I went outside.
The moon was out. The tree stood there, dark and wide. Its roots came out of the ground like thick snakes.
“Leave me alone,” I shouted.
The tree creaked.
“You used to sit with him,” it said.
I felt cold.
That was true.
When I was younger, my father sometimes sat on a small stool near the back wall in the evening. He said the air was cooler there. That spot was close to the tree.
“I am not him,” I said.
“You are his,” the voice replied.
The ground near the tree was bare. No grass. No weeds. Just dirt.
“Come,” it said again.
I stepped back and ran inside.
That night, I dreamed of the tree opening. Not like a mouth. Like a wound. Inside it were voices. Many voices. Talking at once.
I woke up screaming.
Things got worse after that.
The voice started talking during the day. Very soft. Only when I was alone. It would call my name when I passed near the back of the house.
Once, I heard my mother’s voice coming from it.
That broke something in me.
I went back to the hunter. I begged him to help.
He said, “You answered it. That is the problem.”
I asked him how to stop it.
He said, “Leave.”
We didn’t leave immediately. We couldn’t. No money. No place to go.
One evening, the voice became angry.
“You belong here,” it said.
I stood at my window and looked at the tree. I noticed something I had never seen before. Marks on the bark. Old carvings.
Names.
Many names.
Some were almost gone. Some were fresh.
One of them was my father’s full name.
I vomited.
That night, the voice did not call me.
It whispered.
All night.
The next morning, my mother packed our things. She said we were going to stay with her sister. She did not explain. She did not need to.
As we left, I heard the tree say my name one last time.
Soft.
Patient.
We moved far away.
Months later, I heard the house was sold. The new owners decided to cut the tree down. They said it blocked sunlight.
Two men died doing it.
The tree fell the wrong way.
I don’t know if the tree is gone. I don’t know if it is still there, broken, waiting.
All I know is this.
Sometimes, when the night is quiet, I hear my name.
And it sounds like someone who has been listening to me for a very long time.
