Tayo always danced when he was angry.
He didn't know where the rhythm came from—it would rise in his body like a fever, pulsing in his
chest, twisting through his feet. He would move until the rage bled out of his skin like sweat.
That night, the sky cracked open the second he stepped onto the rooftop.
The storm had been threatening for hours.
His mother had called again, asking when he would "get a real job." His girlfriend had accused him
of "chasing shadows." And his body, his beautiful body—the one thing that had always obeyed him—
was beginning to ache in strange places.
"You're running too much," the doctor had said. "Your joints need rest."
But rest was where the madness lived.
So he danced.
The music blasted from his speaker—Afrobeat, fast and wild. But it was the wind that guided him.
Sharp, slashing movements. Turns that spun him until the city blurred. Arms like lightning. Feet like
thunder.
He didn't hear the scream until after it left his mouth.
A long, guttural cry he hadn't planned.
And then the speaker died.
Not just paused—died.
The lights in the building below flickered. Power outage. Typical.
But the wind didn't stop. It surged harder, circling him, lifting the edges of his shirt, curling through
his hair like fingers.
He dropped to his knees, breath heaving.
"I don't know what you want!" he shouted at the sky.
A voice—not from outside, but deep inside—answered:
"You already carry me. You just haven't turned around."
The wind paused.
And in that pause, Tayo remembered a dream from the night before—
A woman in purple standing in a market square filled with ashes.
"You were not made to be still," she had whispered. "Your feet are prayers. Your voice is a storm."
And then the wind had lifted him into the sky like a bird.
Now, on the rooftop, he whispered her name without knowing how he knew it:
"Oya."
The next morning, Tayo didn't dance.
He sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the wall like it might open up and explain things. His bones
ached, but not from exhaustion. It felt like something had shifted inside his skeleton, like the
structure of his being had been rearranged in the night.
His phone buzzed.
MUM: Church tomorrow. You promised.
He sighed, typing: Yes, Ma.
He hadn't promised.
He hadn't been to church in months. Not since the dreams started. Not since he'd begun hearing
things in wind tunnels and alleys. He'd told himself it was anxiety, maybe trauma. But anxiety didn't
leave feathers on your pillow. And trauma didn't call your name in markets.
His roommate, Bisi, shuffled past with a toothbrush in his mouth.
"Bro," he mumbled through the foam. "You okay?"
"Yeah," Tayo said. "Just tired."
"You were shouting on the roof again last night. That's, what, the third time this week?"
"Fourth," Tayo muttered.
Bisi raised a brow, then shrugged. "As long as the neighbors don't call the police."
Tayo waited till he left, then went to his altar. It was barely a real altar—just a shelf with a candle,
some incense sticks, and a bronze pendant he'd found in a secondhand store that looked like a
mask.
He lit the candle.
"Who are you?" he whispered. "And why me?"
The wind pushed gently through the window. Not strong this time—more like a sigh.
His body twitched.
Not from fear. From recognition.
He closed his eyes. In his mind, the purple-cloaked woman stood once more in the center of the
ash-filled square.
"Change comes for you," she said.
"You can either ride it… or drown under it."
He opened his eyes.
The candle flame was dancing—violently. But there was no breeze.
He reached into his drawer and pulled out the only thing that made sense: his dance journal. A book
where he sketched out movements, choreography, and visions he couldn't explain.
Page after page, he found symbols—spirals, feathers, torn storm clouds, drums, women with nine
veils.
"Have you been speaking to me all along?" he asked the book.
There was no reply. But the answer was yes.
That afternoon, Tayo left his apartment and walked to a place he hadn't visited since childhood—a
wind-blasted, overgrown shrine at the edge of town, where his aunt used to pour gin into the earth
and whisper things she never explained.He didn't know what he was looking for.
But something was calling.
And this time, he was ready to turn around.
The shrine wasn't marked on any map.
It sat behind a collapsed fence, half-swallowed by a mango grove and years of silence. Tunde had
only been here twice as a child, both times holding his aunt's hand, too young to ask questions but
old enough to feel the electricity in the soil.
He expected the place to be empty.
But she was there.
A woman in a faded wrapper, seated on a low stool, her silver hair braided tight against her scalp.
She looked up as if she'd been expecting him.
"You came back," she said.
Tayo froze. "Do I… know you?"
"You knew me when your spirit wasn't hiding behind your mouth," she said with a small smile. "You
called me Auntie Mope. You were always dancing. Even when the other children were eating."
Her voice stirred something in his chest. A warm, humming ache.
"I didn't know anyone still came here," he said, stepping cautiously closer.
"They don't," she replied. "Not with feet. But they come in their dreams. And sometimes, when
they're breaking apart, they remember the way back."
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Then finally asked: "What is happening to me?"
Auntie Mope looked at him carefully, like someone inspecting a long-lost heirloom."You've been cracked open," she said. "The storm inside you has found its sky."
"Storm?" he repeated.
"You think your dancing is just choreography?" she chuckled softly. "You think your rage is just
pain? You were born with wind under your skin. That is not madness, boy. That is Oya."
Tayo's breath caught. "I've… I've seen her."
"Of course you have. And you will again. But she does not choose lightly. She breaks to rebuild.
What she gives, she tests."
Auntie Mope stood slowly, her joints creaking like old drums.
"She's asking you to clear the path. For yourself. For others. For something much bigger than you."
"I don't know what to do," Tayo whispered.
"Then do what you've always done," she said. "Dance. But this time, dance like the wind is
watching. Because she is."
Tayo nodded, tears thick in his throat. He didn't know if they were from relief, or fear, or awe. Maybe
all three.
Auntie Mope pressed something into his palm.
A small gourd tied with nine strands of purple thread.
"She left this for you," she said. "Long ago. Before your feet ever touched earth."
The wind stirred again. This time, it circled him. A quiet, invisible embrace.
The cloth had been with him since his first solo show.
A red and black wrapper, wax-printed and frayed at the edges, always tied around his waist when he
danced. It had soaked up sweat, applause, failure, resurrection. He thought he'd be buried in it
someday.But now, under the mango trees, it trembled in his hands like something that knew it was about to
die.
"You sure?" Auntie Mope asked gently.
He nodded. His throat was tight, but the air around him had gone still—unnaturally still. As if the
wind was holding its breath, waiting to be called.
He knelt beside the shrine, pulled the wrapper taut, and ripped it down the middle. Then again. And
again. Until there were nine strips.
One for every part of him he needed to release.
One for every piece Oya could now claim.
He tied each strip to the low branches of the shrine tree, speaking softly into the wind:
"For my fear of being seen."
The first strip fluttered, then stilled.
"For my anger at never being enough."
The second danced wildly, then fell limp.
"For my silence. For every time I swallowed my voice."
"For the love I lost before I could hold it properly."
"For the dancer I was trained to be, not the one I'm becoming."
"For the pain in my body I pretend doesn't exist."
"For my mother's prayers I can't fulfill."
"For the man I thought I had to be."
"And for the storm I was always afraid to enter."
When he tied the last strip, the wind returned. Not gently—but in a rush. It surged through the treelike a river with no shore, lifting the fabric into the air, braiding them around the branches like veils.
One even slipped loose and spiraled upward, disappearing into the night sky.
Tayo dropped to his knees, head bowed.
The air smelled like iron and wet soil.
Behind him, Auntie Mope began to hum—low and ancient. Not a song, but a vibration. A current.
Then came the whisper.
Not from outside, not even in his mind—in his blood.
"I have taken what is mine. Now rise."
He did. Slowly.
And for the first time in his life, he didn't feel like he was dancing toward something.
He was dancing from something.
He was becoming the storm.