It's funny how human beings always bow down to things they fear before they even see them in their full glory or atleast discern that they truly have their best interest at heart! Chitapo had the cracking voice of a screaming widow after they broke the news about her husband's death although there was no funeral! It was like a divine presence had graced us and intended to orient us in our own dweling but no one dared to speak or look up straight at Chitapo. She spoke in a way that made us want to cry and rejoice in the same time for we couldn't understand what was happening at all. How could a megalodon reptile slither itself inside our river and conform us to bend to its will? If this commoner fell into the water and turned into an abomination what more if a royal fell inside? Would we witness greatness or the age of extinction? You see l ask this rhetorical question because Nyaminyami was a royal bastard!
King Nezika had a royal harem that would make most brothels nowadays seem under-resourced! Indeed he was a great man and a father of many Lozi people literally! What he liked he took but out of all the women he had, he loved Nyaminyami's mother the most. I don't know if he was bewitched or she was an echantess of sorts but what l do know is that all our mothers hated her and overtime the sins of the mother befell the son! It got intense for Nyaminyami until he evacuated from the royal yard to live in solitude with the lowest of the commoners and that's where he met his wife Chitapo! He loved her so much it was unbearable and embarrassing for us as everyone had tried to coerce him to come back and take someone of higher status and respect in the kingdom's social ladder! However as we all know the story of Romeo and Juliet, Nyaminyami and Chitapo loved each other so much that they fell into the river intentionally!
You see my father had sent the royal guard to bring back his beloved bastard prince at all costs even if it meant getting rid of his happiness! But this was my brother and a royal Lozi despite our different ranks. I was the son of Queen Marula,the daughter of the Elephant of Kaduna and brewer of the Marula tree and this meant l could treat my subordinates as l pleased! Many feared me, even my uncle's and aunts but not Nyaminyami! I always treated him like a stranger in public but in private l embraced him as a brother and that developed a strong bond between us! So when l heard of my father's plan,l made sure to inform my half brother before they got to him and he ran away with his wife until they couldn't run any further!
This is why they opted to drown or should l say rebirth together ! However only a few people knew the true identities of the couple that had fell in the river . So when the giant snake said it's name is 'Chitapo'',people tore their clothes and rolled themselves on the ground as a sign of remorse against a great sin.Everyone was shocked and afraid but no one dared to look straight at Chitapo! You could feel the thirst for blood and anger in her tone everytime she repeated that her name was Chitapo! It was like something carnal had been evoked in her new form and she wanted carnage and so like Lot's wife,my father made the gravest mistake of looking straight into Chitapo face and the repfile devoured him full in our gulp! I don't know if it was fear or the pressing urge to say sorry but King Nezika was the first person to be swallowed by this river god!
"Chitapohatapotapo",we sang to please this river god and she loved it to a point that she hit the water with her tail and a flood of fish like we had never seen before was ontop of us before we could even blink twice! As we cried tears of joy and sorrow for our king,Chitapo left and submerged herself in the deep water. No one had saw her except my father who was probably in her intestines by then but we all agreed that she was a big snake that had scales that were big as a canoe! Was this the god's doing or something else was at play l wondered as l lamented for my father. A Lozi king was mourned for 2 weeks straight and his sons had to eat only meat until the custom was over! So as the last day approached and l walked on the riverbank covered in sackcloth to finish the ceremony, something moved near the water!
At first it was like someone had threw a small stone inside the water and the sound is what had caught me off guard but as l kept moving, the stones were actually being thrown from the water to where l was walking! I ran for my life thinking it was a goblin or some supernatural invisible thing sent to torment me as the next in line to be king but when l got inside the cave near the river l heard a voice that had me motionless for over a minute. If l am honest,l think l had died for a second although it was probably a result of me fainting! It was like my ears and eyes were fooling me but when l woke up l quickly saw that this was real! Nyaminyami was alive and l was in his lair underwater! Many questions ran through my mind but my first question was if Chitapo was this giant snake that we saw,how come he was just a hairy mermaid? But as l gathered the energy to speak these words out, l saw Chitapo in human form and this knocked the lights out of me!