Of Days | Paul Nwokocha - Ancient

"If God is good, why does He make us beg?"

He calculated quickly, the way a gambler counts cards. Adwoa was old, near the end. To undo fifty years of blindness, to rebuild her marrow, to push back the grave—that would cost years. Not months. Years.

Not a title. Not a name.

"Time is not a river. It is a gift. I simply gave mine away. — P.N." Paul Nwokocha - Ancient Of Days

The first time Paul Nwokocha healed someone, he was seven years old and didn’t understand what he’d done.

"Ancient of Days," he whispered, "take my tomorrows. Give her today."

He saw his mother, rising from the dead at seven years old. He saw the thousands he had healed—farmers, beggars, prostitutes, thieves. He saw each one walking, talking, breathing because he had given them pieces of his own thread. "If God is good, why does He make us beg

But Paul placed his small palm on her chest and whispered the song his late grandmother used to hum—the one about the One who was, who is, who is to come. Beatrice opened her eyes. She sat up. She asked for water.

They built a shrine anyway. The blind still visit. Some of them see. End of draft.

Overnight. In a single breath.

The blind saw. The lame walked. The mute shouted hallelujah.

His mother, Beatrice, had fallen asleep while braiding his hair. The comb slipped from her fingers, and her hand went cold. In the village of Umueze, the women wailed and the men shook their heads. Malaria, they said. The rainy season’s curse.

He never healed anyone again.

And every night, Paul laid hands on them, closed his eyes, and called upon the Ancient of Days.