Masquerade

by O.O. Sangoyomi

Memory is Master of Death, the chink in his armour of conceit. —Wọlé Ṣóyínká, Death and the King’s Horseman

“What do you know of the Aláàfin?” “The king of kings?”

He had taken so many lives in battle that he was often referred to as the Commander of Death.

“She makes that silly flower again and again, yet she still does not understand that it would not have died had it not been beautiful enough to be picked in the first place.”

“It is only my title they know, something the crown assures. It is the glue that stretches over generations and merges every Aláàfin—past, present, and future—into one ruler.”