Excerpt - ZamaShort #3 'The Last and Final Battle' by Zainab Omaki
EXCERPT
THE LAST AND FINAL BATTLE
ZAINAB OMAKI
You can’t understand the end without understanding the beginning. For all of you who breezed past the former records, a refresher: on the Eighth of March, Two Thousand and Twenty-eight, the Great God Sango — the Orisha of Orishas; the God of Thunder, Fire, and Lightning; the God of Justice and Leadership — appeared in the sky over the forests of Ibadan. Once a man, a king, ascended to major deity, he descended from the heavenly plane in plumes of grey clouds crackling with lightning. The whole day had been inclement before his descent. From my university dormitory all the way in the Abuja, I watched the news anchors talk about airplanes being grounded, saw the images of stormy sky, grey tinged with an unnatural purple, that had everyone all over the world speculating about the nature of the calamity that was about to occur. Climate change had been wrecking the planet for years. Africa had been lucky to mostly escape the tsunamis, tornadoes, and other severe natural disasters so common in other parts of the world, but maybe the change in the environment had pushed it here, now.
I was on the phone with my mother, watching the grainy footage as she made me promise to remain indoors until we knew what was going on, when he first appeared. A scream fell out of my lips. There he was: a man from the sky. A burly, dark-skinned man in red trousers and a matching red vest, both covered in a pattern of small, square boxes. He wielded a bronze, double-edged axe that hung low in his hand.
My mother, who was watching too, screamed also and then shouted ‘Yesu Christi!’ What is that? What is that? Is that a man? Is that Jesus?’
Of course, it turned out not to be Jesus. Only Sango. He hovered over Ibadan where his kingdom was located during his days as a man. He looked out at the forest and the surrounding the city of modern high rises bordered by crowded slums below him with an expression undiscernible through the swirl of weather. And then he was gone, streaking through the sky at such a speed it had me and my mother screaming once more. The other boys in the surrounding rooms in the dorm yelled their heads off as well. Our voices were like a great ball of confusion, trying to make sense of what was happening before our very eyes.
I didn’t see this for myself, but it is said that he was seen in the airspace of Mokwa, Jebba, Illorin, and Ogbomoso, all the towns and cities between Ibadan and Abuja. Then, he was over the presidential villa in Aso Rock. I have heard from reliable sources that guns went off when security spotted him. They did their very best to bring him down with the bullets from their AK-47’s and other machine guns, but it had no real effect on him. He went into the villa, to the president’s office, and then the secure room beneath it. Several of President Olawole’s advisors and core staff were in there with him. He expelled them from the room, and when it was only two of them, a conversation ensued that no one will ever know. All we do know is that when they emerged, a frail man in a sky blue agbada and a stocky god with a bronze axe clutched in his hand, the president called a press conference.
On television, Sango stood at the podium with the frightened president at his side. For centuries, he declared looking out over the uncertain faces, he watched as the African continent fell to ruin. Once a proud place, a place of prosperity and progress, he watched as his children were taken overseas to work lands that were not theirs. He watched as foreigners invaded the land and plundered it for all it was worth. He watched as they continued to exert control over it even after they left, using trade and behind-the-scenes means to keep a grasp on their former colonised territories. He watched as his children fought each other because of the artificial borders that were imposed, and how they resorted to plundering themselves. How the rich and powerful ate up the limited resources left in their countries, leaving very little for the majority. Well, all that had come to an end now. It was done. Over. It was time for the continent to retake its rightful place in the world. Once, we were leaders. All you had to do was look at the pyramids and art and the Great Enclosure to see what we once were. And we would be again because he would not allow it to be otherwise. He stalked off the stage without answering the slew of questions that were thrown at him.
How do I describe what it was like to witness such a moment? I can only hope whenever you are reading this, there has been a sufficiently momentous occasion that allowed you to imagine what it was like. I watched the press conference with my hand over my mouth and my heart thudding in my chest, trying to foresee where things would go from here. How did the world carry on with a god walking among us? How did we return to the glorious era about which he spoke?
<...>
Zainab Omaki is a Nigerian writer currently completing a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. She holds a Master’s degree in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, where she was awarded the Miles Morland African Writers Scholarship. Her essays, fiction, and literary criticism have appeared in Five Points, The Los Angeles Review, Passages North, Transition Magazine, The Rumpus, and other publications. Her novel-in-progress has received support from the University of Bayreuth in Germany, the Jan Michalski Foundation in Switzerland, and the Nebraska Arts Council. She currently serves as Assistant Nonfiction Editor at Prairie Schooner.
The ZamaShort imprint series is solely focused on the amazing powerhouse that is the short story. We give each short story its own publication so that it may be read and enjoyed fully as a stand-alone publication. As per the StoryTime Publishing mandate initialised in 2007, ZamaShort continues to champion and add to the ever-growing canon of African literature excellence and diversity.
Released 1st July 2025.
Available here:
Direct from ZamaShort at our shop in our Bundles or by Subscription: https://www.zamashort.com/p/shop.html
Amazon US (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F1VDP63L)
(Also: UK, DE, FR, ES, IT, NL, JP, BR, CA, MX, AU, IN)
Apple: (https://books.apple.com/us/book-series/zamashort/id1802930815)
Kobo: (https://www.kobo.com/se/en/ebook/the-last-and-final-battle)
Google Play: (https://play.google.com/store/books/series?id=ZEt5HAAAABAcVM)
Libby: (https://share.libbyapp.com/title/12038423)
B&N: (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/ZamaShort)
Smashwords: (https://www.smashwords.com/books/byseries/129158)
Thalia: (https://www.thalia.de/suche?sq=ZamaShort)
Vivlio: (https://shop.vivlio.com/serie/storytime-zamashort/261261)
Fable: (https://fable.co/book/x-9789198291360)
Angus and Robertson: (https://www.angusrobertson.com.au/ebooks/the-last-and-final-battle-zainab-omaki/p/9789198291360)