It is also not a myth.
I once lived amongst men and women alike. I ruled my people with dignity and protected them unapologetically.
My anger produced not only fire, but also led to thunder.
Burning or causing pain to whatever stood in my path.
Wild, intimidating and fierce.
Although, I produced thunder depending on how furious I was. Or how angered I might have been by whoever or whatsoever.
Family or foe, man or woman. I did not care.
Emi Sango Olukoso! And I enjoyed all the time I was at Oyo.
Don’t get me wrong. I was also one of the most loving and best Aalafin the Oyo kingdom ever had; and one of the most powerful ruler Yoruba land itself ever produced.
Giving them my all and ensuring they do not lack a thing. Ensuring they do not think men are scum.
No wife of mine ever lacked a single thing.
To think she would be jealous of Oba who was my first and legitimate wife. If I had been asked who Oshun would have be jealous of, I’d have said Oya.
If I knew this ahead of time, I would have banished her.
Apparently, Oshun had met Oba while I was out in one of our hills. She had convinced Oba to cut her ear and put it in my food. Telling Oba I’d love her more if she did so.
On getting to the palace that day, I was served by Oba as it was her turn to feed me that week. However, on opening the bowl of soup, there it was sitting in my gbegiri and ewedu soup.
Angry to my marrow.
I am not a man to think before acting. All that came to mind was that Oba was trying to poison me. So, I drove her away from the palace. A decision I live to regret. A decision that somewhat led to my fall.
A vacuum even Oya and Oshun couldn’t fill. Because I had sent her out, she fell on her way in the forest and turned into a river. I did everything I could to bring Oba back to life, but my powers weren’t enough.
I was devastated.
An herbalist everyone talked about. He brought mirrors; guns and foreign objects which people had no idea what the names were. Objects they would later trade gold and humans for.
After much persuasion, I reluctantly visited him and he told me he could help.
Something he had brought with him from his land. A machine he was going to test using our people.
‘If it worked’, he had mentioned, ‘would be one hell of a discovery.’
But it was going to help me go back in time to stop Oba from cutting her ear and putting it in my soup. That was all that mattered.
I couldn’t let Tesla use any of my people as guinea pigs. So I decided that he used me.
Only if I had known really. That afternoon, when I decided to use the time machine I ensured I had my axe with me. Just in case.
He was indeed a strange herbalist and he conjured power I had never come across in my life.
However, I don’t know if he had configured it wrongly but he did not take me back in time.
He jolted me into the future.
The placed looked new, fresh and had an ambience different from where I had come from. Somewhere that looked more advanced than my empire in Oyo.
I shivered. Fear ran through my veins.
I tried one more time by saying my 'oriki'.
To see if my ancestors Obatala and Aganju would listen.
Sango Olukoso
Akata yeri yeri
Arabambi Oko Oya
Alaafin, ekun bu, a sa
Eleyinju ogunna
Olukoso lalu
Ina l’oju Ina l’enu
A ri igba ota, sete
O fi alapa segun ota re!
Dean had approached me. Asking if I was okay. If I was coming from an halloween party. If I was cold due to the weather because I no jacket on.
He asked if I was from around the area but I couldn’t understand what he said.
The new way of life of being ordinary. Of being just a mortal.
The one who used to be the most fearful ruler of Oyo Empire had fallen.
How the mighty had fallen.
Recall that I landed at Dean Armitage’s house? Yes, he is the same Dean in Jordan Peele’s ‘Get Out’.
The one who sells black men to his fellow kinsmen.
My power was not just lost. My kingdom was not only a thing of imagination. I was now going to lose my identity as a person.
This was going to be his selling point to my buyer.
I wept.
Fast forward to today. Here I am in Walt Disney studios with my buyer, wearing what seems to look like my garb.
Although, in a strange body that looks far from what I used to be, my new persona seems to be a representation of my former life.
Sadly, I have come to understand that Tesla’s kinsmen made my people forget about me back home. My people have abandoned me and those who worship me are called evil and stigmatized.
But they can’t tell that it is me Ṣàngó Olukoso. It is me that is now trapped for years in the body of another whom they now adore and love so much.
The man they all refer to, as Thor.