"Time is not a river. It is a gift. I simply gave mine away. — P.N."
The tomb of Paul Nwokocha is empty.
Overnight. In a single breath.
A job description. Paul Nwokocha knelt beside Adwoa’s stretcher. He placed one hand on her eyes and one hand on her heart. The old song rose from a place deeper than memory—the place where time began, where time ends, where time is merely a suggestion. Paul Nwokocha - Ancient Of Days
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.
And also—strangely—ageless.
He never healed anyone again.
But that night, in a small room behind the crusade ground, a nurse found him sitting in a chair, humming the old song to himself. His eyes were closed. His breathing was soft. He looked, for the first time in his life, exactly his age.
And he understood, finally, what the Ancient of Days really was.
He could refuse. He could say the Spirit was not moving tonight. He could collect his offering and fly back to his mansion in Lagos and live whatever years he had left. "Time is not a river
Paul felt the familiar pull—the heat behind his ribs, the whisper of the old song rising in his throat. He could heal her. He knew it. One touch, one word, and she would rise.
"Ancient of Days," he whispered, "take my tomorrows. Give her today."
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. A job description