Papa Ekene arrived from the village with two large woven bags of yams and high hopes for a great holiday time with his Son, Ekene and his grandkids who lives in one of the thriving cities in faraway Lagos. He had imagined it clearly: sitting under the evening stars, clearing his throat with a raspy cough, and recounting the ancient origins of the Igbo kingdom to his grandchildren while they listened in rapt attention, just as he had done with his own grandfather decades ago.
Reality, however, clicked on in high-definition even before he had a chance to settle down.
His grandchildren—Nnamdi and Chidimma—barely showed excitement when he entered arrived. They were mostly glued to a massive, paper-thin screen mounted on the living room wall.
“Papa, welcome,” his son, Ekene, said with a quick laugh, patting his father’s shoulder. “Don’t mind them. That is a Smart TV. No box like the one in your parlor.”
Evening came, and Papa Ekene settled onto one of the lush cushions in the living room, determined. That his moment of shine will not pass him by. As the children finally slumped on the rug, Papa Ekene cleared his throat loudly.
“Listen, my children,” he began, leaning forward, his voice taking on the solemn cadence of a village storyteller. “Let me tell you of the great rains of 1974, and how the spirits of the ancestors foretold the drought before it came—”
“Papa, rain isn’t coming tomorrow either,” eight-year-old Nnamdi interrupted, tapping a small glass rectangle in his palm, which in actual fact was his ipad tablet. “It’s going to be thirty-two degrees and sunny. Humidity is forty percent.”
Papa Ekene blinked, his brows furrowing. “Who told you this? The elders?”
“Google,” Chidimma chimed in without looking up from her own device—a flat, glowing object that Papa secretly thought looked like a pocket-sized television.
“Who is this Google?” Papa asked, his voice dropping into a cautious whisper. “Is he a chief in the city?”
“It’s not a person, Papa,” Nnamdi laughed, showing him the screen. “You just ask it anything, and it answers. Look.” Nnamdi pressed a tiny microphone icon. “Hey Google, when did the Nri Kingdom start?”
A crisp, polite female voice instantly echoed from the device: According to historical records, the Nri Kingdom in southeastern Nigeria was established around 900 AD by the divine figure Eri…
Papa shrank back into the sofa, his eyes wide. He watched as the children spent the next hour asking this invisible spirit about everything—from how to bake a cake to the direct road layout of Enugu town.
Silence fell over the room after the children went to bed, but Papa Ekene stayed awake, staring at Ekene’s extra “small TV”—the laptop resting on the dining table. He thought of Igwe’s shrine back home in the village. He thought of Chief Priest Okeke, who routinely demanded two fat cocks, a bottle of hot drink, and a whole goat just to give a vague prediction about the yam harvest—predictions that were wrong half the time anyway.
And this Google asks for no blood? No palm wine? Just a little electricity? Papa marveled. This is the most generous, accurate, and cheapest oracle in human history.
Two weeks later, when it was time to return to the village, Papa Ekene packed his bags carefully. Tucked securely inside one of them was Ekene’s old backup laptop, complete with a plugged-in internet dongle he had quietly begged his son to set up for him.
By the following month, word had spread across the village like wildfire.
Papa Ekene sat proudly beneath the breadfruit tree in his compound, wearing his traditional red cap and white singlet, a mercilessly chewed ‘chewing stick’ dangling with confidence in his mouth as he leaned over the glowing laptop screen perched beside his palm wine mug on the stool in front of him. A small line of villagers had already formed outside his gate, each holding a modest fee of 200 hundred naira.
“Papa, please,” the village chief hunter pleaded, stepping forward nervously. “We are planning for an all-night hunting trip in three days time. Will the forest be burdened with rain, or is there any sign it will rain?”
Papa tapped the keyboard with two slow, deliberate fingers, his face illuminated by the blue light of the screen. He leaned back, adjusting his spectacles with absolute authority.
“The Chief Oracle has spoken,” Papa announced, his voice echoing through the compound. “The forest will be clear, but expect light rain on the day after. What the gods of old could only see while standing on top of the mountain, a wise man with internet access can now see with just one click of a button.”
