First published in 2019 by Oberon Books Ltd
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The 14 Tale Inua Ellams, 2009;
Untitled Inua Ellams, 2010;
Knight Watch Inua Ellams, 2012;
Black T-Shirt Collection Inua Ellams, 2012.
Inua Ellams is hereby identified as author of these plays in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The author has asserted his moral rights.
All rights whatsoever in this play are strictly reserved and application for performance etc. should be made before commencement of rehearsal to The Agency, 24 Pottery Lane, Holland Park, London W11 4LZ (). No performance may be given unless a licence has been obtained, and no alterations may be made in the title or the text of the play without the authors prior written consent.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or binding or by any means (print, electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
PB ISBN: 9781786828200
E ISBN: 9781786828200
Cover image: Inua Ellams
Printed and bound by 4EDGE Limited, Hockley, Essex, UK.
eBook conversion by Lapiz Digital Services, India.
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Printed on FSC accredited paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The 14th Tale was first performed at Battersea Arts Centre on 31st of July 2008 performed by Inua Ellams.
Directed by Thierry Lawson
Lighting by Michael Nabarro
The play is set in a hospital waiting room and is told with flashbacks. The stage is sparse save for a chair on the far right corner. The performer wears a t-shirt and trousers splattered round the torso and pocket with red liquid giving the impression of blood.
Part 1 //
// HOSPITAL
The light that limps across the hospital floor is as tired as I feel; it is the pale green of nausea the shade that rises slowly, pushes upwards and out. I want to burst, out, through, past the sliding doors to the windy wet night, wind my way to the kind of corners I am used to, the kind of troubles I know and climb my way out. But I still myself, swallow till the light shallows, count five, four, three, two, one
/ x /
Im from a long line of trouble makers.
Of ash-skinned Africans, born with clenched fists and a natural thirst for battle, only quenched by breast milk. Theyd suckle as if the white silk sliding between gums were liquid peace treaties written from mums. Their small thumbs would dimple the soft mounds of brown flesh, goose-pimple chests till the ceasefire of sleep would creep into eyes, theyd keep till the moon set and wake twice hungry, twice vexed, raring to go. My grandfather, six years old, tough and scatterbrained as all boys would be, once in a gathering of tribes, crawled under tables past the feet of tribal chiefs, surfaced by the serving dishes cupped his hands together, began shovelling the special treat of fried moose meat into his mouth.
When the cry of thief! thief! rang out, he turned, wondering who had such audacity to find an angry line of village cooks coming his way. With his face still stained with the spiced juice of diced moose, he grabbed another handful and fled into the dark woods chased by siblings, pets and abuse.
They say he ran so fast, the ground gasped, forgot to take footprints; they lost him in the fields.
But the story never left memory, was told around campfires and followed his son (my father) to secondary school where a campus-wide trend of long nicknames was maximised by a senior boy who thumbed through a textbooks index, added Periplaneta Americana, the most elaborate he could find, to Nevada his old title and swaggered through halls slapping younger boys for mispronouncing the name.
Once, from a crowd gathered at lunch, Periplaneta Americana Nevada struck six boys till father, rebelling against seniority, revealed the title was Latin for desert cockroach! The crowd laughed as Nevada chased my father who tripped him through a thorn bush and the long line of trouble makers meets me: inheritor of fast feet and fathers contempt for authority, who, try as I might to break the line, have battled adults, been chased through schools and have climbed out more windows than burglars do. I wonder which story will reach my son and wonder more what he will do.
/ x /
It started in the hot dusty clay streets of Plateau State, Nigeria. They say I successfully conned the doctors into thinking I was the only one; my first trick was hiding my twin sister for eight months and two weeks till the shoddy equipment finally picked up her heartbeat: I climbed into the world already in trouble!
By seven, I was a small, sweet-smiled pretty boy who terrorised lizards lazing under constant suns, had a confidence that conspired to get me caned least once a day. But I escape one Sunday, when the church choirs out In the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, I have a victory Their voices rise like glorified sound clouds, filter through the daylight -dyed halls to the Sunday school back-room stifled with kids, filter to the teachers who hum along before asking:
Oya, Oya children, did you do your homework?
Did you read the chapter that I asked you to?
Did you read your Bible? Oya, Inua, go to the front
of the class and tell us how Moses got water from the Rock.
I hadnt done the work: between Home Alone reruns, tournaments of table soccer, chasing lizards and teaching the neighbours dog new tricks, I hadnt touched a Bible that week, so I slouched to the front of the class thinking wildly and chose to improvise...
Ahh teacher you know Eh, Moses got water from the tap.
Is that so Inua?
Yes Aunty, where else?
How is that possible eh? When there werent any pipes?
Erm he he had an elephant!
Searching frantic for something, anything to help, I spied a small piece of clockwork glinting on the classroom floor. I picked it up and inspiration, like a white light blazed across my mind. I bit my lip and went with it
erm yes, he had an elephant -underground- and he carved an intricate system of clockworks, of cogs and wheels and vices around the Elephant. Yes, and when he turned the tap, it turned the cogs, turned the wheels and tightened the vices around the Elephants brokotus and he trumpeted out in pain, pushing water through his trunk, through the tap and into the ground! Yes er no? no?
