They say he was born during a famine.
The rivers had receded. The markets had emptied. Even the gods had grown silent, unwilling to answer prayers shouted with dry tongues. The earth was cracked and angry, and the skies held back the mercy of rain.
Amidst this unforgiving stillness, a boy was born. His arrival was marked not by celebration, but by quiet wonder—his first breath steaming in the cold air, his tiny hands smelling faintly of herbs, as if the earth itself had breathed life into him.
His name was Kọ́láyọ̀mí.
But no one called him that for long.
By the time he was seven, the villagers whispered another name for him: Oniọ̀ṣẹ̀, the Soapmaker.
The First Soap
Kọ́láyọ̀mí's earliest memories were of ash and rainwater.
He would slip away from the hunger-thinned kitchens, past the deserted fields, and into the shadowed forests where wildflowers still dared to bloom. He gathered petals—hibiscus, lotus, neem—grinding them slowly between river-worn stones, mixing them with palm ash and clear rainwater collected from the broad leaves above.
His first soaps were crude and fragile, rough shapes that barely held together. They cracked and crumbled, their colors uneven and dull. The village children mocked them, and some of the elders scoffed.
But when Kọ́láyọ̀mí handed one to a woman with a burned hand, something shifted.
The pain softened. The red faded like smoke on the wind.
The woman's eyes filled with tears—not of sorrow, but of relief.
Word spread slowly at first, whispered like a sacred secret:
The boy with the soap.
The one whose hands could calm fire.
The Dream Woman
No one taught Kọ́láyọ̀mí the secrets of soapmaking.
He said the formulas came to him in dreams, spoken by a woman whose face flickered like candlelight—soft and elusive, crowned in smoke.
At night, he would wake with the taste of ash on his tongue and the echo of her voice murmuring:
"Mix the earth with water. Find the scent of forgetting. Let the balm flow like the river—steady, endless."
Sometimes, he would try to speak her name, but the words dissolved into silence.
This dream woman became his guide and his mystery, a spirit bound to the art that saved lives in a land hollowed by famine.
When the Fever Came
Then the fever swept the region.
It was merciless.
The sick burned hot, bodies wracked with chills, breath shallow and ragged. Mothers wailed beside motionless children. The herbalists, despite their wisdom and desperate prayers, could not stop it. Roots and leaves failed. Incantations fell on deaf skies.
Kọ́láyọ̀mí worked quietly.
Boiling water over fire, mixing ash and petals, he soaked cloths in his brews. At night, when the fever was fiercest, he pressed the wet cloths against chests and foreheads.
One by one, the dying gasped and woke.
One man, thought lost to the fever, opened his eyes and whispered the name of his mother—long dead but remembered.
The village's hope stirred.
The Soapmaker was no longer just a boy with strange soaps.
The Endless Boy
The years rolled on.
Elders who had doubted the boy's power grew old and passed. Apprentices came and went, learning from the Soapmaker's quiet patience.
But Kọ́láyọ̀mí did not age.
The face that had held wonder at seven remained smooth and unlined. His eyes were deep pools, still reflecting centuries of sorrow and healing.
Whispers turned into suspicion.
At first, they called it a blessing. "The gods have favored him," they said.
But after thirty years, when the boy still looked like a child, others asked darker questions.
"Is he a spirit? A curse? A ghost?"
The King's Test
One day, a powerful king summoned Kọ́láyọ̀mí to his court.
He demanded the Soapmaker craft something new: soaps to blind enemies, to poison their skin, to sow chaos.
But Kọ́láyọ̀mí refused.
"I do not make soap to kill," he said simply. "Only to remember what living feels like."
Enraged, the king imprisoned him for forty days and nights, hoping the boy's mystery would break.
But on the forty-first day, the cell was empty.
All that remained was a single bar of soap, glowing faintly with an unseen light.
When the king touched it, tears flowed freely. He wept for his mother, for all the wrongs he had committed, for love long lost.
He released all his prisoners that day.
The Wandering Healer
The Soapmaker became a legend in every town and village he visited.
He never stayed more than a season.
Wherever he went, he left behind small bowls of scented ash, bars of soap, and stories whispered on the wind.
Children claimed they dreamed in color for the first time after touching his soaps.
Women whispered of grief evaporating like mist.
And always, Kọ́láyọ̀mí washed his hands slowly, as if the world's sorrows stuck there.
The Secret of Immortality
No one saw him die.
No grave was ever dug.
No bones claimed.
Some say the Soapmaker could not die.
Not because he was cursed.
Not because he was blessed.
But because he gave.
Every day, he poured himself out like water from a calabash, soaking up grief, pain, and longing—and washing it away.
He once said:
"When you give enough, death forgets you. Not forever, but long enough for you to finish your work."
The Saying
In Ayepegba, there is an old saying carved into the gate of the spirit bath:
"Ẹni tó bá fọ̀ mí mọ́, kì í kú bí ẹlòmíràn."
He who washes others does not die like others do.
The Last Gift
Not long before Iyi's final ritual, a blind man appeared in the village.
He carried a wooden box filled with soaps wrapped in banana leaves.
He said nothing.
He left just one bar on the herbalist's stall.
Tunde opened it the next morning.
The scent was unlike any other—like rain before sorrow, fire after prayer, and the first breath of a newborn mingled with ash.
There was no note.
Only a single imprint on the soap's underside:
Kọ́láyọ̀mí.
The Soapmaker.
The one who couldn't die.
Reflections on the Soapmaker's Journey
Kọ́láyọ̀mí's story is more than legend.
It is a lesson in giving.
In living fully by pouring out your spirit without fear of emptiness.
It reminds us that sometimes, immortality is not about defying death—it is about the lasting impact of what we leave behind when we serve others with all our heart.
Final Whisper
Some say Kọ́láyọ̀mí finally turned to mist, becoming scent itself—present in every healing balm, every sacred sponge, every soap pressed into a wounded hand.
And when you wash your hands tonight, feeling the suds and the warmth, remember:
Some spirits live not in bones or graves, but in the quiet acts of care we offer one another every day.