Tell A Story

It was a very bright morning. I was walking down the street when I saw people all gathered at a spot, on the other side of the road.  They all focused their gaze on something. What could that be? I asked myself. I knew it must be something bad. I was going to satisfy my curiosity. I looked left, right and left before crossing to the other side to see what was happening.

Her earrings glistened silver in the moonlight, though they were made of a mixture of silver and gold; she was beautiful and her eyes gleamed with intelligence. She was dressed in a knee length scarlet red dress that belied her calm looks. 

Abu paced up and down the living room, thinking again about how he was going to confront his wife about the matter on his mind. He had been putting it off for a while, but the repeated jests of his friends were beginning to wear thin, and he decided that now was the time to deal with issue once and for all. He remembered when he first met Halima at university. What had immediately impressed him about her was how smart and confident he was. He had noticed how during their lectures, she would politely but firmly ask questions which would tease apart some point that the lecturer had made, and which would create a lively discussion. But he wasn’t quite sure whether she would think that he was in her league. “Abeg, go for it, jo”, Sammy, his waggish friend said. Sammy operated on a ‘take-no-prisoners’ principle, so it was just the advice Abu would have expected of him. “But Sammy, she’s different from the other girls I’ve liked in the past. What if she’s not interested in me because ...

“Do you not care at all about your life, Victoria?” *** Somewhere close, a bell jingled. The richness of this sound filled my ears and wrapped me in a tingling cloak. To everyone else, the bell only served to usher in eight hours of sitting down, watching men and woman flaunt their expertise. But to me, the ringing bell meant much more. It officially announced eight hours of undisturbed freedom.

I clearly heard the sharp light knocks on the wooden door to our flat. “Who could it be at this time of the night, we were not expecting my uncle who usually comes very late and only returns on Friday night due to his bank work” as I pondered Granny who seemed unworried about someone knocking our door as late as 8:13pm said “won’t you go and check who is knocking?” I lifted myself away from the two-sitter couch on which I had laid and sluggishly approached the door, unlocked it and found Dennis standing. Dennis was my friend in the neighborhood, he lives two houses away from mine.

Sweat trickled down my face, blurring my vision. The indistinct image of a teammate bounced on the balls of her feet and waved to catch my attention. But I had no intent to pass the ball. I would claim the goal, and I’d be proud to have added one more goal to my collection. Feigning ignorance at my teammates hinting for the ball, I shot ahead. 

It was cosy. Death was cosy. She loved the feeling she was having. At that point, nothing felt sweet any more. Nothing felt bad as well. Everything felt numb. She needed to feel something and that thing must be death. Her body should soon start jerking and her lungs should soon start hurting her due to lack of oxygen. She wasn’t even thinking of herJunior in school that just got admission into Babcock University. She could only enjoy the taste of death. The fragrance and coldness it emitted was strong enough to hold her still.

Darkness around, silent voices I heard, took me minutes before I could figure out I had to open my eyes and see that the sun was still shining bright in the centre of the sky, I could feel serious pains around my head, I turned sideways and my eyes was directly facing his black dirty boots, I tried to look up at his face but I couldn’t, I tried raising up from the sandy ground but still I couldn’t, I began to think I had become paralyzed but I could still feel my legs connected to the rest of my body, so I summoned the highest amount of energy I could to aid myself up and this time I was about getting fully up when suddenly he kicked me back to the ground with his heavy boots. I felt more pain in my rib bone, my eyes opened and I saw his face. It was Kelly, standing and looking very ferocious. 

Her heart was thumping against her chest so loudly she was surprised none of the bridesmaids or the other women could hear the sound. She looked at the excited faces of the people milling around her and swallowed resignedly, they didn’t understand her plight; none of them knew of her grief.