"Hmm" He sighs. They're smiling so he's smiling and watching them but when you look into his eyes, you can see that he's looking way past them. A peep into his mind and you'll see his destination is the past, his past.
He's seeing how he pounded ten cups of dry pepper, yes, with a mortar and pestle. He's seeing how he knelt on gravel under the hot Saturday sun waiting to be flogged with that twisted wire because he went to play football with his ten year old mates and forgot to keep drinking water on her bedside table.
See, he wasn't always this handsome so he used to walk far away from her when she took him to the market and of course he didn't expect her to carry that heavy sack-bag. One day, he forgot the market list so he had to walk back to Atimbo to get it, then he got the beating of his life–actually, one of them–later that night.
He couldn't forget that very day she introduced her new favourite adjective of him–pig–in front of obongawan and mmakamba, because he couldn't scrub the collar of his shirt due to his broken knuckles–the ones he used to wash the carpet the previous day. She killed his love life before it even begun–for he had a crush on obongawan and mmakamba knew about it.
He thought and still couldn't understand why she gathered his mates each time he was about to wash his wee wee clothes. He used to call her mummy because she told him to. But now he knows better and does not want to anymore but old habits die hard.
Now, it's seventeen years later. He's now a man. He knows better now. He can think for himself and is doing just that. Sitting there, calculating how best to disentangle himself from this web of family but keep the familiarity so he doesn't seem ungrateful for the plate of eba and bitter leaf soup he had been served the day his childhood died. Now he wishes he had had kolanut instead–both were bitter anyway. Today he's being asked if he will rather have noodles and egg and he wondered at the irony of it–the attempt at petting him. Laughing on the inside, he refused it because it came too late just like this title of "our son" that came with this fame.
Oh! How he longed to not belong. Now he even desires to be the outcast, he is too damaged to be close to anyone. His friends' parents saw him as very bad company, his school teachers tagged him "the most stubborn kid" and even his Sunday school teachers gave him the role of Satan's last born in all of their drama presentations. And parents – or should we say adults– are always right.
It wasn't his choice to be here, but those two conniving pain givers –Death, which took his father and LIFE, which brought him misfortunes –tossed him here. He longed to have some control over his life. He was tired of being the victim. His male instinct will not let him remain at the receiving end all of the time, so he took many a virginity. A woman caused this so a woman had to atone. What bigger sacrifice will appease him except blood, pure blood?
His fine face was the trap, his sweet tongue, bait. They kept falling in their numbers, until he was interrupted. She sent a mail. He received it, he didn't want to, he couldn't trust again but this one held the freedom he had been waiting for. Now he has to keep his home tidy, and so far he's doing great. That's why he came here to return all he was given. He needs all the space he can find, so when healing comes, she can have as much room as she desires.
Par:Martha Osim
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