WE ARE ABLE [A TOUCHING STORY Episode 38 We began to live from hand to mouth for the rest of the year. My father and her illegal wife had sold most of the property—Television, Radio, Refridgerator, yet they couldn’t meet up. Now they began to appear religious, trying to attend vigils and other church services. However, Toyosi didn’t cease from going to herbalists to get solution, but they had none. December was drawing close, but we had nothing at home. Toyosi threatened to walk out of the relationship to wait for her husband’s return but John persuaded her to stay to take care of Bode with him for the moment. Toyosi would weep all alone sometimes. I wondered what actually was wrong with her. Did anything go wrong again? I would ponder. I thought all was getting better, but I never knew something had gone wrong between the illegal couple which I didn’t know. I intensified my asking for my mother, but I didn’t get any direct answer. Toyosi asked me to see my father concerning my mother’s issue. When I did, John didn’t reply me. I wondered how someone could be so stubborn. After all these ‘nine plagues of the Egyptians’ which had come upon him and his family (except me), this man still refused to let my mother go. Certainly my father is another Pharaoh in the making, I thought. It was soon going to be New Year day, yet there seemed to be nothing at home to use to do the New Year day. Bode was complaining vehemently. The evil hand of malnutrition seemed to have had much grip of him than any other person in the family. Bode’s once bulgy cheeks had shrunken so much. His neck had gone thin for lack of balanced diet and one might easily pass him for a kwashiorkor patience. The sicknesses which swept across the family, sparing me those times, really did much to their financial status. Toyosi expected a response from her husband in form of money, but she got nothing. The New Year gradually dragged in. It was all hunger-strike for us. If not for Mrs Omotayo who gave us some cooked food, we wouldn’t have had anything to eat throughout the New Year day. Toyosi humbly took the meal from her that day and shed tears. Bode shed tears too, asking his daddy why he didn’t perform his responsibility as a father to take care of the need of the family in the New Year. It was then John joined in the cry. I wanted to cry too, but all I had was laughter. My father was angry with me. He thought I was laughing at their calamity, so he ordered me out of the room. I clutched to my pen and then began to write something: NEW YEAR HUNGER Glancing at life sometimes You are left to wonder Is it worth living? Yes to some it is, Cos they have what it takes To make life worth living But to some it’s not, A capital NO, Cos to them it is but A moment spent in woes While some celebrate A New Year indeed, Others Celebrate A New Year of Hunger… I flipped back. I had written over fifty poems so far. I remembered how I begun those days; how Toyosi tore my first sets of poems. But I wrote them again and she didn’t get to know. If only I knew where that Judimax was, I would take my manuscript to them and get published. It would be a dream come true. I would make the whole world ask Toyosi and my father where exactly they kept my mother; six feet under the earth or where else? I remembered my mother again. My patience was no more in place. It was already more than a year since she was jailed for no reason at all. Something made me think of committing patricide. I was going to thrust a knife through my father’s belly at the dead of the night and end it all at once. I wouldn’t be without my mother all day. It would be better to kill my father and then get killed in return than to allow this sinner go scot-free. I went to bed, waiting for my father to sleep as well. I was going to rise up and walk straight to his room to do the job, I thought. I got up from bed and reached for a knife close by, a kitchen knife. I began to walk stealthily to his room. Toyosi left the door ajar. I didn’t care where she was. I opened the door gently and found my father dozing on the bed. I walked straight to him and lowered the knife into his body with all my strength. I watched him grope for death. Now I needed to escape into the night, never to be seen again, but then Toyosi appeared at the door and screamed! I knew she screamed. going by the raised muscles on her neck. I woke up from my nightmare. So it was a dream, I sighed. How on earth would I have killed my own father? Goodnight all
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 20:04:47 +0000
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