“ good women are
rare like gold, their hearts beautiful like diamond and their strength as hard
as steel…but when provoked they move like the whirl wind……and their breathe
tastes like fire and they burn and destroy slowly till their enemy is like
ashes…… then they blow them away”
Life is like the
Halloween with too many people doing what they always wanted to do in covered
faces. A lot others doing what they hope to do in the near future. The rest are
just enjoying what it feels to be someone else for those few hours. Then with
time everyone goes back to what they have always been. Halloween is the best
way to describe fear. When small boys choose to be batman or little girls
choose to be Cinderella, they always hope that someone would be the enemy.
Batman hopes he can have a few people dressed up like complete horror so that
he can carry the day that he prevented them from spoiling the Halloween party.
Cinderella on the other hand lives with the hope that the prince, her evil
sisters and their mother would be at the party to see how the prince finds out
the shoe is hers and then get the chance to dance with the prince throughout
the party.
“Where is the
laptop?” he shouted
“Please don’t do
anything to her,” he begged…..i curled up in my bed listening to every word and
every cry of my own father. I kept praying that nothing happens to him. I had
never prayed that heartily for my own father. This night I felt how he needed
me. I felt how I could do nothing to help him. Then I heard the door to my room
pushed and opened….they whispered and threw things left and right. They shone
the torch so bright at me I almost gave in.
“Young girl wake
up”…..i stretched from my bed as if I had been sleeping. “Where is the phone?”
“Hmmmm” I
pretended as if I had not heard anything
“The phone,
bring it…where is it….” This time he was clear
I shoved my hand
below the pillows and got out my phone. My whole life was frozen. My tear
glands totally dry and my tongue so tied like it were glued with gelatin.
“…….and where is the money?” that question rang in my ears like torrents of
water. I began to throw clothes around and about searching for what I wasn’t
even sure about its where about. The guy kept threatening to kill me if I
didn’t give him money. I couldn’t even cry I just kept looking for anything
that looked like my bag. I cannot remember for how long I looked for the bag
but I remember being shoved against the wall and being told to remain mum.
“Take off your
clothes……..” I wasn’t sure I had heard what he had just asked me to do so I
paused for a few moments. Then he said it louder, ‘’stop playing your little
pranks with me and get those trouser down or I will do it myself!’’
I was not sure what was at stake. Was it my
life because he kept pushing the long sharp spear like weapon towards my
private part? Or was it my health because I feared for the events that would
transpire between me and him that morning. I could feel my heart beating so
fast. I wasn’t even sure if it was my father’s life that I was willing to save
at this particular point. I slowly pulled the pants down while moving towards
the wall in uttermost fear. He grabbed me by the leg and pulled me closer. Then
he flew the legs apart and shone the torch between my legs. It felt cold. It
felt like a dead end. He slowly passed his fingers up and down, opening the
vagina from time to time and smacking his hands with saliva and passing his
fingers over again. My brain was empty, my heart was doing over a million beats
in one second and blood in my veins froze, paving way for the sweat glands to
open up and trickle down my face and my armpits. The temperatures in the room
were too high for me to contain.
Then he placed his fingers and rolled them
inside me. I have never been so taken a back in my life. I squeezed my legs together.
He picked the sharp weapon and charged it at me. I obliged and opened my legs
wide.
“Have you ever
been fucked?” he asked. This came like a boomerang. At that moment I didn’t
know how the answer to that question would affect the events that would follow.
I didn’t even know the answer to that question. Before I could formulate a
clear strategy that would cover up for the other question, he went ahead, “are
you married?”
‘’yes,’’ I
responded without thinking. I only hoped it covered up for the previous
question
‘’where is your
husband?’’ he continued
‘’in the
village,’’ I swear I almost laughed at this one response. Which husband of mine
was in the village and when did I get married?
The never ending
questions increased the time for torturing and I was beginning to feel worked
up. The next question was both a question of relief and grief.
“Do you have any sickness?
i stared at my
dressing table and saw the last pills of medicine that I had taken probably
months back and I responded that I was undergoing medication for I was
diagnosed with syphilis a few years ago.
‘’get off that
bed…we are going to your fathers room. You will pass that sickness to him’’ I
remained mute and selfless. He grabbed me by the arm and shoved me into my
father’s bed…..naked! I have never been so traumatized. I felt like I could see
father in the dark. He seemed to be disappointed at himself for not being able
to rescue me from the entire trauma. They had pushed him at one corner of the
bed and covered him with a blanket and asked him to remain silent. The turn
that the event was taking was too much for my nerves.
‘’mzee take off
your pants!’’
Before father
could do anything, he pulled fathers trousers and asked him to lie with me. I
wished for the ground to open up and take the whole of me. Wasn’t there even an
inch of humanity in this people? Was it not enough that they had taken the
little possessions that we had? Were they not feeling anything for the
powerless creature that I was before them? They blamed my father for being
learned because of a graduation photo they had seen. Wasn’t the government now
giving free education? Were the neighbors not hearing anything that was going
on? I could not explain the string of questions that jammed my already heat
soaked brain. Father pleaded with them till they obliged. They called him names
in my ears…..spited him in my eyes and made fun of him in his own house. All
this time I wasn’t talking. I watched with dry tear glands as my father went on
his knees and pleaded that they take all they can and just spare us the agony.
He asked them to spare us the shame that would be a burden for life. While he
talked he covered me with a blanket and whispered to me, “All would be well”.
Then there was a loud bang! It sounded something a gunshot and you could feel
it in your ears. I don’t remember what happened I could only see father laying
on the ground writhing with pain. Then I saw how blood spurted out of his left
side like a leaking pot….in my hands I watched as he struggled to keep his breathe.
“Father don’t go!
Don’t go…”tears gagged my speech. He was not responding. “Father!” I shook him
harder….then even harder…then consistently….then I saw how he slowly rested in
my arms.
“Faaaaatttthhheeeeeeerrrrrr!”
“Adina!” I woke
up with a start to a crowd and in Christa’s arms. Tears filled my face and I
realized I was tightly holding my father’s picture frame. I couldn’t say a
word. Christa managed to send them away till it was only us in the office. She
hurriedly gave me some water to drink and helped me to the chair by the coffee
table.
“How long did it
go?” I manage to ask
“Are you serious? You startled the whole building then
you wake up and ask me how long it went? Huh without even telling me what’s
wrong with you in the first place?” Christa responds rather shocked at my
strange behaviors. This isn’t the first time she has come in handy to help me
up from my deep nightmares. I wonder what will become of me when I am alone in
a supermarket or in the church or driving along the streets. I don’t even want
to think the whole world would stop to stare at me including the people who
murdered my father in cold blood. Well, I don’t even want to think of what will
happen. I have never really figured out what was worse, getting raped by these
men or losing my father? Either way someone was going to pay for both. They say
revenge is the best medicine. Well I say a stitch in time saves nine. I don’t
care who is holding the needle and stitching who or what but I hope when the
nine are saved then I should be one of them. As for Christa, this is not the
right time to worry her about what is really happening with me. Am hoping she
can figure that out by herself soon. Halloween just started in my country and
am going be many characters at once........ to be continued
