When his eyes opened up, he met fresh sunlight hitting his face. He turned and looked around him – the leopard and the thicket were nowhere to be seen, and neither was the road. Then he heard low moans in the background. He thrust away the blanket covering him up to his neck, sat up and gazed around properly. Oh! He was on a bed, inside a lonely room. Was he dreaming or something?

He felt his head ache and a strong numbness hit his skin. So he laid himself back in the bed and covered himself tight with the blanket. Just then, a man showed up and sat beside his bed.

“Son, how’re you feeling?” the man greeted.

“My head – oh, it aches,” Odongo complained.

“You’ll be fine. You'll just be fine,” reassured the man.

“Who are you and where am I?”

Before the man could answer him, a woman dressed in a lab-coat and carrying a stethoscope entered the room and walked up to them.

“Mr. Okech.”

“Yes, Doctor. Did you find anything?”

“Sure. The boy has pneumonia and ulcers.”

Shocked by the revelation, Odongo sat up and took a good look at the woman. “Damn! Am I in a hospital?” he asked.

“Yes,” replied Mr. Okech and then to the doctor he asked, “Have you made some prescription?”

“Sure. Here.” She handed him a bottle and a packet of medicine.

“Okay. Thanks. Give us a moment then, please.”

The woman nodded and left. Mr. Okech sighed and returned to Odongo.

“Um... I know you have lots of questions, as I am too, and I'd be glad if we could fill each other in. My name’s Joseph Okech. I was driving down the road early this morning when I spotted you beside the road,” he explained. “I would not proceed with my journey and leave you dangling out there in the cold, half-dead. So I stopped and brought you in here.”

“Oooh, oh, I've remembered.Thank you, sir,” said Odongo, smiling thinly.

“Not at all. Would you, please? It's your turn. Just tell me who you are and what happened?”

“I'm Joseph Odongo. I ran away from home... from my cruel aunt. She lives on the other side of the forest. It was late night when I escaped. I remember being accompanied by a leopard and then..."

"What! A leopard?"

"Yes. Guess it was already gone by the time you found me then. It wasn't warry at all. We walked for hours and when we were out of the forest, we sat down and I helped it remove a wisp of bone stack between its teeth. Then... then I felt a cloud of darkness covering us and... and... that's all I can remember.”

“Oh, that was quite an ordeal. Do you have parents?”

“My mother disowned me when she found a new husband and my grandmother is d...”

“Wait, son. Disowned you, did you say?” The man seemed utterly mesmerised by what he had just heard.

“Yes. She said she didn’t want me to ever call her mum again.”

“Oooh! I'm really sorry. And... and your father?”

“I don’t know him yet. She refused to tell me?”

“Okay. Okay. We’ll help you stand on your feet, son. And then we'll also help you fill in the gaps about your background, sooner or later. How old are you and how far along are you with your studies?”

“I’m seventeen. I was forced to drop out of school in class five when my grandmother died and my aunt who took me in wouldn’t pay my school fee. She instead made me her kitchen worker and herds-boy.”

"M'h... that... that was inhuman. Well, would you really love to go back to school?”

“Yes, I’d very much love to, sir.”

“Alright. My wife and I will help you change your story.”

“I’d be so glad, sir. I’ve... I've faced quite a lot, but I knew the moon would one day shine in my darkness. I knew it! Oh my God, thank you. Thank you, sir. Huh." Odongo had become ecstatically emotional and his tears could be spotted.

“Don’t cry. You’ve landed on a safe haven. I’m a bishop and my wife Linda is a school principal. We will help you, as our own son.”

He was discharged from the hospital two days later and Mr. Okech and his wife organised his schooling matters. He bonded up with a new community of people at school and at the Okechs’ where believers flocked every day to seek material and spiritual help.

Then one evening, Imelda and Min Pilot showed up at the bishop’s house. Imelda, weak and woebegone, was holding a baby on her laps. At first, Odongo was shocked, then he vowed in his heart that, no matter what, he would not return to them.

The bishop and his wife were in the house at that moment. They welcomed the two and, after introductions, gave them a chance to make their plea.

“I’m sorry for how I treated you, my son. I was obsessed with my desire to overlook my past and to get married and start a family,” stated Imelda. “But it has left dents of darkness in my life. My husband is missing in action and my mother-in-law terribly ill.”

“Missing in action? What does that mean?” Odongo wondered aloud.

“He was a soldier. They were dispatched to a terror-struck zone in Somalia and he did not return home with the troop. He could be dead.”

“Oh, I’m sorry for your loss,” said Odongo. “But, mum, I beg you one more time; would you please tell me who my father is?”

“Your father... um...,” replied Imelda, hesitating. "I certainly knew this moment would come. Promise me you won't get mad at me or judge me wrongly, Odongo."

"I... okay, I promise. Just tell me who my father is. That's all I need to know for now."

“Well... I'm sorry to say this today... your father... your father is my late father,” she thrust it out with a cascade of tears. Everyone in the room lurched in shock.

“What, mum? What do you mean my father is your late father?”

“Well,” she went on amid more tears, “I’ve kept it a secret since it happened. Eighteen years ago, my deceased father assailed me in the bathroom and vitiated me. He warned me not to tell... not to tell anyone or else he’d kill me. The result of that rape was your birth. Since then, whenever I set my eyes on you, I was filled with great revulsion against you, against him and against my past. I have lived with this chagrin for eighteen years now. Please. Please forgive me for treating you the way I did. I have realised that you were born to be, and no matter what happened, no matter the process you followed to come to the world, dear, you’re loved by God, and by me, inasmuch as I tried to rebuff it. Odongo my son, I’m so sorry, baby.”

Odongo stood up quickly and rushed to his mother. He hugged her tightly and cried with deep pity and cognizance of situation. “I know. Oh, this must have been hard. I mean, this has been harder even for me," he said and then unfolded her. "But why, mum? Why didn't you just say it so he could own up his crime and suffer for it?"

"You don't understand it, son. I was trying to protect both of us. I was afraid that if I said anything, they would have us both killed according to traditions. We'd both be dead by now. Please forgive me. I'm sorry for disowning you and not showing up in you life. Please."

"Okay," Odongo said, wiping his tears and sitting down. "Calm down then. I've forgiven you, just because, no matter what happens, you're still my maternal mother and you know it." Then more tears came out openly as he went on, “Thank you for not allowing them to kill me. And... sorry for what grandfather did to you. I swear, had I known, I'd have killed him first. I wouldn't even find the guts to call him my father.”

“It’s okay, my son. I love you. I promise to stand with you henceforth.”

When they both stopped crying, Min Pilot looked at Odongo with eyes pleading for mercy and said, “I’m sorry. Please forgive me too, for... for treating you with severity. I have realised I was wrong. Helena refused to go to school since you went missing. Please come home with us.”

Odongo remained quiet for some time and then replied, “M'h... Helena did that for me? Okay, I’ll talk to her. But Auntie, there's nothing else left to forgive, I am fine now. You just stop being an evil woman, and teach my cousins to be respectful too. And, well, I wish to state this clearly, that I won’t be coming home with you till I finish my studies.”

“Please, my son, come home with us,” begged Imelda.

“I don't know whether you mean that or not, mum. Where were you all this while I suffered to now pop up today and tell me to come home? I have already stated my stance, but I’ll be visiting to check on your welfare. After you’re gone, I’ll come to speak with Helena, at my own will. She mustn’t do this.”

A brief moment of silence ensued. Then Mr. Okech cleared his throat and said, "The boy has spoken his mind. Mine is to politely ask that you leave him in our hands to finish his schooling as he has requested, and thereafter he'll be all yours."

A little silence ensued again before the bishop proceeded, "What I know is this, there's a fierce and horrible country in this world whose citizens are smashed down daily because, though they live with people in these so-called natural countries, it seems as if they've been set apart in that imaginary place. But one sure thing is that the people there are all loved by God. They could face horrid situations, but at long last, they live to see their future and to tell their testimonies. And this too you should know, mothers: shame and fear will come to an end, but a mother’s love towards her child will always haunt her to her grave. Serve the visitors some food, Linda.”

***
The End.

THIS STORY IS BASED ON A TRUE INCIDENT.

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Coming soon... "Sunshine" (a twisted-love story)

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