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Sleeping seed
Mama!
I called out as I entered the dim room with and orange hue radiating from the little lamp on the table where my mum sat. She looked up from the book she always read, her hope book, as she always calls it. "I'm pregnant and the father of my child is in prison for burgling "were the thoughts that danced round my teeth. How do I tell my mother this?.
We came to River State from Kastina with the hope of finding real life. The life we lived in our previous place wasn't one to call a life. With my hands in my mouth still suckling, I could fathom all the horror my mom was made to go through in the hands of her masters. My mom was raped, batered, bruised in all form just so she could provide for herself and the little girl she had from one of her rape incidents. When I turned 10, the eyes of the predators were already turning to my direction and my mama wouldn't have that.
Coming all the way to Port Harcourt, a city in Rivers State was only because of my mums prayers, work, blood and tears. I was old enough to join in the suffering, I suffered too, but I watched my mom suffer the most, because she wanted me to have all she couldn't have. Education, hope, and a life better than this. She fried akara, a snack made from grinded beans and she sold it every morning and evening. In the afternoon, she worked in a construction site, lifting pans of sand or carrying blocks of cement.
With time, we could afford a comfortable batcher. A house made from woods and stollen banners from billboards. I could also afford good clothing, atleast the type that had lesser holes in them. 16 years old now. The perks on my chest now obvious, my curves more round than they used to be. I could hear the whistle of my admirers as I walk past with my bucket of hot puff puf I usually sell after school.
Oh, school.... school wasn't bad, neither was it good. My grades were promising, when my mom looked at my results, she didn't understand much but wasn't happy when she saw the red pen in my report card. I tried to avoid those, but I still wasn't the best.
I was in senior secondary school, class two, Ss2 as it was normally called, when a new boy came to our school. Mujib.
Mujib wasn't the finest boy or anything, but he had a body every girl wanted. And so, the whole females in the school was in a rampage to be in Mujib's good book.
On a Saturday evening, strolling back from my evening sales of hot puff puff, I saw the familar statue heading towards my direction.
Taslima!! he called out to me, I pretended I couldn't hear, but the sway in my hips became harder in effort to make my bum jiggle as I entered a bend leading to my house. "Taslima, I dey calll you now" he said in pigin English, the language of the"cool kids" . I stopped and looked back acting surprised. "Oh Senior Mujib, good afternoon" . "Oh don't call me that, you can call me Jib". A foolish name I thought was cute. " Oh" , I tried to hide the blush to no avail, okay I said, fondling with the hand of my bucket and praying my mum doesn't see me with a boy on the road. "You too fine Taslima, I go like make you friend me". " Ah Senior no, I can't," I tried putting up a weak fight so I wouldn't seem desperate, wondering to myself where I learnt that trick. Taslima! no dey form, no dey do shakara for me. "You're look like a queen and would love to make you mine". Those words were the start to a game of foolishness we called love. The day when he unbuttoned my shirt behind a class in school and held my plumps in his hands was the beginning of the dance of nature we always found a way of dancing. My soft cries and his ruffled groans planted a seed in me I discovered three months after the absence of my womanly blood. During our love play, I discovered Mujib came from Ogun state to join his uncle in his dark business empire, and the boy was a man in the underworld. The pest one day walks into the trap of the farmers, that was the case of my lover. He went for a heist and was hoisted by the higher ups. Myself a sixteen year old with a seed growing inside, stood in front of a woman, looking at the pale figure with the shriveled hands placing her hope book down, a book written in her native language.
"What is it Taslima, what do you need" . she asked with concern in her eyes.
" Nothing mummy, I'm going to sleep, I just wanted to tell you". " Okay, sleep well" she said.
As I turned my back, I stifled the cry that wanted to burst open. "I'm going to sleep" were the last words my mother would hear from me, her baby she suffered so much for. I chose to end me, rather than watch the dreams she nutured of me end, because of my foolishness. Me and my little seed would sleep tonight, I thought as I slipped the little white object in my mouth.
© Faith Daniel
I called out as I entered the dim room with and orange hue radiating from the little lamp on the table where my mum sat. She looked up from the book she always read, her hope book, as she always calls it. "I'm pregnant and the father of my child is in prison for burgling "were the thoughts that danced round my teeth. How do I tell my mother this?.
We came to River State from Kastina with the hope of finding real life. The life we lived in our previous place wasn't one to call a life. With my hands in my mouth still suckling, I could fathom all the horror my mom was made to go through in the hands of her masters. My mom was raped, batered, bruised in all form just so she could provide for herself and the little girl she had from one of her rape incidents. When I turned 10, the eyes of the predators were already turning to my direction and my mama wouldn't have that.
Coming all the way to Port Harcourt, a city in Rivers State was only because of my mums prayers, work, blood and tears. I was old enough to join in the suffering, I suffered too, but I watched my mom suffer the most, because she wanted me to have all she couldn't have. Education, hope, and a life better than this. She fried akara, a snack made from grinded beans and she sold it every morning and evening. In the afternoon, she worked in a construction site, lifting pans of sand or carrying blocks of cement.
With time, we could afford a comfortable batcher. A house made from woods and stollen banners from billboards. I could also afford good clothing, atleast the type that had lesser holes in them. 16 years old now. The perks on my chest now obvious, my curves more round than they used to be. I could hear the whistle of my admirers as I walk past with my bucket of hot puff puf I usually sell after school.
Oh, school.... school wasn't bad, neither was it good. My grades were promising, when my mom looked at my results, she didn't understand much but wasn't happy when she saw the red pen in my report card. I tried to avoid those, but I still wasn't the best.
I was in senior secondary school, class two, Ss2 as it was normally called, when a new boy came to our school. Mujib.
Mujib wasn't the finest boy or anything, but he had a body every girl wanted. And so, the whole females in the school was in a rampage to be in Mujib's good book.
On a Saturday evening, strolling back from my evening sales of hot puff puff, I saw the familar statue heading towards my direction.
Taslima!! he called out to me, I pretended I couldn't hear, but the sway in my hips became harder in effort to make my bum jiggle as I entered a bend leading to my house. "Taslima, I dey calll you now" he said in pigin English, the language of the"cool kids" . I stopped and looked back acting surprised. "Oh Senior Mujib, good afternoon" . "Oh don't call me that, you can call me Jib". A foolish name I thought was cute. " Oh" , I tried to hide the blush to no avail, okay I said, fondling with the hand of my bucket and praying my mum doesn't see me with a boy on the road. "You too fine Taslima, I go like make you friend me". " Ah Senior no, I can't," I tried putting up a weak fight so I wouldn't seem desperate, wondering to myself where I learnt that trick. Taslima! no dey form, no dey do shakara for me. "You're look like a queen and would love to make you mine". Those words were the start to a game of foolishness we called love. The day when he unbuttoned my shirt behind a class in school and held my plumps in his hands was the beginning of the dance of nature we always found a way of dancing. My soft cries and his ruffled groans planted a seed in me I discovered three months after the absence of my womanly blood. During our love play, I discovered Mujib came from Ogun state to join his uncle in his dark business empire, and the boy was a man in the underworld. The pest one day walks into the trap of the farmers, that was the case of my lover. He went for a heist and was hoisted by the higher ups. Myself a sixteen year old with a seed growing inside, stood in front of a woman, looking at the pale figure with the shriveled hands placing her hope book down, a book written in her native language.
"What is it Taslima, what do you need" . she asked with concern in her eyes.
" Nothing mummy, I'm going to sleep, I just wanted to tell you". " Okay, sleep well" she said.
As I turned my back, I stifled the cry that wanted to burst open. "I'm going to sleep" were the last words my mother would hear from me, her baby she suffered so much for. I chose to end me, rather than watch the dreams she nutured of me end, because of my foolishness. Me and my little seed would sleep tonight, I thought as I slipped the little white object in my mouth.
© Faith Daniel
