Heeeey, Sarah, come here!.
These are the four words that my mother could utter and I shrink to nothingness. Of course my name is there, and it's not just a word, but the stress and intonation with which it came forth from my mother's mouth indicated more trouble. I may not have done something unseemly, but over the years, I have learnt to relate the words with immense displeasure becoming of an irritated Mom.

And so this particular day, when I heard a hush sound from the kitchen as of someone who was about to open her mouth, I was right there pleading my case. It is not the first time that this is happening to me, and at some point my mother had to take me to hospital to be checked out and seen whether I was normal or some funny disease like schizophrenia was creeping up on me. I did not resist her decision although deep inside me I knew the reason to my behavior, and what's funny I had predicted what the doctors will diagnose me of, but either way we went. If you have been through this stage, at least I am going to believe that you have learnt alot, or the world has taught you a token of what you ought to know, but you see, the world is not your guardian, it can barely babyproof its vices from you because still, it wants you to taste of its good, and yet have an equal share of its baddest so as you learn by yourself and perhaps decide whether you are going to be its follower because we know that she, who is not by the mother taught, will find correction in the world's own routine. But this was not the case with me, I was well bred if I can say it, I was really purely well bred, in a family of pious, zealous parents.

Being the second born in a family of six, I had cultivated a spirit of rebellion, which was not a good one at all even to my health of mind because once you have a conscience sound enough to convict you of the wrongs and rights, you grieve your personality so much when you seem to be righting wrongs and vice versa. What made it altogether worse is the fact that, none among my siblings seemed to hold such an objectionable trait in our family, and this sometimes made me feel like they were all against me, but either way I rejoiced at the fact that I was being unique and "industrious".

Teenage years can be detrimental to ones character and behavior if unwisely spent. And that is exactly what I was doing, and I knew it. Let no one lie to you that they do what they are doing now because they don't know what they are doing, no, that would be a big lie. I engaged in demoralizing acts in my teenagehood because I felt like I just had to, in order to fit into "class" with those who labelled themselves "bad girls". And because they (referring to my company of girls) were from rich and renown families, I just couldn't resist the urge to get acquainted with them, not because they were attractive from the looks, but because everytime we met, they had lots and lots of things to showcase most of which were destructive but appealing to the eye.

So, this particular day, we had spent hours and hours of the day day- dreaming and castle building while smoking and puffing out the smoke from our cigars with a little bit of ease, trying to forget our stately desperate need for a saviour who would loose us from the chains and bounds of the deep self-made precipice that we had tolerated for so long. From the sombre mood and dull atmosphere that our meeting had assumed, it was very evident that each and everyone of us had been convicted of her sins. I was not sure whether I too was convicted, but I remember that I also maintained a pale disposition that led to my cheeks drooping like those of a sick chick that had had its feathers plucked out while trying to fight a cock.

Over the past four years that I had been smoking, my mother had got no hint of them, not even the slightest rumour that I am spoiling bit by bit. I was and still am a very good Pharisee well known at faking countenances for different occasions. My troupe knows that and so whenever we find ourselves in trouble at school, they put me in the rear such that I am able to plead for myself and them so as we escape trouble and I am flourishing in that field. Never mind that. I am not even proud of it. This particular day I was never going to employ my survival tactics to escape the scene of crime. My mother had found us smoking, in the very act. But what's frightening, in the laundry of our house, yes, we were there, sprawled all over enjoying our youthful bliss. I hoped that her vision was failing since she was approaching her mid sixties. Proudly, I had beat myself in the chest and said "what woman in my mother's age sees properly, without having to slit her eyes inwards like one being choked from smoke" and thus I had said to my squad, "worry not, she did not even recognize us".

Apparently, my mother had come looking for me, since I had been tasked that day with the duty of washing clothes. I had not touched even one since I was summoning my spirits to work co-operatively and in one accord such that the moment I start, I finish. Woe unto me since I had tarried too long, and Mary, being a caring Mom had come looking for me to go and take my lunch since it was getting cold, what a gift to have a caring Mom.

After peeping in the laundry for two seconds or so, she retreated back to the living room, and that is why I was indignant to the fact that she had seen us and perhaps one of my siblings had told us off, I just hope you know the kind of anger directed to one that you are related to, it almost tore me apart. The fact remained. I was angry, very angry. Firstly, I was angry because I thought that I had angered my Mom, but most likely I was even angrier that she had come to where we were having party and bliss to look for anger that was now nagging her. After all, it is her problem, I retorted ad I followed her in.

I was now here, at our small kitchen where she was weeping, trying to look serious than I am in my natural looks. After a few minutes of pleading and pleading, it hit me hard that she did not understand what I was talking about. Meanwhile, back in the laundry, my troupe had trooped back to their peaceable residents, and I was here ridding myself of some sort of guilt, which I did not start myself. "Truly speaking, I did not introduce myself to this dungeon", I found myself confessing to Mom.
"What are you talking about?, that is when it dawned on me that Mom was engrossed in her own world and I was acting a careless intruder.
Mom, I shook her to reality, are you Ok? Not knowing that I was the one who required to be rehabilitated to reality from my world of secrecy.
No, my child, just continue with what you were saying...I am listening.
This more than scared me out of my wits. I shamefully dropped my head to the ground, characteristic of some madman looking for a non-existent matter.
Oh God! Your toe is bleeding Momma!
I yelled out.
Silly child! Continue with your own! mind not my toe, she retorted fiercely.
Mom, but let me wrap your wound first...you will bleed to death....the word 'death' came out of my mouth as a shocker that I was not able to utter it correctly. But not to my Mom, NO, not to her. The answer she gave me shocked me even further.
It's better I die than live to think what you are telling me is true...now, young girl, go on...at this, she set her ears straight, eager to listen to an interesting story that I had come to confide in her. Perhaps expecting it would be a good chat of how our neighbour had bought the latest car, I thought silently.
Go on.., she charged me, and don't lie, she warned.
If I thought I was going to escape this, I was wrong. I had never seen my mother wear such a fierce face before and clearly this day, she was going to swallow me whole. I tried to employ lies but they did not serve me right as I had anticipated.
Sarah....if you want peace in this house, talk to me as somebody you know, stop blubbering, came the stern but just warning from my mother.
Mom, I love you, and I do not want you to think that I am s...ss... s.. the word was lost in between my tongue and teeth, that I could merely remember what I wanted to say.
My child, you do me wrong...with this came the long awaited lecture. I sat quietly at the kitchen table and braced myself for this dialogue, I knew what will precede each and every word and I well knew where to punctuate. ....You don't know how I am pained for sure...you just think it's easy being a mother, and that is all there is. I have brought you up with a lot of difficulty, not that I have, but I deny myself the goodies life could offer, such that you feed, you cover your body warmly, you have a roof over you, and most importantly, you get education. But what have you decided to pay me back? Disgrace, total disgrace, everywhere I pass I am spat on, I am detested, just because of you.

I kept a distant look, avoiding to meet at eye angle with my mother. And from her choice of words, my behavior had gone far, too far than I could repair. I dared not interrupt her, I let her empty herself of the deep agony that I had caused her. Dear daughter, I was respected when I was in my father's house, never once did it occur to me that I should engage in self-destroying habits, infact, mothers in our village used to refer their daughters to me, I was the apple-eye of the whole village, I was highly esteemed by both the young and the old.
"What the deuce do I have to do with all that?" My inner voice kept saying to me, but in a still small voice lest my mother should hear me and rebuke her out of me.
Where have you copied all these traits from? Came the heart-throbbing question. This kind of behavior you dispose is not even in our geneology! I wonder if ever my great great grandmother herself will recommend you as a source from her. I was not surprised that she was linking me to the past passed generations because I have known her to hold tradition dear, that is where her heart is.

The longest dialogue I have ever had with my mother called for self-introspection. Later she could finish her lectures cum insights with the statement, "The choice is yours, choose ye who you will serve, God or mammoth, but remember you cannot have two masters at a time, either your love one and serve 'him' and hate another". This statement left me at a crossroad, I knew not which way to take, for the first time this incident gave me the feeling like that of Mr. Hyena, I had just read that story in my class four and I remember joking that it was a mere play with words in fictitious art, but here I was, more confused than the Hyena itself. I don't knooow!! I found myself yelling out while gazing into space.
You mean you are so rude as to answer me like that? My mother asked, looking disturbed.
No, no, I didn't mean to.. I mean.. I am just....I a..a..am just terrified on ha...haa..how to go about it. The expression on my mother's face was deliberately masked and for a moment I could not tell whether she was the one who had been so angered before. She wore such a bright countenance. I did not understand her but I felt a settling influence sweep over me. That is when I regained my composure and started narrating my journey to drug addiction.

I stopped short and looked at my mother's face and what I saw cut through my flesh and I felt the weight of my sins. My mother was weeping, weeping and heaving with a sigh of how far I had gone without her knowledge, at some point she had to stop short and blame herself of poor parenthood. I pitied her. But I had one heavy obligation that was galling me down, to calm her, yes, to calm her down under one condition, yes, the condition that I will never smoke again. Because I dared not do otherwise.

@SarahMongina.
©Chichi.