2019.
My number of suitors reduced as my age increased. I guess I never fully recovered. I wanted a boring life. My zeal for hunger and questions died a long time ago. My sense of adventure vanished with my virginity. I can hardly remember pastor Williams face but he lives in me. Sometimes I wished I had a way to contact him. I rarely contact People these days. And people in turn have grown to leave me in my island of solitude. The only call I receive is from Desmond. My coworker who still thinks that my worn out face is beautiful. I guess he likes me. He promised me marriage and all tne other stuff that girl, my age would beg for. I guess if he knew how broken I was, he would jump the fence and never return. I guess I'm too scared to scare him with truth because part of me enjoys the company. I do not allow him to sleep over but he stays late. His conversation are all consuming. Not dull but not interesting. The scars of my pain still runs deep sometimes it affects me unconsciously. I have seen videos of how rape victims come out strong. But not for me. I pushed everyone out of my life till I was sure that I was the only person on the island. Maybe that's why I stopped talking to Desmond. Perhaps that's why I avoid him. But Desmond is persistence.
A part of me wants the life that he is promising. A life where the twang of loneliness loses its grip on my skin. Where the tyranny of boredom will evade my doorstep and the cry of children will glaze through my brick walls. A world where laughter and taunt is exchanged between lovers.
Where there is laughter. Where there is happiness. Happiness for me means quiet. I understand that quiet doesn't mean all is well. But Desmond definition contrasts with mine. Why not try it all?
I wonder. Why not? Desmond comes into my room in the evening. When the flies are buzzing around the bulb on the front yard. He is holding a flower. He says a lot of stuff. Mostly questions that I do not want to answer. The only thing I catch is the last word that slips out of his mouth.
"I'll never break your heart. If you let me into your life. I'll provide you happiness that you only dream off. Let me in Grace. I won't break your heart.". We share a moment of silence before I
speak. Rather awkward. "You can't break what's already broken Desmond." And with that I open the door. Not wide enough so that the mosquitoes won't think I'm inviting them for a feast. "Come in". I finally say.
Written By Festus, Obehi Destiny.
Title: Unbroken 15/07/2019
In the north, girls marry early. I do mean this literally. Backed up by the arms of culture, men throw their daughters into marriages before their noses can catch a sniff of puberty.
I once asked a man "How did you marry her?"
The man smiled. This indeed had been the question he was hoping for. He went on to talk about how he had paid a huge amount of money for the twelve year old girl and how he had tamed her.
Listening to him was like walking on broken glass with naked feet. Hearing the blood drip from your feet and soaking the shards up. I took a look at the girl and indeed there laid a tamed lioness.
Her golden mane had lost its dignity and now, it looked different. "A colour of defeat perhaps".
I wonder if these brides had dreams before they were bundled into the shackles of their sentence.
They had perhaps lived that fear for a long time before coming to accept their reality. I remembered Langston Hughes, the poet. "What happens to a dream differed? Does it dry up like a raison in the sun?
Festus, Obehi Destiny.