Sins and innocence

She sees and reminisces
Of seas of pleasures once ‘swim med’…

FOR A FEW EVERLASTING SECONDS THE WORLD WHIRLS ROUND HER.The ceiling swiftly falls, the fan in a mad twirl, she shut her eyes and screams; her voice slashing through the walls. A frenetic rush ensues beyond – feet, voices, creaks… doors banging, all in her head, as if the universe has suddenly gone bananas and her head is the amplifier to which all the madness is connected; just that she, she can’t unplug the wires.All of a sudden, there is order.
She open her eyes slowly, reluctantly, her vision blurry for a while. Her scream has pulled in the doctor and his crowd of nurses, but they, like everything, are in their right places.

Something inside her is suddenly appreciating her mother, though she hardly knew her. Father never allowed her to, always made her feel she wasn’t worth it even if he never said the words. But if her mother saw this, she was worth whatever she thinks of her now. She was gone too soon; first from her, then from life because life wouldn’t even keep good things well.
Suddenly the pain rises, her knees are in unstoppable spasm; she doesn’t expect it to come this soon, but it is killing her as it does. A painful contraction in the waist ushers in a swift burst of fluid, and that brings it two months too soon.

This could have been her tenth termination, but something happened to her mind. A voice started whispering to her, calling them babies and the act murder, and she got tired of calling them fetus too, tired of arguing her rights to do whatever pleased her with what grows in her. She has to give one opportunity to live and know life, just like she was given thirty nine years ago.

As for matrimony, that is the biggest scam the world would ever know, it is a tool of female subjection to male whims in a male biased world, and she won’t buy that crap, rather too cheap for her sophistication. If the thing is really worth it, why is it there is more post-marital psycho analysis in the world, or so many divorce for that matter, or is she the only on seeing it? She is smart then.

She has had a good life, with a profiting career, and a perfect beauty that is a passport to attention and favors. She has known too many men intimately too, which is part of the fun anyway. But above all, nothing matches her joy of independence. What else could a woman possibly want? Why would she leave all that to go under some man who will not see all that she has gone through to be where she is, and would probably want her right under him?

She got all the restriction she would need in a life time from her father who caged and overdosed her with protection most of her growing life. Girl’s school, Girl Guide, girl’s party, thank God there wasn’t Girls University. And that was enough. What would she be looking for in heaven when she could make herself a paradise here? And once upon a time she was that free at last; free, free, so free.

Just that recently her bed had begun to get scantier by the day. Her hard-knock life-style has left her really worn out at her age. Men no long pay her those attentions she once took for granted. No more flowers, fewer dinner invitations, and fewer glances from street sides, however lustful she wouldn’t mind now. She feels no less deserted than that Russian territory, Siberia, cold and distant, nobody wants to come. Hers is the freezing stroke of the impermanence of beauty.

Even a beautiful house can be so inert without other voices, so beautiful, but so lifeless. That is why she is here, to give this one fetus the chance to see and know life. The chance to take that first breath, and be watched to grow. The chance to be a mother, rather than murder. Perhaps, that would make her feel more human than a piece of useable item, now used to the point of abandon. Perhaps, her father, he was indeed protecting her from herself, her mind distantly suggests. She pushes the thought away. Anyways her mind’s been implying a lot, recently.Push! Push! Push!But the voices are fading, she realizes her energy is draining out as she obeys the order; she tries and tries, and with her last breath she makes the final push and feels that exhilarating sensation, much talked about. A sudden cold relief blankets her as she feels the last of the much awaited lump slip through her crotch; she thinks she hears its cry.But it isn’t more of a cry than a snort.

It is a boy, he snuggles weakly in the midwife’s caring hands, the doctor needs him to cry but he grapple for air instead; too weak for a start. What are his chances of survival? Even the doctor can’t say, because he is marked HECHAIVEE before he has the merest chance to know why.
© J.Ifeme


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