As the tears dripped and her body shook, my ears listened to her secrets as she poured her past into our present, saying “am easing myself of these mistakes knowing you’re my diary where this memories should forever remain safe”. How did it get to this point?
I was sitting on the window side of the bus half filled with passengers on my way to Ado-ekiti from Lagos during my service year, sitting patiently in the bus packed at the Ojota multi terminus when a lovely looking lady of about my age hopped into the bus. Sincerely I really didn’t notice this additional passenger as I had my earphones plugged into my ear, my mind was carried away by the sound of some Lauryn Hill songs as I glued my eyes to the Tsunzu’s Art of war book.
I read thoroughly with interest but what paused all this my activity was the baby she was carrying, a cute looking 2 yrs old girl who giggled at me as she tried creeping into my arms from that of her mum who happens to be this good looking lady about my age. I tried smiling back at the baby as she crept closer to my body gently holding on the pages of my book trying to rough handle it while showing off the harmless angel in every baby, of which she was.
Like the typical me, I was long trapped in the spell of this baby’s world as she held a grip of my finger, she gently clamped on them with her soft baby palms, in a second we were bonded as I flowed with the fantasy of the “goo goo gaga” baby language as she seems to be having so much fun.Then I turned to see the reaction of her mum but couldn’t help but notice the tears in her eyes as she tried to conceal it but as our face met she couldn’t hold them anymore, they flowed freely from her eyes. I noticed her tears and sadness but tried being civil in the pretence that I didn’t notice.
The more we sat and I played with this baby, the more she wept till I asked her, “dearie are you o.k?, its o.k to express yourself like this but maybe it will help if you shared your issue with me, maybe we can talk about it and the conversation might help”. Gently she tried to wipe her tears with a forcefully false smile that tried to conceal her pain. I wondered how long she has been this way or will she be like this for the rest of the five hours journey?
A closer look at her she said “go ahead, am sure you recognize me or don’t you?” and deeper I glanced but didn’t as she asked me if I had schooled in the eastern part of Nigeria and if I remember the girl that threw up on me about three years ago and at this point I connected to my past and there she was.
This lady who’s name I remembered as Kemdika happens to be a girl I had met about three years ago also in a bus but this time travelling from the university to my Uncle’s burial but met a sick lady who happens to be this kemdika . She messed up my white long sleeve designer shirt with her vomit.
It all started when the bus moved faster into time, then I noticed how uncomfortable she was, at first I thought it was the breeze from the window of the bus as I suspected that perhaps she might be asthmatic but didn’t want to make her more uncomfortable by asking her if everything was okay and then suddenly she couldn’t help it. Just when she was about to tell the driver to stop on the notoriously dangerous Owerri-Aba expressway, the words that were supposed to come out of her mouth were rather replaced by a flush out of puke, directly it splattered on my shirt and entire body.
She must have felt more horrible than me but her condition probably didn’t give way to that, I remember those memories and how she consecutively threw up on me, my body was a mess but messier was her situation.
Kemdika wasn’t travelling to any specific destination; to her she just wanted to run away, away from the dark tunnel she was in. Stuck in her condition, she was trapped. Trapped between a two month pregnancy which her boyfriend has denied the responsibility coupled with an unstable health that keeps her away from school and the fear of uncertainty from her noble family headed by a strict clergy father and a half-stroked hypertensive mother.
What was she supposed to do as her values, conscience and instincts doesn’t take abortion as a choice? She comes up from a place where a curse of an instant death awaits anybody who tries to abort a pregnancy. Deep down her she knew that if she ever walked into a medical theatre for that purpose, she will never come out alive. But if she kept the baby, still the Emeka that she knows who happens to be her supposed boyfriend will not accept the responsibility. How could he when neither Kemdika or him is even sure about the owner of the baby. This isn’t because she is promiscuous but this particular case is a bit complex.
Two months before the pregnancy, Kemdika had been in a relationship with emeka for over two years. They both met during their year one registration in the University. Kemdika, a prim and proper posh girl that grew up in choice neighbourhood in Lagos had just come into the school, She had just been dropped by dad who is filled with bright hope for her young daughter. Kemdika met Emeka on a queue during their medical clearance. Emeka offered her his long hustled space in the long queue as she felt tired and pale from all the bustles and exhaustions of freshman registration. This gesture Kemdika later came to realize was the typical of Emeka, a lovely handsome boy who was well groomed from Maitama in Abuja. He wasn’t just smart but very caring and Kemdika loved him for this and more.
At first they’d move together as freshmen in University, doing their assignments and Science practical’s together, going to the cafeteria together, to the church together and if things went wrong they’d stick together in loyalty, friendship and love till there was a solutions and they’d move on. They just weren’t friends with connections, they shared the same values, their instincts rhymed, and they offered the same course and were taking things as they came without placing priorities on their sexuality or its desires.
Couple of times they’ve had experiences where people wasn’t sure of whether they were siblings or in a relationship as they’ve been this way since their first week in college and this two enjoyed this play. Although sometimes it got worse and they made things better together and among this times includes their early years of college when a name withheld* confraternity wanted Emeka as not just a treasure hunting warlord but an Intel Duff man Sailor (a high rank in the cult group reserved for people who looked innocent enough yet deceitfully smart to play as a dangerous spy for the team as well as for financial book keeping).As the pressure became paramount, what Emeka and Kemdika did was to stick together in stimuli to the frustrations that was thrown on both as the beautiful Kemdika was lustfully wanted by the Point1 Capone of the same group.This played for a long time and when the heat became tougher they had to even go on a religious fast together which perhaps paid off.
This was how they went together sharing both pain and happiness, they both were on a first class grade point and later moved out of the school hostel to stay off camp as neighbors and official lovers .They mutually agreed to the idea of no pre-marital sex. So it was, till all of a sudden Emeka began to hang out with the wrong people.
He moved from his academics to extracurricular, from watching just the premiership in support of his team, to being a loud and chaotic Fan who was the last to leave the sports bar, then he will miss classes and dates with Kemdika only to return with Scars, his virtues and values were changing like his yellow coloured infested wardrobe. At first kemdika saw these but didn’t pay attention (or she was caught by the cupidity of the saying that love is blind), then he started off with cigarettes but later settled for weed and the rest became history. Among the histories was this wall of pain, the same one that laid the memory of one night when Emeka and his friend came into her room looking all wasted and boozed.
Prior to this Emeka had noticed the distance that was building between him and his first love Kemdika, as he felt that she was probably seeing someone else. But in reality Kemdika could feel the change from the Emeka she used to know to the monster he was turning into. In Emeka’s quest to redeem their falling relationship, he started piling pressure on Kemdika for sex and with this she even became more uncomfortable, worried and nervous.
One night, Emeka and his friends came in looking all mean with his face still retaining the little angelic part that Kemdika had fallen in love with. They both stayed by the balcony while his fellow war shipmates also referred to as lords stayed inside. They ate the sumptuous meal that Kemdika had prepared for them while irritatingly constituting nuisance to the neighborhood. The music was so loud that the two lovers had to raise the top of their voice in a discussion geared towards the issue of why she wouldn’t give up her virginity yet.
The problem grew with the moment because the more Kemdika refused, the more pressure Emeka applied physically and mentally till the point where they were dragging her clothes but what could she do as the woman in her made her scream less but cry more to the emotional pain Emeka inflicted. She cried, she screamed as Emeka tore her skirt on the balcony floor of the five storey building. How could she escape, her phone was smashed on the wall, her scream could not be heard as the music from her speaker purposely played by Emeka’s friends was overshadowing the noise, what more could be worse when this same boys assisted in holding her down to the ground only to later take their own turns in gang-raping her…the deepest offense to womanhood.
How could she hold down her tears from Emeka and his brotherhood superiors? All she could remember before she passed out in bleeding orgasm was her cry, the tears, weak and painful words of her saying “Emeka please stop, Please, please stop, I hate you, Emeka why?” Emeka why?
With so much pain she tried not to remember this true experience as she told it to me, she explained to me how she spent weeks indoors, crying and starving herself, how she felt an irreversible dirtiness, how she played back the moments where everything was okay and how she feels betrayed, pale, hurt and abandoned and to think that she was missing series of exams and test but the real test came out positive in pregnancy and that’s when her whole world totally crashed. Pregnant? With who’s baby?
Written By
Uwaoma Eizu
youngizu@yahoo.com
For Foundation 360
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