Hell Again

by Mihret Adal Gidi

  Hell Again

  Mihret Adal Gidi

  Austin Macauley Publishers

  Hell Again

  About the Author

  Dedication

  Copyright Information ©

  Acknowledgement

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  About the Author

  Mihret Adal Gidi is a novelist who emerged from East Africa, Ethiopia. She has dreamed of being an author all her life and has always been known for being a storyteller among her friends and family members. She finally made her dream come true, officially publishing her first novel on May 31st 2019, Bleeding Hearts of a Butterfly. She is known for her never-dying, hard-working persistency that she aims to mature as an author.

  She is currently working on the sequel of Bleeding Hearts of a Butterfly and a new romance novel.

  Dedication

  In loving memory of Berihun Kebede.

  A gratitude to the gaps you filled,

  To all the never-dying, good memories you gave,

  To the entire searching in finding to see the unrealistic-sounding verity,

  To descry what is believed true as well existing reality.

  To all the undiscovered, unseen worlds that still have got to be proven.

  Copyright Information ©

  Mihret Adal Gidi (2021)

  The right of Mihret Adal Gidi to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 9781398411647 (Paperback)

  ISBN 9781528984676 (Hardback)

  ISBN 9781398404656 (ePub e-book)

  www.austinmacauley.com

  First Published (2021)

  Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

  25 Canada Square

  Canary Wharf

  London

  E14 5LQ

  Acknowledgement

  I’m beholden to the following family members and friends for their help and support, during my non-stop obsession while writing this piece:

  To my mother Dinkitu Eshetu – thank you for supporting me in every way; for being my first reader and reviewer.

  My uncle Kassye Yohannes – you're the best.

  Yafet Sultan – thanks for the support and being there for me.

  Journalist Getu Temesgen – thanks for the great support and appreciation.

  Ohad Benami – political analyst and media advisor.

  Chapter One

  Ever since Hadiya moved to Jimma with Ahmed, life is almost as she wished it would turn out to be… almost. She is now able to do whatever pleases her; committed to learning and understanding her new faith, as she is committed to helping her love of life, Ahmed.

  It wasn’t easy to finally be able to decide to run away; both their families were and still are not able to find a common ground on their religious differences. The only person on their side was Ahmed’s sick elderly uncle. His death was a loss for him, but he left wealth in Ahmed’s name; inheritance of his hundred-hectare coffee farm and his house. They run away and started leading a new life.

  Converting religions or dropping class has never crossed her mind before. It’s not the relationship that turns the key towards change but she feels like she has found her faith. What she has with Ahmed was just undeniable, but he never asked for her to convert.

  Today is as bright as any other day for her. She is walking down the road to the river. It’s now like a routine for her to sit on the big stone and enjoy the nature; reconnecting and enjoying herself, but she has to send Ahmed to their farm first since he wouldn’t allow her to be there, let alone all by herself. She is in a circular skirt with a wifebeater black shirt with black floral skirt and a classic cardigan. Taking her flip flop off, she sits on a rounded stone near the river, gazing at the natural beauty. It helps her to acquire an alone and quite time to think better.

  “Beautiful,” she breathes long and smiles as she slides her shawl off from her head, revealing long and clean cornrows of her hair. She lifts her dress a little up her ankles and starts looking between her feet and frown for a while. She has come here every day for a year after she ran off with Ahmed, but this is odd.

  She doesn’t easily get shocked by anything, but she is a little jumpy to see the soil beneath her fidget, as if something is fighting to come out of it. She looks around, stretching her neck up, once again, she gets her attention back to the ground and grabs a dead branch and start helping whatever it is, that’s beneath her, to its freedom. Biting her lower lip, she kneels down and pushes her finger to the little hole she has just formed. She closes her eyes and starts feeling it with her right hand. This should be a snake or worm; she wonders to herself, but she knows this can’t be anything like that.

  “What is it?” she deepens her furrow lines, as she keeps her search to whatever is underneath the ground. This can’t be, she wonders. She was so sure she saw something moving but there’s nothing. She looks at it, taking her finger out from the whole. Once and for all, she gives it a shot and pushes her two fingers in.

  “Ah!” she screams, pulling her hand away from it as she feels the push she saw earlier. She looks around and checks that she is alone. She wouldn’t want anyone to think that she is crazy.

  She bites her lower lip hard and allows her finger in, again. This time around, the push doesn’t shock her, but dreadfully, she proceeds on it, closing her eyes and she imprisons a tip of something smooth between her fingers. She opens her eyes in shock and bites her lips hard as she tries hard to pull whatever it is out. From the way she feels, she can be sure it’s nothing like snake or worm. She takes her hand away and looks down to it and she see a tip of plastic wrap in there.

  “What is this?” she says to herself through her teeth and presses her lips to the centre.

  She picks the dead branch from the ground and performs an excavation around the plastic wrap, but if this is anything big, it won’t be good enough since it’s too close to the stone she was sitting on. There seems to be nothing special about it, but she can manage to pull it out and confirm that for herself.

  As the stubborn she is, she pulls it and feels gushing breath of air coming out from an even darker hole she didn’t form but the plastic wrap does.

  “Bismillahi,” she whispers, and looks back to the plastic wrap in her hand with a rolled paper in it.

  ***

  She runs barefoot back to her cottage as fast as she can. She just can’t wait till she confirms what’s really within the plastic wrap. She can’t rest unless she manages to quench her craving to kn
owing more of this mystery of plastic wrap and the hole she just discovered a while ago.

  If anyone who knows her all her life has to say anything about her, it is her stubbornness with never-resting excitement. That’s how she manages to capture her Ahmed’s heart easily in love. Her beauty with her innocence, filled with bright aura as a child is irresistible; that’s her hidden weapon in her beauty, along her youth; her will to know more and her obstinate behaviour.

  She tears the plastic wrap with her fingernails and spreads the paper. She frowns, shrugging. Though she didn’t graduate or proceed on her education, she knows a little English.

  ‘Help, get me out of here!’ is written in the roll of the piece of paper.

  Chapter Two

  Modernity shouldn’t sometimes mean to judge some beliefs as dated thoughts. Our ancestors, grandparents and parents must have reasons to obey them. Nothing is real until confirmed, but for those of us who are actually leaving them, it’s not hard to accept it… I mean, it’s confusing, especially when it feels like a nightmare that we would one day wake up from. Anyways, such negligence cost me my life to be imprisoned in obscurity.

  Leaving your bag on the floor turns you poor, showing your wedding dress to the groom before the wedding brings bad luck; a lot in our world. Oh, and here in Ethiopia, the evil eyes, a bride and groom shouldn’t be left alone before the wedding that the devil follows them, don’t go down the river midday that there will be demons around – are among many other types of such beliefs.

  I have lived most my life in Canada, Ottawa with my mother, and I’m back to my homeland for my wedding ceremony with two of my friends and fiancé; I also have another best friend here. I understand my native tongue well, though it’s hard for me to speak it. I sound like a child soul trapped in older person’s body when I stammer to speak in Amharic and I hate the sound of me.

  Only those with strict fathers in Africa can only understand the importance of getting blessing. It was not easy; my husband to be, Teddy, is not my father’s choice for me, but I have to be thankful that I’m my father’s only daughter. Teddy is a lot like his father Jacob, an Italian. Everything about him is too much for my father, since he gives less attention to our culture. Let alone Teddy, Dad don’t even accept some of my doings, it’s hard to grasp some of the cultural concepts; I am both Ethiopian and Canadian, enjoying the freedom with less attention to the culture and yet still expected to meet my strict father’s expectation. Conflict in culture differences and understanding; I don’t know which one to go with, all I’m aware of is the fact that I am misinterpreted at most times, in Ethiopia, as well as in Canada; I am Canadian in Ethiopia, as I am Ethiopian in Canada.

  I remember the first time he found out about our plan for marriage and who I want to marry with. I sometimes laugh, alone, as I recall his reaction. He almost screamed his lungs out in shock but reading my excitement in my eyes, he couldn’t keep up with his resistance for more than three days.

  Now, it’s almost three months since we got here. We manage to patch things that we think is enough for our wedding. Well, that’s not to mention weddings here, in Ethiopia, are never simple. The plan was to sign the damn papers, decent dinner with the whole family, and the newlyweds and friends would go out for late night dance, in a club or somewhere that could be fun, like out the city and no wedding dress or bridezilla. Of course, it was just a dream.

  “I rather die than throw my girl out,” was my dad’s answer. I knew then that he would never let us off with my picture-perfect thought of wedding ideology. It was a miracle he would let me get married to him that easy, as it is. So, I couldn’t insist. Instead, I let him do what he liked, and we rented hall in Sheraton Addis, huge deal; expensive place, expecting two hundred eight people in general. You can only imagine the stress that I’m undergoing right now.

  Let’s hope I won’t turn into a runaway bride by the end of the day. I dislike the thought of wedding and my friends and families have pressured me in this marriage stuff, not like I don’t like him. I do, enough to accept the pressure, but I just don’t believe in the confirmation we need on a piece of paper. I don’t know… maybe I’m not that into him as well.

  Everything is ready, except Mum’s arrival. She will be here tomorrow. She wants to be here a day before the wedding. The last thing she needs is to see is Dad’s sorry eyes and to end up fighting with him over who is the real reason for their life to be like this; separately living and yet still not divorced. I just don’t get them; they’re doing this, though they still love each other; for that, none of them moved on, but they always threatened one another about actually ending it. Some weird parents I have.

  It really is not easy to convince Dad that I have to have my last night out with my bridesmaids…it’s hard to convince him about anything, anyway. It is my last night of freedom and I want to get wasted and crazy for a night. After all, it’s not like I can do that after matrimony.

  “Your…your father…is one stubborn bull.” Kate says, giggling in her drunken mood, pressing her blushing cheeks between her palms. Her pale white skin is changing colour into a pink that looks a little rouge, but even that doesn’t have the power to hide her oblong beautiful face, buried between her curly dynamite black hair, that’s subdued in the same style as mine, but a little fluffier. Her deep-set forest green eyes never lie; it turns red in response to an alcohol and when she speaks, as if her tongue is swollen, she sounds off as well funny.

  “Is there any way you can make him change his mind?” Tarik says, patting me on my right shoulder from the backseat. They are up for another round to party even more… If only it’s not for Dad’s demanding rules, that I should be back home before mid-night, I’m sharing mood with my girls; stay up all night for more rounds. Tarik is a little better than Kate, or perhaps her light chocolate skin isn’t showing much, but she seems a bit into the mood feeling and sharing happy ‘let’s party!!’ atmosphere.

  “I can’t, hone, you know he was not even happy that I’m out as it is,” I tilt my head back to her.

  “I agree with him,” Meron says, looking at me from the front sit. She grew up all her life here and is well acquainted to the culture…or it feels like that. “It’s not right you’re out today. I didn’t nag you because we’re here with you.” She can be stubborn as my family, perhaps too obstinate. “A bride should be home, for your info, there’s got to be a reason elders think that way.” She adds and presses her lips in a disappearing line.

  She has a baby face and I would even say she is beautiful of all of us. Coming here the first time in a long time, I was shocked to find her hair all gone; shaved…it’s beautiful, but as far as I remember, she had soft and beautiful hair which I used to love. I had to use perm or get great hairdresser to kill it for straight. She’s tall and with hourglass body shape, s-shaped eyebrows with thin almond eyes, with heavy lower lip and long neck that displays her grace wonderfully. Everything about her points to showbiz, though she fixes herself in the lawyer business, which she’s great at…at least that’s what I heard from my dad, she never utters about her work.

  “Oh my God,” Kate smiles, gasping as she holds her hand in the air in disbelief. With her right hand, she brushes, with her fingers, through her hair that’s styled in bob haircut, that’s dyed smoke bomb grey colour; she stands out among us. Her chubbiness contributes to her look and her superpower is using her body and looks as she pleases.

  I know what you’re thinking, I smile, looking at her in the rear-view mirror. She just couldn’t believe that Meron is this strict over believes. I think that’s why most elders love her in our neighbourhood; she listens to everything they say and is quite obedient.

  Kate leans forward to Mary’s seat, giggling. “I can’t believe that you are our age, sister. And you even look way younger,” she laughs, and Mary rolls her eyes at her. We hardly hear every word but understand her enough to share laughter.

  “You’ll find out about that after she gets home safe,” Mary hides her la
ughter behind her lips that she is sucking in.

  “You know what,” Tarik leans back in her seat. “For some reasons, I’m not having a good feeling so suddenly.” She says, then she hiccups closing her eyes. I think she is way drunk to agree with Mary and over these types of beliefs.

  This is so not you, girl, I smile, wondering. “What?” I press my lips as I park my car, I can’t pass on this without mentioning a word regarding this, like she never said it. “You’re actually agreeing with her, or is it spinning too much?”

  She pulls her tongue out at me and I smile, looking at her through the rear-view mirror. “You should drive them,” I widen my eyes at Mary, hoping not to spoil the mood.

  “Wait, I thought we’re driving you home?” she says, frowning, flustered. I know what’s going in her mind, and since everyone I know; the neighbours and Dad’s friends are repeating themselves over this, I’m starting to fear that repetition of words might attract bad luck, but I don’t want to yield to the feeling. I mean, that would mean to fail to the thoughts I don’t believe in.

  “I should take a taxi home. You know Dad, I don’t want him to think ill of you girls.” I roll my eyes playfully and leave the car with Mary following me around it and meeting me in the middle from the other side.

  “I still think we should drive you,” she says, lost, and I pat her on her left shoulder, sucking my lips in. “It’s late to be on your own, almost,” she looks at her golden girly watch, “midnight.”

  “And make Dad think you girls are bad influences?” I elevate my eyebrows up, smiling to her. I just hope you stop being stubborn enough to introduce me to fear itself. “He thinks I lost my way and to show him that my friends are drunk and still up for another round would mean to aggravate his neg thoughts.”