Fiction for Adults and the Youth

by Aluta Nite

  All the hours they were at this home, they never went to the bathroom even for short calls. The atmosphere was too hostile, tense and unwelcoming that opening the mouth to ask for anything was out of question not even water to drink in the sweltering heat. Not because Lola was scared, but just because everything was so surreal.

  Soon after the eating, Lola excused herself and her group left with Misa again at around five o’clock. Again, it is only Soma’s wife who came out to see them off at the door.

  Misa first of all took them to meet some other relatives nearby like uncles and aunties before taking them back to Lola’s mother in-law’s place. One of Akim’s uncles and one auntie were very excited to see them and within a very short period of time showered them with a lot of love and happiness.

  They reached grandma’s place at eight at night and grandma wanted to know everything from the beginning to the end of the visit. She was not surprised that they were treated that way, but she was happy that they made an effort to go so that nobody could blame her for not allowing them to go.

  Apparently, it transpired the next day that Soma never returned home that day as he promised Lola at the bus stop because he feared for the worst and he did not wish to see the drama unfold or be part of it. Misa went to take the group for some adventure the following day and he is the one who reported thus to them.

  Misa also reported to them that the lone auntie who was so excited to meet Lola and her group the day before, went as far as making breakfast ready very early next morning and going personally to Akim's father's house to collect the group to go and eat with her. Although they told her that they would go back to Lola's mother in-law's place, her mind was still convinced that the group slept at his father's place.

  Soma did pay them a visit at his mother’s place in the afternoon of the second day after the visit and apologized for not returning from town on the visiting day to spend time with them without revealing why he did not return from town. He missed them and left a message with his mother.

  When Lola and her children returned to the city after one week, Akim was very eager to know what transpired at his father's home.

  He listened very keenly and carefully to the revelations and then reacted thus, “When you saw that the atmosphere was so unfriendly, you should have left immediately. Why did you have to stay for all those hours and endure so much mental pain and especially with the innocent children who did not have to witness all that?”

  And Lola responded thus, “I did not wish to be part of the regiment that was throwing stones. I simply wanted them to see for themselves what they are and later blame themselves and not me.”

  He actually shed some very hot tears over the matter there and then.

  They Called Her Millipede

  Jemima was born in a big family of nine children. She was the third born in a family of six girls and three boys. Her employed father lived and worked in the city while her mother and all her siblings lived and went to school back country where her mother did some subsistence farming and small businesses like her neighbors far and near.

  It was normal in many families around not to have the father figures in the vicinity because they were employed in many of the towns and cities in the region. This was so, so that fathers as heads of families could etch a living through employment and send some of the money to their wives for tuition and supplement what mothers got from the land and small businesses.

  Fathers therefore visited their families during leave days and also whenever there were long weekends due to religious holidays like Christmas and Easter and other national public holidays falling on a Friday or Monday. Wives and children too occasionally paid visits to their husbands and fathers respectively during school holidays.

  Jemima was born an independent and aloof child. She detested many things and issues at a very early age. Her judgment was sharp and unique. And because she hated being entangled in what she did not perceive as good or clear-cut, she was very sensitive and therefore got nicknamed millipede due to the way millipedes retreat into a coil at the slightest touch.

  She kept herself guarded against machinations, traps, being taken advantage of, hoodwinked, swayed into rituals, swearing and bad culture. She simply steered clear of anything uncanny. She coiled and said a definitive no and refused to participate. Due to this action of coiling like a millipede on the slightest encounter, the nickname stuck.

  As much as she did not like millipedes, the name did not bother her because it was her way of protecting herself from a very early age from the unwanted. This unwanted did not matter as to where it came from. It could be from one of her relatives, neighbors, friends, acquaintances or people from far and near.

  Some of her relatives were particularly not amused because her consenting and participating in certain issues or deals was paramount, yet she would not go along or on board. To them she was upset when she coiled or withdrew like a snail to its shell, but to her she was merely being protective of herself and going by her gut feeling and principles.

  Her silence over some matters made them conclude that she was annoyed but quite to the contrary, it was her way of throwing them off her back. Her emphatic no saved her in many ways but were irksome to many who had ill motives or bad intent or trying to impose their will on her to join their band wagons, cults or going to places where she would be vulnerable to danger.

  Her guardian angel lived with her and within her always and helped swerve many a mishap that could have landed her in hot soup or being glued to ruin or occults. She had her reservations over many issues and stayed alert all the time when someone started talking or acting funny.

  For example it was common for many families to be religious and at the same time practice voodoo privately in their homes or openly for all to see in times of sickness, hardships and any other time in the name of protection against evil and blame each other on whatever calamities befell them or death among them.

  She would not buy into this and rejected coercion into participation totally from childhood. She could not see how the dirty and stinking old men or women wearing paraphernalia could help anyone in anyway. To her they were hungry people looking for nourishment or rich people looking for excesses or spoilers looking for victims by taking advantage of others’ fears.

  She argued that if they could make people rich, then why were some of them not rich? They should have made themselves rich first before making others rich. And if they were to be emulated then why were they filthy and frighteningly looking?

  And if they could prevent death then why were they dying too? Why could they not live-forever or save themselves from sickness and death? And if they preferred their way of life then why would they want to coerce others into it yet freedom of choice is abundant?

  She believed that they were just using their psychic powers to manipulate others in believing their actions and happenings. But to a believer, it was a big deal and that is how hatred towards Jemima came in because she would not be part of the dark phenomenon. To her it was not a holy thing to immerse in; it was wrong and satanic.

  And if she did not see the reason for doing something, she could not take part in the act. Doing something for the sake of doing it had no room in her mind. To her things were done for good reasons that were meaningful clear cut and worthwhile otherwise they were no go zones.

  Fake and pretense also had no room in her life. The moment she detected any of them, she was not game. Erring, apologizing and repeating the same thing over and over too had no room in her life. She forgave twice and the third time she cut herself off and had nothing to do with the culprit.

  And to her it did not matter whether it was one of her relatives, friends, neighbors and whoever else. There had to be a limit. The chapter was closed and there was no going back. She believed that allowing people to mess one up could be endless as it becomes mundane and one is taken for granted. She therefore kept them at arm’s length and argued that she was not a football field.

  As she grew o
lder and interacted with many different people from different regions, groups and races through schools and work, she came to realize that people have their ugly deeds and ceremonies done behind closed doors, in caves and forests that never make sense to her.

  Some people have awkward stuff hanged in their domains, cars, offices kept in in their handbags and pockets. She says that one can believe in and do whatever they like or pleases them so long as they keep their awkward ways and deeds to themselves and leave others alone.

  She has met threats like the following many times, ‘Who will bury you when you die?’

  This is all because of not joining hands with others on the so-called queer doings, cults et cetera. But to her, they forget that the dead have nothing to worry about because it is the burden of the living to bury the dead.

  The First Visit to a Mother in-Law

  Rina got married in the city and lived there and after getting two children; she decided to go back country where her mother in-law lived and stay with her during some of her leave days from her employment. It was during Easter holiday therefore she had additional holidays from the long weekend.

  She planned to stay at the coastal area where the old lady lived for several days. Her very young children and her went to the region by public means of transport on Easter Monday morning, a journey of one hour by air and another journey by bus to her second sister in-law’s town house at the regional headquarters before proceeding to the seaside where the old lady resided by bus again, then ferry, bus again and finally on foot.

  At the town house, her second sister in-law, her sister in-law's husband, their young baby daughter, Rina’s fourth sister in-law, three house helps consisting of one male and two females and some relatives of the second sister in-law from her husband’s side were around.

  Rina and her children were arriving at this venue as early as eight in the morning since their flight was very early that morning. Her second sister in-law and her husband were very happy to see them and welcomed them wholeheartedly, but her fourth sister in-law, a high school girl, was not jolly at all. She was moody.

  She was not warm towards them to the extent of not even saying good morning or hello to them. She passed them in the lounge over and over as if she saw nobody or despised whoever she saw. Rina had never met her before therefore she did not know who this teenage girl actually was and just wondered silently in her mind.

  Being a public holiday that day, her second sister in-law and her husband were home At breakfast time, which was around ten in the morning, is when her second sister in-law asked her younger sister whether she knew who the visitors were and she just shrugged her shoulders because she was not interested in anything in that house.

  A quarrel ensued immediately because of her reaction that made the older sister feel let down by the young sister. It was a bad rumble from one to the other till it became difficult for the visitors to feel at ease. It was like a show of might.

  It turned out through the exchanges of improper language that the two had had their simmering differences for quite some time and it was now coming to a boil because the younger sister did not wish to do what the older sister requested or wanted done.

  The younger sister did not dwell in this house. She lived with a paternal aunt some few miles away on the suburbs of the town. She was summoned to this house to stay overnight so that she could accompany the visitors to the seaside the next day and stay with them till their departure time. She had nothing against the visitors, but she had something against the older sister.

  But because of the bad relationship between the two and her lack of self-control, she chose to show even the visitors that all was not well between her and them too.

  The only reason that she was going along with the orders or commands in this home was because the older sister paid her tuition, but despite all that she was willing to put the older sister to shame in front of the visitors. She very well knew who the visitors were, but her anger with the older sister blocked her clear thinking and action.

  The plans by the second sister in-law were that the visitors were to rest at her house till afternoon before the journey to the seaside. She wanted to save their mother the trouble of cooking both lunch and dinner for the visitors that day. She was therefore having lunch prepared so that the visitors could eat before the third, fourth, fifth and sixth legs of their journey.

  Lunch was ready at two in the afternoon and by three the visitors were ready to leave for the seaside. At the door, as the second sister in-law said bye, bye to the visitors, she reminded the younger sister to make sure that she stayed at their mother’s place till the visitors' day of departure.

  That reminder brought with it another round of row that was quite unpleasant down the stairs as the group descended to leave the building with even the neighbors hearing what was going on. The younger sister insisted to the older sister that she would not stay at their mother’s place. And the tone was rough and ugly.

  She told the older sister that she would dump the visitors there and leave immediately to her aunt’s place however late. Apparently, the older sister had anticipated that and had warned their mother in advance not to give her younger sister that chance of leaving otherwise the housework would overwhelm their mother.

  What followed once the group left the building and headed to the bus stop is like a big joke out of nowhere. The young lady changed tone completely like a page or chapter in a book got flipped over and she started talking happily, laughing and joking with the visitors, as if she had known them for a long, long time.

  The journey went smoothly and by five thirty in the evening, the group reached their destination, a big village sandwiched between the main road and the sea. The narrow paths intertwining and crossing each other from all directions carried the group from the main road through the village to the appointed house.

  It was a beautiful village with whispering palm trees swaying with coconuts, big mango and cashew nut trees bearing mangoes and nuts respectively, citrus trees heavy with fruit, passion fruit tendrils with fruit covered tree foliage and bushes, pawpaw trees full of pawpaw and cassava plantations all over.

  Chicken was running around and sounds of cattle cry could be heard. The roaring sea was audible and fishermen from the ocean while carrying their catch was apparent. Laughter from children at play was visible. Smoke swirled out of houses as mothers prepared their evening meals.

  At the final destination, Rina’s mother in-law was not there. She had waited endlessly and was almost giving up therefore she decided to go to a neighbor nearby to while time away with a little hope still lingering in her head.

  At the home was Rina's fifth sister in-law who was in middle school and the last born in the family. She received them very happily and opened the door for them as she was outside the house when they arrived. She then ran to the neighbor’s house to summon their mother back home.

  Rina's mother in-law came back racing behind her last born. Happy as she was, she was rather disappointed that her young daughter had let the visitors into her house before her arrival, yet she had planned her small ritualistic ceremony for entering the house for a first time visitor like Rina. It was too late, but she still called them all out so that she could fulfill her wishes.

  They all went outside and she poured her ceremonial powdery stuff on the doorway where they would pass along with one new bill of a designated currency note or bill so that the visitors could walk over it. She never told Rina the significance of the ceremony and Rina never asked her either.

  They then re-entered the house and they were then greeted formally and shown their rooms and beds before they headed to the front verandah to talk about their journey, the regional headquarters or town and the city.

  In the course of talking, she reminded the high school girl that she was to stay around till the visitors would leave and the two exchanged some nasty words about it, because the young lady did not want this reminder over and over, but she stayed put till the week was o
ver.

  She in fact said at the end of the visit that, that had been the best time of her life with the visitors around. She went with them wherever they went. They loved the beach and she did too. They loved singing and she did too.

  They told stories and laughed most of the time. She loved her little niece best because she was a happy go lucky person like her. The two jumped ropes, built sand dunes, ran after crabs and ran to the water and many, many other fun things.

  One of the days when Rina and her children spent the whole day with the old lady without going anywhere, there was quite some drama around the home. Rina was washing clothes that day and getting familiar with the surrounding as she drew water from the village well, went to the village shop and went to greet some of her mother in-law's relatives in the neighborhood.

  At one point in the morning hours, an old man was seen approaching from a distance. Rina and her children were summoned to rush into the house with instructions to stay there till he was out of sight. They were not told the reason why and she never asked either. She did see the old man through the window. He was a tall man with a hat on, a walking stick and a jacket despite the hot and humid weather.