'In Her Death She Lived' by Moyosola Tugbobo

She stared hard, as though fascinated by it; it seemed blue with sadness and grey with the reality of another lost life. The blood ran down its source like soldier ants on parade, organised and seemingly deliberate.

It ran deep, then faint, and then out of sight as several trickles lined her legs; thighs first, a little break to kiss the joints behind her knees, and then down the back of her feet where the child should have sat to hear exciting bedtime tales. The voices got buried before birth, tears came before the anticipated pain, and above all, death came before life.

Her emotions tumbled one on another in confusion, the passionate hate for her passionate love in fear of mental chaos, it ran so deep. Love left her heart, and hatred quickly took its place, painlessly moving in with its luggage; dragging bags of discord on the rough tiles of her mind. She smiled at its entrance, whilst still staring hard at the blood that was trickling down her legs and was now making designs on the floor. She smiled again.

The grim spirit behind all the chaos dropped his weapon. The stick fell down, showing a bit of acrobatic skills as it bounced off the cemented floor severally before finally settling down in marriage to the ground.

It was the weapon that the devil in Judas had used to seize the breath of an unformed child, the instrument of chaos and disaster, the instrument of murder. Judas kicked off his boot, still breathing heavily as beads of sweat quickly crowned him king. It was a sight to behold. He was the master of all evil.

His eyes almost betrayed his fear and shock as he watched the stunned woman holding back emotional and physical pain. She still stared.

He had promised to love and cherish her the other day at the wedding; he had happily proposed to her and carried her off in his cosy car to have a vacation a week before their wedding; he had contentedly prostrated before her family members at their traditional wedding. All he had to show for all those now were two babies who died before they were born. It shocked him.

“Nonsense!!” he finally spoke up with his hoarse voice, trying not to betray his own fears. His voice came out shaky, like raindrops pattering on a thatched roof. It bounced off the brown walls of the room, then ricocheted several times between the ceiling and floor, before hitting the walls again and then, finally, her.

It hit her hard, right in her heart, piercing her entrails and disturbing the hate that had now made its bed. She stared and smiled as though ignorant of what had happened. Her hurt ran deep, it was the type that needed no tears; her womb was shedding tears of blood already, her eyes simply ran out of tears…

As though released from a cataleptic fit, she suddenly burst out laughing. She guffawed so loud that she could not feel her own existence anymore; her soul was gone.

Her soulless laughter made her begin to cry; tears that squeezed themselves behind her eyes and formed lumps in her throat that came rushing down her cheeks, like inhabitants of a house on fire running for safety. She cried all the patience out of her being, cried out every potential love that could birth ridicule, and cried out every thought of marriage as a fortress. She let them out, once, and for all.

Her lower stomach kicked at her existence as those little bites, drags and pinches defined her screams. She writhed in pain like an earthworm that had been dumped in a bowl of salt. Her abdomen felt like a parade ground upon which a million soldiers marched at once; like kicks and blows descending endlessly on one spot.

She tried to move, and a sharp pain cut through her rib; she held it down, hoping it would remain there while she fixed her sundered self.

In the room, Judas struggled with his own heartbeat; it raced and played awful beats for his mind to relish. He felt guilty the second time in one year. He knew he’d never receive her forgiveness, and was in fact prepared for all the consequences of his actions.

His guilt ran deep in the barrage of his mental trough, while the pain in her lower tummy echoed the many wallops of the gigantic stick on her pregnant stomach. In only five minutes, she went from being three months pregnant with a child to being eternally pregnant with hate.

The walls that separated the rooms felt miles thick; it was not just a physical distance but a mental one. She enjoyed her life as a village girl, she laughed truly and when hatred came, it was also genuine.

She’d enjoyed walking down the stream with her friends, gossiping about the Igwe’s guard that was caught in a romantic mood with one of the other village girls, or about any latest couple. She enjoyed it all. Then Judas happened like the government, almost promising long life.

He showed her how those palace guards felt, alone with their lovers under the mango tree. He came along and promised good mental roads, good physical amenities, good emotional health care and a life that was too good to be true. She loved him truly, but she no longer did.

The distance separated them spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically, and of all the things she wanted to keep, the distance was the most vital. She crawled into her room to clean her mess, and then walked out of the madness of her home, to face the reality of her sundered self.

The walk to nowhere was painful, because it was a walk with no destination. In her mind, her life was over; she ran up the stairs of her mind a number of times, and trying to make sure she had brought down every piece of trash in it, she started thinking aloud.

It is hard being a lunatic; they run out of their minds only to be obstructed by their own skins, which they then spend the rest of the ages trying to escape. They dance as though they had not a single problem, even though they anchor the most troubles.

They scream, trying to hear their own voices because they have their voices mixed up amidst a number of others; each voice with its own authority, each voice with its own chaos. When they eventually do keep quiet, the silence is even louder; the noise from within, bearing fatal crosses.

It was a sunny day and the ground was hot, but Uka trudged along with her heavy bags of worries, heading nowhere. She had been betrayed by the alien home she was lured into, and was heading to her own alien soil, a city that existed in nobody’s mind…

The street wore a dirty dress, smeared with the oil marks of the sun rays. Uka sat on the floor like a mad woman, looking tattered, as she had walked the street of Ukemke in Niger state for days without even realising the need for food. She was not in her right mind and thus, everything was allowed.

“Fresh madness still dey worry dis one o,” a young boy of about 15 said to her as he beckoned to his friends to come see his new discovery. They went over and poked her, probably trying to see if she’d bite. She had no strength to fight back, so she stayed still, trying to lift her tired eyelids.

The oldest of the four went towards her and thrust a heavy kick just below her rib… she flinched in defense, as her legs scurried under her to help her up.

They moved back, watching the drama of the mad queen; her beauty had waned heavily, as though it hadn’t even been there in the first place. She gently moved one foot forward one after the other; walking away to avoid the drama. They followed, poking her all over her already injured skin. She had become mad in her sanity, which Judas had almost driven her out from, every drop of hope seeped from her being.

The deluge of thoughts ran deep, one after the other, settling on her mind. She was happy in her barbarism, lured into the elite life and shattered by the one who promised happiness, just when she deserved it most.

One step after another, one poke and one punch and slowly, her life leaked out of her, returning to dust before her. She was the one without a home, without a destination… without an identity! She died at every step and thrust of the weaklings’ sticks on her skin; she died, yet she lived.

Moyosola Tugbobo is a freelance writer who lives in Lagos, Nigeria. She studied English (Arts) at the University of Lagos. This story was first published on wanderinglass.com

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