'The War In My Womb' by Omidire, Idowu Joshua

I gave him a kiss: a passionate one. He too kissed me back. The whole of my body vibrated to the young fingers that ran all over me. We did this every night and day. No matter how tired I was after a hard day’s work at the office I’d still return home for the daily ritual. We graduated from that and started something else – the real thing. ‘Darling, you are so so sweet’ he’d say. ‘You are sweeter, I’d reply with a guilty smile.

******

We were at the Kapuka bar last Friday for a refreshing night out. We drank and ate and talked a great deal. This boy has been my angel in this cold lonely world. To hell with family and friends; I have found a man in my boy.

‘Darling, I’d do anything that would make you happy. Just tell me and I’d make it happen,’ he had said and looked at me with eyes full of fire.

This kindled something in me too. I felt like pouncing on him and doing it right there with him because I’ve never seen a man more committed to my happiness. I slipped my right hand across the table and arrested his left hand that innocently rested on the table. I squeezed that hand with so much passion that I felt I was almost coming. My boy only looked at me with eyes filled with mist and a small salient smile on his luscious lips.

******

I returned from work three days ago and found a skinny thing sitting on the sofa in the living room. An hour-glass cup with half empty red content was held between her fingers. She glued her sea eyes so much to the plasma TV on the wall that she hardly noticed when I entered. My blood began to boil. It boiled so much anything I touched could catch fire.

‘Ehen? Who are you?’

My voice was climbing the ladder of anger that was already touching the sky in me. My voice jostled her out of whatever could have enchanted her so much on the screen and she did not know when the glass cup fell off her hand and made a mess on the tiled floor of my living room. She got up with her wrists moving up and down, her legs grew cold with uneasiness, her mouth stayed agape.

‘Ehen?’

I wanted her to talk but all she could do was open her mouth and obeyed the incoherent rhythm of her flabbergasted feet. It was obvious that this nasty skinny thing was my rival so I raked like Tsunami and howled like Hurricane Katrina.

‘What is it?’

My boy rushed to the living room.

‘It’s this thing.’

I pointed at her with my right hand and supported my hip with my left hand as my body danced to another rhythm – a rhythm of jealousy.

‘I close my eyes, before the count of three you either vamoose or vanish before I vanish you.’

Before I counted three, she thinned into the air. I grabbed my boy and from that spot we kissed till I lowered him unto the floor and broke his belt as he was also busy trying to rid me of my trousers and underwear. With all obstacles out of way, we rode into bliss.

******

We were eating at the dinning table when I began to feel like I wanted to throw up. It was already at my throat before I could get out of the chair so I messed up everywhere with the garbage in my tummy. My boy got up and cleaned the mess. As soon as he was through I puked again and he did not hesitate to clean it up again. He took me to the water basin and splashed some water on my face. There I vomited more. It was all yellowish something; perhaps the jollof rice I was eating. He held me in his arms and took me to the sofa in the living room where he tended me like a new born baby.

‘Congratulations madam. You are pregnant,’ said the doctor with some casualness in his voice.

He must have said same to a thousand and one clients. I curled and held my stomach. He noticed my reaction and added, ‘shocked or surprised?’

‘What’s the difference between the two?’

‘Well,’ he looked into the space as if he wanted to get the answer there. ‘If you are shocked it means you are not expecting it, there may also be some unpleasant circumstances surrounding the conception. If you are surprised, you are eagerly expecting it you don’t just think it could come at this time and in this way.’

‘Doc, you are telling me the same thing in different ways. I managed a smile.

‘Make sure you don’t waste time to register for ante natal.’

He stretched forth his right hand ‘congratulations once again.’ I grabbed his hand, ‘Thank you.’

Bala, my husband’s closest friend arrived from Mali where he and my husband were part of the UN peace keeping force.

‘When is your friend coming home?’

Bala did not say anything but I had a feeling he was pregnant with so much just like the war in my womb. Instead of talking to me he busied himself rocking in the chair, making comments about my boy and sighing uneasily.

‘Ha! Damba was a brave soldier, a true peace keeper but....’

I was at the edge of the seat.

‘But what Bala?’

‘We ran into an ambush and before we could understand what was happening my friend was.....’ he paused again. I jumped out of my seat and held his danshiki as if he owed me a huge amount of money and refused to pay. My tears were hot and burning like sulphure.

‘God knows best. You have to take heart.’

Those were his words before he left.

I called my office that morning and told them I would not be available for some important reasons. I packed my miserable self to the dinning room where I placed my troubled head on the table. The redding tears have not ceased to flow. My husband was away keeping peace in some war torn country while there was war under his roof.

And the war under his roof was living in my womb. Or how do I explain it that my pregnancy was not for Damba but for Ismail, my eighteen year old son?

Omidire, Idowu Joshua studied English at the University of Lagos. His works have appeared in different literary anthologies, newspapers and online literary magazines. He is based in Lagos, Nigeria.

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