Hiya guys, Monday is here again, did I tell you guys that this writing thing is a gift all the women in my family have? The ones who do not write have a gift of weaving and spinning stories, it’s why I used to be such a good liar lol, with great imagination comes great (and might I add believable) stories. Oh anyways, my sister wrote this incredible short story and I thought to share it with you guys;
“They said she saw me and burst into tears. All ten fingers and toes, slippery, squirmy, red from the blood she had just poured, and all she did was cry. I can never shake the feeling that this holds some meaning for me, some eluding epiphany slowly starting to unravel. They said it was on a market day too, sometime mid-March, 1998. I picked the seventh for my birthday. It is a lucky number. Although if you live here long enough, you realize there is no luck, only life.
It is hot today so I came to sit outside under this cashew tree. The mound in the earth that houses my father catches my eye. He died young. Mother had stood stoic, tearless, as they overturned his body into the grave. I remember Father from mother’s grunts and muffled sobs, reverberating in the night through the partition in the wall covered only by the free mosquito net the health workers had given us. I remember Father in Maleek’s beer-stained breath, his body hurtled over mine, thick hands groping in the dark, prodding mindlessly, pushing hard.
The bundle in my hand starts to fidget. The wails will come next. I pull down the frayed shawl to cover its legs. Mother had bought it off a lady last week, who was selling second-hand clothes, she swears they are grade-one, just brought in from Bene border. My daughter, I am just like her and she is just like me. In this moment I feel at one with Mother, at that exact moment the sobs racked her withered body. She’ll be back soon, her study arms hefting bundled-up cassava to ferment into fufu, food to last us till next week. I blink back the rivers gathering behind my eyes and say a prayer for mirroring lives.”
Told you so, didn’t I?
Gloria.
