Author: folakemi

A Christian striving for perfection, a writer, a wife, a mother, a reader; passionate about life and family.
Posted in Life commentary, Short story

Tick Tock

Posted on by folakemi

Tick tock

© Folakemi Emem-Akpan

Tick tock.

You can hear your biological clock ticking. And it’s going so fast the sound almost deafens you, so you do what most desperate women do.

You go clubbing.

The first night, there are more women than men, women who are in the exact same shoes as you’re in. All but two of you spent the first dozen years of your matured lives building careers, then you spent the next five unseating your directors and taking over their corporate seats. Just last year, all but two of you realised you were alone.

All but two of you are desperate.

The men would not bite. They circle the lot of you warily, chat up the prettiest amongst you, and promptly retire into dark corners with the best of the best amongst you. You return home unattached.

The second night, the gender disparity is minimal. A guy in coke-bottle glasses chats you up but when he gets a closer look at the fine network of wrinkles at the sides of your eyes, he excuses himself.

The third night, you get lucky.

He is handsome in the way only male models can be. He has close-cropped hair, liquid black eyes, full lips a girl would die for, and a six foot frame that bears up his body weight quite nicely. He makes a beeline for you, offers to buy you a drink, and tells you you’re the prettiest thing he ever laid eyes on. You’re not sure you believe him, but it feels nice anyway.

The next morning, he wakes up next to you on your bed, in your room, in your six bedroom house. You remember vaguely that he told you something about forwarding and clearing, but the last thing on your mind is what he does for a living.

Three months to the day, your room has become his, your home his, your cars his. He hardly goes to work, prefers to sit in your living room, watch your cable TV, have his fill of meals made by your house help.

One night, you return home to dinner by candle light and soft music. He treats you like no one has ever done, pulls out your chair, slips a rose petal into your hair. Then he goes on one knee and produces a ring. Would you marry him?

You are ecstatic. The gods must be smiling down at you at last. Tearfully, you say yes. Yes, yes, yes. The night would have been a lovely one, one you would never forget if not that sorrow suddenly seems to engulf him. When he sits beside you on the sofa later that night,  he confesses to you that his business is not doing well. He’s had a bit of a challenge with Customs. Several of his containers have been seized for no just reason and he needs some money urgently. If you would be kind enough to loan him. Not so much, just three million Naira. And not for long, two months tops.

You say yes. You don’t care if he ever returns the money. Love is all about sharing and you love him so much your stomach aches just thinking about him, about the future, about the cute litter of children the two of you would produce.

You hand him the cheque the following day. His smile is breathtaking and the lovemaking that night is fantastic.

For the next four days, he’s absolutely attentive.  He loves you with his body, and he brings you breakfast in bed afterward.

He doesn’t come home the fifth day. When you call him, he tells you he’s busy at the port, he’d try to see you soon.

Soon turns out to be eight days. Then off he goes again.

You’ve not seen him in eight weeks. And when you call him, you get no connection. Something tells you he’s blocked your line.

You’re back where you started.

Your biological clock is ticking.

Tick tock.

Posted in Contemporary, Girls, Life commentary, Short story

Saving Dipo

Posted on by folakemi

wife battery
depression

SAVING DIPO

© August 2020 Folakemi Emem-Akpan

This time, you could not save him from himself.

You couldn’t save him from the law, like you had done a thousand times in the past.

The first time you rescued him, you hadn’t known that he needed rescuing, that he was anything like your father had been.

They looked so different – Dipo and your father. Fair skinned vs. dark skinned. Classically handsome vs. your average looking guy. He was as tall as the sun; your father couldn’t boast of 5’3 even in his tallest shoes.

It took the first blow to your face, less than two months into your relationship, over something as silly as you not picking his calls quickly enough, for you to know that he was exactly like your father. When he fell to his knees afterward and groveled at your feet, when he wept his soul out and confessed his demons to you, when he begged for your mercy, that he hadn’t meant to hit you, you knew he needed saving from himself.

And so you saved him.

You didn’t walk out as you had promised yourself that you would if a man raised his fists to you the way your father did to your mother. You flinched as he tenderly wiped your bruised cheek, and you trembled in his arms as he made love to you. What you didn’t do was leave.

He didn’t hit you for a long time. Then he lost his job, drank more, slept less, ranted at the boss who had it in for him.

He hit you again, four months after the first time. And he fell to his knees again, blamed it on the booze and his paranoia. And you saved him again. You did not call the police, and you did not leave.

It’s been three years now and you have lost count of how many times you guys have repeated the cycle of hit, grovel, forgive, hit again. When he is happy and feels on top of the world, light suffuses your whole being. And when he is morose and is antagonizing the world, the darkness takes you.

The thing is, you now have more darkness in your life more than you have light.

As he throws the broken shards of the whiskey bottle at you this dark, dark night, as he pummels you with bare knuckles later on, your spirit is overwhelmed and you weep desolately because you know that you can no longer save him. You cannot keep on saving him because someone else needs your salvation.

Once Dipo falls asleep, you tiptoe around the apartment, throwing the absolute necessities into a duffel bag.

Finally, in the living room, you lay on the floor for the longest time, your flat bare belly against the cool linoleum floor, your heart breaking inside of you. When you finally curl yourself into a ball and reach for the phone to call the police, your tears almost blind you.

You love Dipo so much, but you love this new life growing inside of your womb even more.

You dial the police.

 

 

 

Posted in Contemporary, Short story

Of losses and opportunities

Posted on by folakemi

sad black man
Airplanes

Of losses and opportunities

(c) July 2020 Folakemi Emem-Akpan

He lost him to the land of opportunities. It is a thirty year long pain that still hurts, that still throbs and sears whenever he allows himself the luxury of remembering.

 

He had been four, that tremulous age when one is too young to remember and yet too old to forget. For he does not, cannot remember the details of his father’s face or of his body. Had he been fat or slim, swarthy or fair, tall or short? Yet he remembers the warm feeling that rose up in him when his father smiled at him, when he picked him up from amidst his toys as he returned from the office, when he ran his five O clock shadow against his stomach.

 

Biodun shakes his head, sticks his thoughts into his remembrance box for later, and turns to his wife of three years. Beatrice’s belly is huge, showing effortlessly through the extra extra large maternity blouse she has on. He hates to leave at a time like this, does not want to be cast in the same light as his father, desperately needs to be by his wife’s side in the labor room.

 

“Relax already.” Beatrice nudges him sharply at the sides and dazzles him with a smile when he faces her. “I’ll be fine. And if things go the way the editor said, you should be home by next week.”

 

“What if…”

 

“I give birth before you come? Honest, we’ll be fine.”

 

He closes his eyes, sucks in a breath, is about to expel it when the public address system comes to life. It is time to board the New York bound flight, time to kiss his wife goodbye.

 

He does so quickly, not wanting her to see the tears that suddenly well up in his eyes. As he walks towards the door, he does not look back, assaulted with images from another age, from another era of his life.

 

He remembers that afternoon at the airport, waving hard at his father as the latter went into the departure lounge, smiling his customary thousand watt smile.

 

That was the last time he saw him.

 

Three days later, his mother gave birth to his sister. His father called that day for the first time, to say he’d arrived safely.

 

In the next four months, he called exactly four times, once each month to report his progress.

 

And then the calls stopped.

 

For three years, little Biodun pestered his Mum. He wanted to know where daddy was, why he didn’t come home anymore, why he couldn’t go with him to school functions. Always he was told, “Daddy is in the US. He is working hard to make life better for all of us.”

 

He learnt the truth when he reached the all-wise age of ten. He came home from school to meet his mother curled up in bed, her face white and streaked with gray lines of tears. He thought she was dying. Then she told him the truth.

 

Someone had played the Green Card Lottery but had died before the results came out, before he could learn that he was about to become an American citizen. The family searched for an alternative, someone who looked as close as possible to their late son; they found Segun, Biodun’s father.

 

One month later, he paid the asking price, shaved his hair and grew out his beard, took on the identity of a dead man, and waved his family goodbye with promises of getting established in the US and sending for them.

 

He didn’t. Instead, he found himself a white woman, well-off, single and desperate for marriage. Before the year ran out, she was pregnant and they were married. In four years, they’d produced three children.

 

A distant friend ran into him, returned to Nigeria with the news for Biodun’s mother. And there was nothing they could do. On their marriage certificate here in Nigeria, he was Segun Adeboye. In New York, in his new life, he was Uche Adaeze.

 

When Biodun settles into his seat on the plane, the initial agreement for the publishing of his script in his hands, he calms himself.

 

He is not his father. He can have his future and his family both. He will sign the final agreement, make final corrections to his manuscript. Then he will return.

 

To his wife, to their soon-to-be-born son.

 

Posted in Contemporary, Life commentary, Short story

Fool’s gold

Posted on by folakemi

dancing couple
not anymore
depression

Fool’s gold                

© Folakemi Emem-Akpan

Barbara stood in their ultra-modern garage and admired her glistening car. Today, she’d had one of the office boys take the red Ford Kuga for detailing, and it shone like new.

Going through the door that connected the garage to their kitchen, she couldn’t stop smiling. Life was good. She was in line for the top position of her company, just waiting for good old Bob to retire. On days like this, when she was bone-tired from work, she was doubly glad there were no children to demand her attention. And then there was Mike, her husband of many years. She loved him more than a thousand children put together, more than the top dog position of S&L, more than life itself.

Mike, of the gentle disposition. Mike, the humorous. Mike, who loved nothing more than being at home with her. Mike, who’d finally accepted that a child wouldn’t be a part of their lives.

The kitchen was as modern as the garage, every gadget known to man displayed on gleaming surfaces. This was Mike’s territory. As a child, he’d been raised on fast food by a carefree mother and an irresponsible father. As a man, the place he found peace most was in the kitchen. He owned a restaurant downtown and doubled as both manager and head chef. Each evening, he usually had dinner ready for her, heavenly and hot.

But today, there were no smells from the kitchen. No piping garlic smell. No oily smell of frying fish. Nothing.

Suddenly frightened but without knowing why, Barbara dropped her bag on the white counter and stooped to unstrap her high-heeled sandals.

“Mike, I’m home.” The house was silent, eerily so, and her heart began a crazy and uneven race. The living room was dark but a lone light shone from the flight of stairs.

She was on the fourth step when she heard it. The sound of a wardrobe slamming. “Michael.” She ran up the stairs, hitching up her skirt. The door to their room was wide open, the huge bed buried under an avalanche of clothes. On the floor was a huge suitcase.

Michael was pulling out clothes from the walk-in wardrobe, his face contorted in concentration.

“Michael, what’s the matter? Where are you going?”

He looked her way but seemed not to see her but through her. Then he shook his head and returned to his chore.

“What’s happening here?”

When he replied, his voice seemed to come from a faraway place, from within his very soul. “Going away, that’s what I’m doing.”

For a full minute, she stood statue-still, the words refusing to form on her lips.

“Eighteen long years, Barbara. That’s how long we’ve been married. I was barely twenty-three, you twenty-two.” His eyes turned dreamy, as he pulled them both into remembrance. “I wanted a little baby immediately, but you had to go to college. And after college, you wanted to take professional exams…”

She started to interrupt but he held up a hand to cut her off. “And after that, you had to start a career. And after that, you had to establish the career. Honey, it just dawned on me that you never meant to be a mother. And if there’s anything I desire more than life itself, it’s a child. One that we can call our own, one that we can love and give all the privileges we were denied as children.” His eyes glistened with sudden tears.

She struggled to rise from the cobwebby depths to which she had fallen. “But Michael…”

“Forget it. You’d only give more excuses why we should wait. But we’re no longer kids. I’m forty-one, and some men my age are already granddads. I can’t take it anymore.”

A wall of grief sprang up from her stomach, rising to her chest, constricting, cutting off the words she should speak, the pleading she should do. She stood there, arms stiffly at her sides, the tears cascading from her eyes.

She stood there, watched as Michael finished packing, watched as he lugged the suitcase out of the room, and listened as his car purred to life outside.

Then she sank to the floor, still not speaking, but weeping like a dam damaged and untended.

 

Posted in Short story

From the lips of babes

Posted on by folakemi

From the lips of babes

© Folakemi Emem-Akpan

Ahmad holds his younger sister by one hand, drags his school bag behind him with the other. The sun is high up in the sky and relentless in its heat. Beads of sweat line the ten-year-old’s face, and the skull cap sitting atop his head doesn’t help matters at all. For a brief moment, he wonders how hot and miserable Adijat, his seven-year old sister must be underneath her black hijab.

Theirs is a Muslim school; it is mandatory for both boys and girls to keep their heads covered. Their headmaster, who is also an alfa, would literarily beat the demon out of whosoever dare disobey school rules. Their own father would do worse; he’d once beaten their mother to near-coma for welcoming a visitor with her head uncovered.

As they round the corner to their home, a squat ugly building that they’ve lived in forever, Ahmad’s heart begins to ricochet inside of its cage. Without his father’s knowledge, he’s made a new friend in the building just before theirs. The other boy is also ten years old and is an infidel, a Christian. Ahmad’s father would kill him first and ask questions later should he ever see his son talking to Philip.

“Go on home, Adijat. If Mama asks for me, you know what to say.” It is an inexcusable crime to let his sister walk home alone, but their father is off to work, and Mama would never tell on them. If anything, she tries so hard to protect her children against their father’s irrational anger.

Philip is waiting, as previously arranged. There’s a smile on his lips, as if there’s nothing more he’d rather do in the world than converse with Ahmad.

“You’re early today.”

“Yes.” Quickly, Ahmad pushes his friend into the doorway. There are neighbors who would love to tell Ahmad’s father that he’s now friends with a Christian boy. Better take precautions.

The living room is small yet manages to convey an impression of space. Faded easy chairs are arranged at opposite ends, and on the far wall is a painting of Jesus on the cross. Four other children are waiting, and for the briefest of moments, Ahmad is surprised to see Quadri, a much older boy from his school who lives farther down the street.

Dropping his school bag, Ahmad falls into the nearest seat and yanks off his skull cap. Overhead, a fan is slowly rotating. In no time, his sweat dries and relief courses through his body. Philip begins handling out Bibles.

“Last night, my dad read to us from John at our evening devotion. He made some notes for me when I told him we’d be meeting today.”

The Bible feels soft and familiar to Ahmad. With unease, for he’s not had much practice, he opens to the book of John. As Philip reads the from the third chapter and then turns to his father’s notes for further explanations, a surge of unexplainable joy courses through Ahmad’s body. Even though he’s young, he knows with an unshakeable certainty that he’s found the true religion, the only true God. He sits there, learning about sin and redemption, and even though Philip is as young as himself is, there’s no doubt in his heart that this is the right way.

When they finish, Ahmad pulls his new friend aside and whispers to him, “Can I come back for more, let’s say tomorrow?”

When Philip says yes, Ahmad quickly hugs him, waves bye to the other children and slips out of the house. But not before he remembers to wear his cap.

Outside, the sun is still as scorching as ever. He can see his mother at the entrance to their home, shrouded in a billowing black gown. He loves this woman so much. Perhaps when he’s old enough to get away from Papa, when he becomes a Christian, he’ll take his Mama along with him. And Adijat.

Hijab – A large religious scarf worn by Muslim women

Alfa – A teacher of the Quran

Posted in Christian fiction, Short story

Still searching

Posted on by folakemi

 

mothers love

Still searching

© Folakemi Emem-Akpan

The first man stole my money and dignity and left me with an unwanted baby.

The second drove all my friends away and turned me into a recluse.

The third…well, the third man put my daughter in the family way and made me an untimely grandmother.

I have stopped searching. What’s the big deal about love anyway? I am all of my thirty-four years and will not be fooled anymore.

How can a man whisper love to you, yet rob you and turn tail when your shared love produces a child? Or, how can a man profess love when he’s all consumed by jealousy and can’t bear to share you with others, not even your family and friends. And how can you talk about love when a man heads over heels in love with you makes a baby with your fifteen-year-old daughter?

They tell me I’ve become a cynic. Overcautious, skeptical, too wrung out.

Perhaps yes, perhaps no. All I know is that I’ve finally grown up, and grownups use their senses, and not their hearts.

“Hello mum.” Femi, my daughter bounds into the room with Bolu slung over her shoulder.

“Hi.” I return, reaching out automatically for my four-month-old granddaughter. When I allow myself to think of the circumstances of her birth, grief paralyses me and my heart almost always threatens to explode out of my chest. So I think less often of how she got here and more of how much I love her.

It’s been a long, sad year but the sadness and the tears and the pain has driven Femi and me back together. We’ve spent the past one year weeping and growing together.

“I just finished feeding her. Would you mind watching her awhile? There’s a youth group meeting in church this afternoon.”

Femi has just gotten herself religion, the kind of which I have never seen before. Church on Sundays and two evenings a week. No more mini-skirts and tank tops. At age sixteen? I can’t for the life of me imagine how. Or why?

“You’re not studying as hard as you used to anymore.” I chide her foolishly even though she made straight As in her last exams.

“That’s not true, Mum. You know I try to get in some extra hours when Bolu falls asleep at night. And youth group makes me happy. I’m really learning a lot. Last meeting, our instructor talked about love.”

“Love?” I look up from burping Bolu.

“Yeah. How that one can only find true love in Jesus Christ. He said it is useless trying to find love in things or even in people. Things get destroyed and people change, he said, but only God’s love stays constant.”

“What?”

She sighs and falls into the chair beside me. “I think it’s true talk, Mum. If not, why did all your friends abandon us when I fell pregnant for Uncle Dave? And my friends too? Why is it that the neighbours don’t greet us anymore? Why, if not for the simple reason that people only love you when you do good?”

I find that I cannot talk, that there is a huge ball the size of Lagos in my throat.

Femi went on unrelentingly, “If God didn’t love us unconditionally, He would have killed me for what I did to you…”

“It wasn’t your fault,” I cut in for want of something to say, “Uncle Dave forced himself on you.”

“The first two times, Mum. Afterwards, I gave in willingly.” There are tears in her eyes. For the last one year, she has done nothing but apologise, and I have forgiven her. In fact, I have never blamed her.

Dave was a grown man who had somehow convinced my fifteen year old that he loved her, and that she was the one for him. He had raped her at first, and then somehow gotten her to believe that he was in love with her, and that she was in love with him reciprocally.

“Perhaps it is true what the youth leader says about God and love, Mum.”

I reflect. No one in my life has ever loved me unconditionally. Not one single person. “Go ahead, tell me more.” I tell my daughter.

“He also said that it is only God who is able to put good people in your life who will love you despite anything. Faithful husbands, good mothers. Caring friends.”

“Hmn?”

“I think I’m going to give God a trial. Sounds like a good bargain to me. I love Him; He loves me and puts good people in my life. And I think you should do the same. Then we could perhaps ask for a husband for you?”

“Femi?”

“You’re still young! Only thirty-four. You shouldn’t spend the rest of your life looking after me and Bolu.”

“I think you should go now. Or you’ll be late.”

She wipes the tears from her eyes and smiles broadly, that mischievous smile that is uniquely hers. “Okay Mum, but promise me you’ll give it good thought. It’s going to be worth it.”

I hesitate to reply. No one’s ever loved me unconditionally, so why would God?

“Promise, Mum.”

“Okay, I promise.” I say as I bounce Bolu on my knees. My heart is racing in my chest but perhaps God is worth giving a try, if He would take me, baggage and all.

I will give Him a trial.

For her sake. For Bolu’s sake.

For God’s sake.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Christian fiction, Romance, Short story

Not such a stupid thing

Posted on by folakemi

outback
cowboy
writer

Not such a stupid thing

© Folakemi Emem-Akpan

 

It was such a stupid, simple thing to do. They all sounded beautiful, and if there was one thing my life needed at the moment, it was beauty and a little simplicity. And they were all so very far away, and I needed to get very far away from routine.

I tacked the maps of Greece, Ethiopia and Australia to different angles of my library wall, Greece because I was born there, Ethiopia because it sounded exotic and Australia because…well I don’t know.

I spun on my feet, gathered momentum and whirled with all of my strength. It was a good thing I was all by myself at home; women approaching their fifties do not spin and whirl and gather momentum like yoyos. Why, it is downright unladylike.

When I finally stopped, I was facing the map of Australia.

I sat at my desk and very quickly, before I convinced myself to change my mind, called my travel agent who was also my good friend.

“Christie, I need you to book me a flight to Australia. Yes, yes, and I need to leave by next week.”

I hung on to the phone as she asked me why I wanted to go to Australia, which exact town I was going, and how long was I staying.

I bit my fingers down to the quick as I responded to her questions. I didn’t know why I was going to Australia, except perhaps to relax, escape away from the madness of living in New York. I needed to take a break after the craziness of my thirteenth book reaching the bestseller list.

“Take care of everything.” I said.

I arrived Brisbane in mid-March, on an afternoon so hot that I didn’t need divine guidance to remove my jacket, roll up my sleeves, unhitch my cap.

I proceeded to search for my name on a placard.

Christie had only said that someone would be waiting for me, making no mention of the person’s gender or race or age. Why hadn’t I asked?

Fifteen minutes later, sweaty and fuming, I could not still find the person who was to pick me.

Shaking my head disgustedly but determined to give myself a proper holiday, I started to make my way to the entrance of the arrival lounge, my one box rolling not too smoothly behind me. A red-bandanaed man was just swinging open the door as I bent to straighten the tyre of the errant box.

I couldn’t have scripted it better myself.

The door caught me squarely in the face, and I thought I heard the sound of smashing bone. A thousand stars lit up behind my eyes and I felt myself falling through space, falling, falling, falling…

When I came to, the man was fanning me with his hat. And of all things to consider at a time like that, I considered his bald head. Pink, as smooth as a baby’s buttocks, as if he’d not just gone bald but had been so all of his life.

“Are you okay?” His face was a mask of worry.

I groaned. “I guess so. Is my nose broken?”

Fear lit up his eyes and he reached out very tenderly to touch my nose. It was then that I confirmed that it wasn’t broken. A lot bruised, but not in the least bit broken.

“I guess it’s all right.” Then I realised that people were watching us. I was still lying on the floor, and he was still kneeling beside me, fanning me still.

Laughing at the absurdity of the situation, I allowed him help me up. “Are you sure you’re okay?” He asked again.

“Yes I am. But I’m going to need a taxi. Someone was supposed to pick me but he hasn’t shown up, and my friend Christie said he would be here.”

“Are you Evie? From the U.S.?”

“Yes. And you are?”

“Arthur. I’m Christie’s brother-in-law. She called me at the last moment to be here. The guy who was supposed to pick you originally got sick and Christie tried to reach you but you were already in transit, in the air. She had to call me to come pick you.”

For the first time, I noticed that Arthur was quite handsome. He had a straight nose, full generous lips, and eyes the colour of the sea, filled with the wisdom of the life experiences he had gathered over his fifty-something years of living.

And there was something regal in his bearing, something dignified, the same quality Philip, my late husband had unconsciously exuded.

I smiled as we shook hands. He wasn’t wearing a wedding band.

Perhaps coming on a whim to Australia had not been such a stupid thing after all.

 

Posted in Christian fiction, Short story

A patch and a hope

Posted on by folakemi

rain
tomatoes

A patch and a hope

© Folakemi Emem-Akpan

 

My back groans in protest as I heave myself to my feet. It’s been a grueling two hours, weeding, trimming, planting. Yet, the sorry excuse of a garden looks forlorn.

Actually, it mirrors the despair in my heart, the terrifying loneliness, the pain.

 

“Mom, haven’t you finished yet?”

 

Pushing tangled hair away from my face, I am assaulted with my daughter’s image. My heart lurches into its familiar dance of pain. At twelve, she’s the size of a three-year-old. Sadly, she can’t even do what three-year-olds do. She slides on her rear end instead of walking, messes up her face while eating, and I have to clean her up every time she has a bowel movement.

 

She hasn’t always been this way. I haven’t always been a widow.

 

Five years ago, I had a husband and Teresa was like any seven-year-old. We lived a simple but happy life. One bright Christmas morning, we loaded our old car full of food, intent on dispensing cheers to as many people as we knew. We started with my mother, wove our way to Mark’s childhood home where his father still lived, then down to an elderly woman Teresa’d adopted.

 

Tired but happy, we set for home at night. The stars weren’t bright enough to light our path and the car’s headlights were weak, had been weak for ages. I will forever regret the fact that I was talking too fast and that Mark was listening too intently.

 

The next bend came round too soon. Our screams rent the still night air as I felt myself dropping through space, the metallic taste of blood on my lips. Then there was nothing but darkness.

 

When I came to, my mom was staring at me with a look that told me all was lost. She was reluctant but I was eager, so the story unfurled. Mark was dead on impact, Teresa was alive but her condition was critical.

 

The memories flood my head this dry afternoon and cause my head to ache. I reply Teresa. “Yes, I have. I am done with them.”

 

“Will they grow fine?”

 

I look at the tomatoes I’d just planted, doubt if they’d grow at all, if my heart would ever be at peace, if tomorrow would be any better than today.

 

“Will they?”

 

“Maybe. Let’s go have breakfast.”

 

She slides along beside me in obedience. I can’t get her to use her wheelchair. She hates it with a passion, and this was the same passion that had made her live, that had made her come back home to me, even though she was still broken and I couldn’t fix her.

 

The prognosis was bad. If she lived, she’d be a paraplegic. She lived, she wasn’t a paraplegic, but for a reason that confounds medical science till tomorrow, her frame began to shrink. The bones, the skin, everything but her head.

 

“Will the tomatoes grow?”

 

Her repeated question crowds my head and before I know it, I’m snapping at her, “I don’t know. Leave me alone.”

 

Life’s been hard and unduly unfair. Before Mark’s death, I didn’t work, only dreamt of one day becoming a writer. After his death, I was coldly thrust into the breadwinner’s field. We are surviving, but barely so. Teresa’s medical bill gulps money faster than the dry patch of garden outside gulps water.

 

In four years, I’ve toiled endlessly in the garden and have only been rewarded by two harvests. Two miserly harvests.

 

I don’t know how I reached my conclusion; the important thing is that I have a conclusion. Either God doesn’t exist or cares nothing for us.

 

Teresa’s eyes fill with tears but she presses on. “I hope the garden grows this time.”

 

I plunk a plate of rice in front of her and begin to play with my own food. She eats in silence while I sulk at a God I’ve ceased believing in.

 

***

 

The sound of horse hooves on the roof jerks me out of an uneasy sleep. What is going on? Jumping off the bed, my first thought is of Teresa’s safety. My heart begins a long and uneven race as I barrel out of the room.

 

She meets me at the door. “It’s raining.”

 

The horse hooves I had imagined mellowed to pelts of rain, and my heart stops racing.

 

“Mom, it’s raining.” She repeats as if I am deaf.

 

It’s not rained in a year.

 

***

 

Teresa slides noisily into the room. I look up from the script I’m trying to write.

 

“The tomatoes.” She’s fairly bursting with excitement.

 

I don’t understand her when she gets this way.

 

“They’re growing. I saw them.”

 

With a speed I didn’t think I had, I was running out of the door, into the rain that’s been falling for two days. Into hope.

 

 

Posted in Christian fiction, Girls, Short story

This wish

Posted on by folakemi

hope
depression

This one wish
(c) Folakemi Emem-Akpan

An achingly cold night. The Harmattan wind buffets my face, stings at the frozen line of tears there. I hurry on, my slippers plat-platting on the sidewalk, my heart beating at the frantic pace it almost always does these days. Mrs. Brown next door had called thirty minutes ago, saying she had to go out, could I come back ASAP?

I stop to catch my breath at the entrance to the apartment. Our tenement is a huge, squalid structure. Populated by more rats and roaches than people, it should have been torn down years ago. But this is home, has been home for two years.

It was to this building that I fled all those months ago. It was here that I clocked eighteen, here that Kate was born. Katie, the unbelievably lovely product of that one night gone wrong.

“Hello there.” Mrs. Brown is dressed, ready to go. The coat she wears was once fashionable. Now it is just old and frayed. Yet, it is still more adequate protection against the cold than my own thin jacket is.

“She’s sleeping. And I’m sorry I had to call you like that, but it is really important that I go out.”

I am not paying her, so what rights do I have to her time, to her help. “Thanks.” I say and put on a smile, so that she will know that I am not mad, even though I am dissapointed

She hands me the key to my room and waves me bye, picking her way through the perpetual flow of garbage in front of room three. I open my door, glad to be somewhere warm for the first time  that evening.

Kate is asleep indeed, curled up on the thin rug in front of the television. She was twenty two months last week, has a heightened sense of observation and has recently taken to the television. I don’t want her to watch so much, but with me working most of the time and Mrs. Brown stepping in as an adopted grandma, there is nothing I can do about it. For now.
It was on the TV that Kate first saw a Christmas tree. At least six feet tall, with gleaming balls and red bows. The presents underneath the tree must have been at least a hundred. Big packages, small packages, tiny packages, all done up in elaborate dressing.

Kate’s eyes had gone wide, then she’d clapped her pudgy little hands together and looked at me with her piercingly dark eyes. “Mama, tree.”

As I watch my little angel sleep, silent tears wash my face. I have been saving for as long as I can remember towards a present, perhaps two for Kate this Christmas season, but not in a million years would I be able to afford a tree.

Pulling off my jacket, I walk over to the far corner where the hot plate and eating bowls are. In one of the bowls, I lift out my egg nest, all of two thousand Naira.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I should pray at a time like this or just give in to the overwhelming emotions and cry. I am only twenty years old. I shouldn’t be saddled with decisions like this. I am a child myself, so how can I be a mother? Why would God entrust me with Kate’s life, her upbringing. Why?

I sink to the floor, desperation clutching at my breast. My daughter is only a little girl, a baby with a past she didn’t create and a future she can’t decide.
An unseasonably warm September night, and I’d been out alone. Running late, I’d cut through the alley, hoping that I’d be home before Dad. The unexpected blow to the back of my head. Two boys with shaven heads and dead eyes. That was the night I lost my virginity.

It took two months to realise I’d lost more than that. I sunk into murky depths. Who would believe that my pregnancy was the fallout of a rape, one I’d never even spoken to anyone about?

No one did, and Dad was very quick to show me the door.

Jagged sobs rouse me out of my reverie and it takes a while to realise they are mine. Kate turns over, a contented snore issuing from between her lips.

I should be able to provide for her, give her the beautiful things she deserves. I should be able to stop the world for her, offer it to her on a platter. Something as little as a Christmas tree shouldn’t be so hard, so unreachable a goal.

There is a very soft knock at the door. Wiping my tears, I stand to open the door. It’s Mrs. Brown.

“Back so early?”

She smiles, a soft motherly smile. “I didn’t go far, just around the corner to the second hand shop. It’s Christmas Eve, and every little girl should get their wish.” With that, she steps aside.

That’s when I see the tree.

It is short, and sporting a few miserly decorations. But to a toddler, it would look like a giant, and a very beautiful one at that.

My vision swims for an instant, and then clears so that I can see the angel in front of me. Hope surges into my chest afresh, lifts me up, envelopes the whole of my being. I look again at the angel sent to me and say the only word I can at this time, “Thanks.”

 

***

Whatever your situation at this time may be, I plead with you not to give up hope. God sees it all and answers our prayers, no matter how small (irrelevant) or huge (impossible) they may be.

 

***

And please remember to stay safe. This evil virus too shall pass soon.

 

Posted in Contemporary, Girls, Life commentary, Short story

Fourteen

Posted on by folakemi

fourteen

FOURTEEN

(c) Folakemi Emem-Akpan

Fourteen, bedecked with jewellery borrowed from sisters, aunts and cousins; made up with dark kohl and pink lipstick; grim-faced from lack of sleep; my heart everywhere but here.

But I kneel as I have been asked to, kneel in front of my brand newly-minted husband, offering him a drink from the calabash of palm wine. But my eyes are turned away from him, hidden from anyone underneath my veils, and desperately searching the crowd for the love of my life.

But he is not here. How can he be?

The tears come to me then, rising from a deep dark hole in my soul, spilling down my cheeks quietly. They are bitter, salty, corrosive but do nothing to ease the ache in my heart.

The future is doomed, I say to myself, because I cannot imagine a future without Audu, the very best friend I have ever had, the one I daydream waking up besides, the one who knows me best.

But I had known that he wouldn’t be here. We are all wrong for each other, had been from day one, and my mother had always given him the evil eye when she saw us together. But she had been too much of an ally to have revealed our friendship to my father, who would have turned berserk that I, his precious daughter, soon to be married off into wealth, was talking to a boy without his permission, one who was from a chronically poor family as at that.

I was fourteen, more than ripe for marriage by the standards of my people. Audu was fifteen, too young by the same standards to be married. My father was the village chief, very influential, had been on Hajj, drove a Volkswagen Golf. Audu’s father was the village cobbler, the husband of three wives, the father of twenty plus children with no means to care for them. I had been briefly educated in the western way until my father said that the modernization was getting to my head and pulled me out of school. Audu was illiterate; his father couldn’t even afford to send him to the Koran school where boys learned to read Arabic and do minor sums.

But Audu was the love of my life, and he hadn’t seen it fit to come bid me goodbye as I became the wife of another.

My new husband is forty years old, husband to three already, father to twelve children, the only other person in our little village apart from my father who owned a car. So, it had been a good match, by my father’s standards. I had pleaded, I had wept, sorrowed, threatened suicide, asked for just one more year before getting married.

“To do what?” He’d asked. “Your mother says you’ve been a woman now for more than two years. You are going past your prime.”

At that moment, I’d wished I’d never seen a period, wished I had been born mentally handicapped like my immediate elder sister was. At least no one was pestering her to get married.

So, get married I am, to a man I have not even exchanged two full sentences with.

I swallow back my tears, hearing my heart crack and break into a thousand shards.

This is my new reality, I tell myself. This is life, and now the tragedy begins.