TWENTY-FOUR
Something tells her life is about to take its toll on her. It seems to brandish a cutlass in the air ready to cut out her flesh bit by bit or like whacking a cow whip in the air ready to smack her really hard. Tears welled up in her eyes. They formed thick beads and began to streak down her cheeks cascading into her mouth. The salty taste they gave told her she was crying. She didn’t mind. To menstrate for three weeks non stop is actually unheard of. It is strange, really strange. People who cared to listen to her advised her to visit herbalists and stop patronizing the hospitals. She had spent all the money she made from her trip trying to stop the blood flow.
Lara sighed in utter distress. She cried for a long time. She decided to pack her bags and go see her mum. She had no car anymore. She had sold it. She had refused to tell Tolu her friend she was still menstrating. Whenever she asks, she feigns a smile and tells her it is gone. That she is fine. Then she smiles. A kind of smile one would easily sketch out the depth of her distress from it wryness and wrinkles. It wasn’t a kind of smile that says all is well. Even a child would know it is fake!
Lara had emaciated. She knew her problem had gone beyond physical. She had no choice now than to visit her mum. She was her last hope, her last resort. She gathered few things she could find and dragged her way out of the house before anyone had woken. She didn’t want anyone to know about her exit, not even her best friend Tolu.
She took a taxi and all through the time she was driven through the outskirts of Lagos, the cursing and blaring of motorists, the pattering of impatient footsteps of pedestrians and the shrill calls of hawkers. All made no meaning or any sense to her. She was buried in a deep thought. Something told her she would soon die. It told her she had eaten the forbidden. Now she would need to vomit it really hard.
She got to Ojota motor park and found a bus already filled with different people. A man had taken the front seat. He wore a dark goggle, which he thought made him look like a super gangster but on the contrary, one could be mistaken for a blind man. He was in a short-sleeved shirt that revealed a bleached arm. The next roll had a woman whom her wrapper had already loosened, a baby was sitting on her lap, restlessly kicking and giggling with excitement as he sucked from a flap of b****t that had poured out from a roll of ash blouse. Beside her was a man in a three-piece suit. A frown wore out his face as he watched the wriggle and kicking of the baby, obviously disturbing his peace. He had a newspaper in his hand which told he needed some silence to read. A lady was beside him in a white flowered shirt that tightly shielded a full large balloon of b*****s. Her head was laid back againt her seat already napping. Lara was in the next roll, oblivious of everything around her. The driver lurched in and zoomed the bus suddenly to life. A chorus of excitement could be heard. The man in the three piece suit got up suddenly. This time, with a Bible in his hand. He had a smile at the corners of his lips.
“Praise the Lord!” He shouted. A chorus of hallelujah followed. He repeated it and a chorus of hallelujah followed again.
“Let’s bow our heads for prayer.” He instructed and shut his eyes. A few passengers followed suit. He prayed for a while before he lunched into the Bible. He spoke vehemently against sin and its consequences. Lara listened. She became sober minutes later and began to beg God for forgiveness. She prayed to God that if he can answer her prayers and make her fine again, she would never go back to her old ways. The bus sped on as the man talked and admonished the passengers to turn to Christ and desist from their sinful ways.
They got to Ibadan at half past two. Lara got down and took a taxi to her mum’s shop. She was tired and needed rest. She wasn’t just menstrating but she was wearing out all of a sudden as if something was sapping her strength. Sometimes it would get so bad as if she was going to collapse. Lara hoped her mum would take up the challenge and help her find a solution.
********
Lara’s mum was popularly known as Mama Show in the great Gbagi market. She was a plump-sized woman who had spent all her years bleaching. One could conclude Lara took most of her traits from her. When she married the late Lara’s dad, she was totally obstinate till the man died. Lara was her only child. She decided not to marry again. Though she had an array of men that slept with her at will.
She had a large shop in the Gbagi market that made her rich. Her capital was from few politicians she had dated. Some still huddled around her though. She was known to be dexterously fetish.
Lara had called her frequently about her condition before coming. She took little or no interest. Most time she was preoccupied with her business or anything that would bring her money. Lara felt her mum had taken the situation unserious because she hadn’t seen her to measure the degree of her predicament.
The taxi finally pulled up infront of her shop. Lara came down and pulled her bag from the back seat of the taxi. Her mum sighted her and her mouth clicked open in dismay. She rushed out, wondering what had eaten her girl this bad.
“Good afternoon Mami” Lara greeted after she had paid the taxi man.
“Lara oko mi. Kilode. What is it? Haa? My God!” She lamented as she examined her. ” Who in this world had done this to my daughter?
“Mami let’s go inside first.”
“Which inside? Look at how thin you have become.” She examined her in utter disillusionment.
Lara dragged her bag into the shop and sat down. Her mum followed her, talking angrily from behind.
“So what have you done about it?” Lara’s mum asked her.
“What haven’t I done, Mami? I have been to several hospitals without help.”
“Is this hospital matter? See fool” She sneered at her in disregard.
“So what should I do Mami?” Lara cried.
“Who slept with you before now?”
“Nobody Mami”
“So you want to tell me where you went, no man slept with you there?”
“No Mami”
“What about food? Were you given any strange thing to eat? I mean where you went.
“No Mami.”
“See you better start talking now so that we can find a solution to this problem.”
“Mami, I didn’t eat anything.”
“Ok. So what has Kola done about this because he had stopped calling me for a while now.”
“Mami, he doesn’t talk to me anymore. He sent me out of his office the last time I went there.”
“Didn’t you explain to him the reason you didn’t visit him in the hospital when he had an accident.”
“I did. ”
” The last time he called me was when he told me his friend was coming to pick Junior to see him. I didn’t object to that since he promised me the boy will be fine.”
“Mami, he has changed o.”
“Really?”
“Yes”
“Let me call him.”
She picked her phone and dialled Kola’s number. It rang a number of times without any answer. Kola later sent a text.
“Hello ma, please don’t call my number ever again. If you want to know what happens, ask your daughter where he gets the bastard he called my son. Thank you.”
She read and looked before she looked round in amazement.
“Is this man really OK?” Lara’ s mum spoke angrily. “Can’t he just pick the call and explain what went wrong to me? Hmm all these Lagos men when they are done using a lady, then they look for how to dump her. I think they have put something in you that will make you bleed to death. I don’t want to say you have been used for ritual. See just the same way you bleed, Same way the person continues to be wealthy. And I have a feeling that this is Kola.” She concluded and sighed, twitching her lips in anger.
“Mami, what do we do now?”
“We will go out. We have places to visit.” Lara’s mum affirmed. “But if I find out this is Kola, I will deal with him. He will know you have a mother. If anything happens to know, I will eliminate his entire family. Won ma gba” She added in her native language. She got up and retied her wrapper. She called her apprentices and told them she was going out. Her voice carried a harsh note of anger. They shivered as she talked. She finally left, clutching her hand bag while Lara hurried after her.
To be continued…….
ยฉ Emmanuel Erondu,2019
