Episode 19
The alcohol in my system vanished like a fast volatile substance living nothing but a strangely sobber and bemused man.
I fixed my gaze on Chioma’s figure as she ran through the thick twilight grey that covered the atmosphere now heading towards my gate.
My head was totally damp and to think was impossible, My legs felt like it was nailed to the spot making it impossible to shift.
I wanted to run after her but somehow i couldn’t, my wits and reflexes were as if they were shut down temporarily.
Someone zoomed pass me, the high heel shoes she was wearing giving the ground a musical p******g as she ran after Chioma’s resigning figure.
Licia’s yelling voice kept resounding into my mind, as she kept calling after chioma who didn’t even turn back.
I managed to drag my frame the much i can towards the gate, my woozy head threatening to rip open, wobbling legs on the verge of giving in under me.
Chioma sped on without looking back, every step she takes left a matching thump effect on me.
“Madam!!!”
“Aunty!!”
“Chioma!!!”
Escaped from licia’s mouth buttered into a bag full of hissing sounds as she kept chasing chioma down gaining more ground.
Okon my newly hired gate man, a small stout very black man, with a funny facial look and an off coloured goatee stood beside the gate. I had hired him from the recommendation of Effiong, papa’s gate man and i clearly see the similarities between both.
Their smallish body hogging a whole lot of humour in one small package.
“Maram rem deh call you” he said as Chioma got to the gate.
“Open this gate” She yelled pulling him by his shirt collar, yanking his smallish frame like Big show would yank at a smallish figure like Ray mysterio in a WWE wrestling bout.
“Maram, mbok uka rem deh kol u” His thick calabar assent showing him off to be a fresh fish out of the river.
“Chioma please listen to me” Licia intoned on getting to the spot, holding Chioma by the shoulder.
I don’t why it didn’t come as a surprise, A slapping sound thundered through the air.
“Get your hands off of me!!!” Chioma yelled sending Licia backwards with a thunderous slap.
Licia clutched her cheek in her hands gazing at Chioma with a widened eyes.
“What is wrong with you?” I yelled at Chioma, my body was quaking, nerves were restless and my eyes threatened to shut and blank out any moment.
“Are you out of your mind!!!” my voiced wreaked sending okon on a task of hugging the wall tightly even when i was not referring to him.
“Sky, you are asking me what is wrong with me, what sort of a man are you!!!”
I have never heard Chioma talk in this pitch before and the free flowing streams of tears running down her face made her all the more fierce.
“You come back here clutching another woman God knows were you picked her up from, probably a pr0stitute and you are asking what’s wrong with me?”
I noticed Licia’s face twitched and her eyes went dim while Chioma’s voice rented the air in an uncontrollable tempo.
“I should have known you were still the same, this was exactly the same thing you did with Cynthia. You are a cheat sky, a big cheat and a he- goat”
My mind was taken aback to the Cynthia’s saga 5years ago.
Cynthia as i am told got pregnant a year after i was sent to U.k.
She was denied by the young engineering student that got her pregnant.
She now stays in the united states as a single mom.
“Chioma would you at least listen to me?” My voice was strangely calm and hands making to get hold of her.
“Leave me alone you cheat, don’t touch me” She blurted out pushing me as hard as she could muster.
“You are the worst mist…………”
“Hey hey hold it there” Licia’s voice barged in without announcement cutting Chioma’s long rebuking sermon half way.
Chioma’s eyes widened a bit and her mouth fell open as she fixed a surprised gaze at licia whose dimmed eyes now sparkled in an untold fury.
“You don’t even know what you have until you loose it, you can’t even give your man a chance to explain himself” Her hands were waving at Chioma as she spilled an unheard yarn.
“Yes i am a prostitute and i don’t deny that” I could see Chioma’s intense look as the word ‘pr0stitute’ registered into her mind coming out from Licia’s mouth.
“He could not even bring himself to cheat on you even when he is drunk, what you have here is a broken man. Broken by your inability to show restraint when it is needed, broken by the fact that you made his already troubled life even more troubled than it should have been”
“You were supposed to be there for him, to know your man but you compounded his problems”
Chioma’s face now wore a relatively calm and quiet look and licia’s face got all the more twisted and mean.
She took a couple of steps towards Chioma, looking into her face.
“If anything happens to him, Just know that you caused it”. The seriousness in her voice was unmatched, the contempt out of the world.
Everything was spinning faster before me, my wits have dissolved in an instant and my legs could give in any moment.
Chioma was transfixed in her position, interchangeably looking at me and Licia, a strange calmness was at work but yet traces of anger could still be noticed.
The voices were banging hard into my ears.
Amanda’s chuckle and giggling taunts echoed in.
“Young man, i am highly disappointed in you” In Chioma’s father’s voice.
“Sky this is haimdal’s pills” Jessy’s voice was next to echo in my head.
“I only came here to give you these” this was Chioma’s voice accompanied by a resounding jingling sound of a ring and key crashing down into the ground.
“I have been waiting for you, and i have a surprise for you” Amanda’s clear tone voiced in smeared with a cracking bout of chuckle.
Ryan’s innocent and hearty laugh,
” the child’s deoxyribonucleic acid strand is matches yours more” the doctor’s voice crept in inducing a piercing sharp pain in my head.
My head was numb and i could feel sweat rushing down my face in quick successions, the flashes were constant and over whelming.
“Uka!!!” Okon’s voice yelled.
Complimented by a shrieking yell of my name from Chioma and licia.
“Sky!!!”
Nothing else happened, everything was suddenly blank and dark.
..To be Continued..
