At that point, I didn’t know if I should accept my fate and live on it like other girls or if I should follow what my spirit man is telling me to do.
Well, I never wanted to act faster than the real actions till I got home. The quietness in our house depicted how the argument must have gone. My mother was sitting at a separate corner of the house as she plucked leaves for the meal tonight. I could see regret written all over her face because ever since I knew my mother I think she always felt regretful about her action or probably why she did something she had done. She’s my mother, I could easily read her mood from her face. At that moment, I saw regret probably for getting married to my father.
In just a few minutes I stepped into the house, and my father called me to the living room. My mother gave a very long hiss as my father called me. I already know what happened, I just wanted to hear how it was going to be presented to me.
“Maria, a man has asked for your hand in marriage” My father started as I sat down on a chair.
“My hand was asked in marriage or you gave me into marriage Baba?”
“Will you shut up and listen to me? How dare you reply to my statement with a question?”
I kept mute. I never wanted to stretch further in anger.
“He is a very rich man that will help us with finance once you marry him. The man is coming tomorrow with his people after the payment of the bride price you’d follow him home” My father said without remorse.
“And then what baba? Become a slave to a man of the same age as you are? Do you even love me as your child or do all you care is about money? You always give us a story of the history of how the white men came and bought Nigerians into slavery and here you are doing right the same thing with your child! Walai! Baba, I will never get married to whomever that is coming tomorrow, rather you kill me.”
That was the first time in my life I spoke to my father in such a tone. In our village it was taboo. Everything was taboo and sometimes I wondered if there were rightful things. Well, my father showed me the reality of what he was made of. He locked me up and tortured me till I gave into the marriage.
Well, I lived like a prisoner in the man’s house and was raped every hour of the day. It continued until I murdered him, ran off and never returned.
My father talked about slavery, isn’t that one?
#This is a story of my life…
@fiction
