Tales about living rural lifestyle are synonymous with shooting an arrow into the sky which must eventually land somewhere.
They say that the evil men do, lives after them but I do say that it lives with them, knowing that each breath in life takes us closer to our appointments with death. In life, we come across many people each day of our lives, their memories come and fade away but before we know it, memories of some stick, they do not fade away.
Aisha was a figure which no mind would be in a hurry to forget so soon in the far away eastern part of Nigeria where the story arrow lands. If only nature reveals, Aisha could have known that her dance in a traditional marriage ceremony which she attended that faithful day would be her last.
As she always does, she kept everyone entertained with her eccentric way of dancing and even when her friends were telling her to quit and have a rest, she whispered to one of them, telling her that such occasions were the only events that make her unburden the sorrows she was faced with, in the hands of Obidike, her stepson.
Yes, prior to that event, it was no longer news that her stepson molested her like a household drudge in her own husband’s house. She always wore the scars of his beatings on her face and body like badge.
Let me walk you down memory lane few decades before that incident because it will be worth noting how a northerner happens to find a great hold in the hearts of many in the eastern community in such a society where religious and cultural intolerance still stand like a flag, floating in different directions.
Aisha was the only reason why Munachi, her husband survived in a civil war which took place some decades prior to that time.
Yes, because Munachi fell in the hands of their enemies and even as he was running, he didn’t know that he was moving deeper into his grave. As he was chased into the interior part of a northern community when he lost contact with his men, he ran into a household and saw a young damsel who was washing her cloths.
He pleaded with her, telling her that his life was in grave danger. His entire body was shaking as if it was a quake, and he was sweating like a melting ice.
Who says beauty doesn’t pay? Munachi was well built and good looking and that charmed the young girl who thought for a second that this nature’s creature wasn’t worth wasting so she quickly hid him inside their grain store and when the chasing soldiers arrived, she misdirected them by lying that she saw the man running towards the other direction, so they believed her and they left while Munachi who was already half dead, lay down low inside the grain store.
War is a shameful thing, and everyone should know this, people who are supposed to see themselves as brothers are now killing each other due to religious differences.
Awful sounds filled the atmosphere, you know how it is with war… Gunshots, cries of pains and agony but what kept Munachi going was the warmth which Aisha kept showering on him because she kept hovering around the grain store to ensure no one else finds out her little secret.
She was like a mother to Munachi in there, assuring him that everything will still be alright someday soon, and the war will come to an end.
Just as she predicted and as nature might have it, the war was called off after couple of weeks and for a longer duration, Aisha kept Munachi inside the grain store. She was still nursing him like her own baby, giving him the major parts of her daily meals.
She was like an angel; her kind heart was too priceless. But suddenly something happened one morning, Aisha’s father rushed inside their grain store to pick up something and saw Munachi having his breakfast.
He became furious and his young daughter, Aisha pleaded with tears flowing down her cheek like tributaries, trying to make her father see reasons to spare the life of the young man but the disappointment in her father overwhelmed him and he threatened to kill both of them.
As he rushed inside to get his gun, Aisha, knowing what her father could do, led Munachi through the back exit where they vanished into the bush.
After series of predicaments which they went through trying to figure out the right directions, the hunger and general dangers of a tick forest because Munachi was no longer armed, they eventually made their ways to the road leading to the eastern region together, as going back was an awful option for Aisha because her father will kill her.
They were source of strength to one another; they kept giving each other reasons to stay alive as they were struggling to find their route.
At the roadside leading to the eastern region, they were having little or no option than to join a lorry which was conveying cows down to the east because they couldn’t afford a passenger vehicle as they were having no money with them.
So, without second thought, they boarded the lorry alongside with the cows and that’s how they eventually arrived the east.
The family members of Munachi embraced Aisha with open heart for safeguarding their son whom everyone thought they have lost all these whiles. With all these, Munach proposed marriage to her which she gladly accepted, and they got married.
Apparently, good things of life don’t stay together, they are always isolated! Aisha found it too difficult to conceive again after giving birth to her daughter, Ekene and every effort to make her conceive again by her husband proved abortive.
It must be noted at this juncture how awful it could be for a woman without a male child in a society where one is seen to be childless even with a basket full of females. Love is sacrifice! Her love for her husband stood like a tree.
Nothing matters to Aisha but to see her husband happy, so she took a very dangerous step by advising and persuading her husband to go for a second wife which Munachi reluctantly complied with. Its natural though because anyone who never made a mistake, has never tried anything new.
The second wife came in like an earthquake, trying to turn everything upside down. What is life without love for one another? She hated; she nagged and complained at everything Aisha does immediately she delivered a baby boy, Obidike nine months after her traditional marriage ceremony.
There is a saying that goes like this, “train up a child in the way and manner he should grow, and he will never depart from it” such was the case with the second wife, Amara and her two boys because she delivered another boy two years after the first one.
She inculcated evil morals on them, and they grew with it. They were always fighting Aisha even when she wasn’t fighting back.
Their extended family members were always coming to Aisha’s rescue in each occasion and with this ongoing, Munachi was advised to separate them by sending Amara to a nearby city called Awka to start up a trade there, believing that if she should keep her body and mind busy, the crisis will be curbed.
This was achieved to a greater extend because peace and normalcy was reinstated once again in the household of Munachi as his second wife took her children to Awka where she got engaged, trading.
Time runs like a horse, and everything approaches; the good, the bad and the ugly ones. Munachi died some years later, leaving Aisha so lonely that she would even accept a beast for a company.
One day, after many years as she was sitting in her corridor and soliloquizing, she saw Obidike and his family entering.
Yes, Obidike was fully grown, married with kids. Excitement engrossed Aisha; she jumped and hugged Obidike and family one after the other.
A warm welcome! She gestured them inside the house and dished out a local delicacy which she had prepared earlier for them to eat and regain their strength after a short journey. Aisha thought she had found the best company to quench her lonely state, little did she know that she was wrong and in for a very wrong drive.
Obidike became a replica of his mother, nagging and beating up Aisha at any slight provocation. The fact is, everyone is going to hurt you, you just must find the ones worth suffering for.
This pandemonium was brought even to the notice of the extended family members and the entire community members who always gather for a meeting about their quarrels. Every caution of theirs fell on a deaf ear; Obidike has a heart of a monster.
The more the intervention by the people, the crueler he became to Aisha. These were the state of events prior to the day Aisha danced her last in that traditional marriage ceremony of one of their extended family members which she attended.
“What is it by your time?” Aisha asked a woman who was standing beside her. “07:07pm” she looked at her wristwatch and responded. Aisha’s mind flew away from her body.
Some people feel the rain, others just get wet. No one knew she was given a curfew. Yes, her stepson, Obidike had recently ordered her not to keep later than 7pm outside and if that happens, she should not border returning because he will kill her if she does.
Such was the actual fear she was dwelling in; she was living in bondage.” What’s wrong with you, Aisha?” the woman asked her, seeing how her mood suddenly changed.
Aisha managed to utter in a low voice saying that she was in a big trouble, adding that Obidike will kill her.
The woman encouraged her that nothing of such will happen. So, Aisha quickly rushed off to her house and when she knocked at the entrance door, Obidike came out and pulled her in as he opened the door and started beating her up.
Unfortunately, Aisha collapsed and fell on the floor. Obidike’s eyes were widely opened like a wake of a dawn as Aisha stretches to a still state and her eyes opened and still, too. It was like heaven let loose for Obidike, fear gripped him, and confusion struck him.
He started calling his younger brother who was a driver of a lorry, but he told him he won’t make it that night but in the morning.
His younger brother made it early enough as he promised and Obidike with his help, took Aisha’s remain to the community stream and dumped her off.
Few neighbours who heard her cry at night started coming around in the morning to know what happened the previous night, but Obidike told them that everything was alright adding that Aisha just went out that morning without telling him her whereabouts.
This persisted until couple of days and everyone in the extended family became worried regarding Aisha’s whereabouts. This made their elders to call for a meeting in their community square and deliberated on it, after which they sent out youths to ransack the entire community.
On the ninth day, Aisha’s remain was found mysteriously beside the stream, still not decay and with no smell and the news spread to the entire community which raised investigations from every corner.
Events unfold and information was revealed from Obidike’s little daughter who rushed out when Aisha collapsed that very night and was chased back to the inner hurt by her father. With such clue, the police were notified and Obidike was arrested for interrogation.
He broke after some days and confessed to the crime and the whole community mourns Aisha being a woman after everyone’s heart.
The elderly women in their family danced round the house naked as a ritual that signifies that no one will ever live in that house again while the men dug her grave right inside of her sitting room and bury her beneath.
Obidike was charged to court and after the court order was pronounced, the full weight of the law fell on him. He was sentenced to life in jail and in each day of his life, he lamented and wished things could turn out differently.
The truth is rarely pure and never simple, inside there, his best friends became regret, humiliation and depression.
He wished for a way to end it up, but time no longer flies as seconds seem like minutes, minutes like hours, and hours like days. His sufferings became endless and unbearable. He rhetorically asked in a soliloquy “why do minutes seem like hours?”
Something mysterious for you to read and share with friends – Suicide or Murder
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