🔁 ENIDOM UCHENNA ReCircled: MINUTES LIKE HOURS
ENIDOM UCHENNA@enidomuchenna907210
1 year ago
Stories about living rural lifestyle are synonymous with shooting an arrow in to the sky which must eventually land somewhere. They say that the evil men do, lives after them but I do say that it actually lives with them, knowing that each breath in life takes us closer to our appointment 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 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 the traditional marriage ceremony which she attended that faithful day would be her last. She kept everyone entertained with her peculiar way of dancing and even when her friends were telling her to come 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 step son. Yes, prior to that occasion, it was no longer news that her step son molested her like a slave in her own husband’s house. She always wore the scars of his beatings on her face and body like a badge.
Let me take you down memory lane few decades before that incident because it is worth noting how a northerner happens to find a great hold in the hearts of many in the eastern community in a society where religious and cultural intolerances still stand like a flag, floating in different directions. Aisha was the only reason Munachi, her husband survived in a civil war which took place some decades back. Yes because Munachi fell in the hands of their enemies and even as he was running, he didn’t know that he was actually moving deeper in to his grave. As he was chased in to the interior part of a northern community, he ran into a premise and saw a young damsel who was washing her cloths. He pleaded and the young girl hid him inside their grain store and when the chasing soldiers arrived, she misdirected them and they eventually left. As nature might have it, the war was called off after couple of weeks and for that duration, Aisha still kept Munachi inside the grain store. She was 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 day, Aisha’s father rushed inside their grain store to pick up something one morning and saw munachi eating his own food. He became absolutely furious. His little daughter, Aisha pleaded but the disappointment in her father overwhelmed him and he threatened to kill the both of them. As he rushed inside to get his cutlass, Aisha led Munachi through the back exit to 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, they eventually made their ways to the east side together as going back was an awful option for Aisha because her father will definitely kill her.
The family members of Munachi embraced her with open heart for safeguarding their son whom everyone thought that they have lost. With all these, Munachi asked her hand in marriage which she gladly accepted and they got married. Hmm, good things of life doesn’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 sacrifices! 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
The second wife came 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 nine months on.
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. She inculcated evil morals on them and they grew with it. They were always fighting Aisha even when she wasn’t fighting back. The extended family members always come 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.
Time runs like a horse and everything approaches; the good, the bad and the ugly ones. Munachi died few years later, leaving Aisha so lonely that she would even accept a beast for a company. One day as she sat and soliloquized, she saw Obidike and his family entering. Yes, Obidike was fully grown at this point, married with two 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. Obidike became a replica of his mother, nagging and beating up Aisha at any slight provocation. 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 more cruel 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 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 wrist watch and responded. Aisha’s mind flew away from her body. No one knew she was given a curfew. Yes, her step son had recently ordered her not to keep later than 7pm outside and if that happens, she should not border returning home 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’s 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, her eyes opened and still too. It was like heaven let loose for Obidike, fear overwhelmed 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. He made it early enough as he promised his brother, Obidike and with his help, they took Aisha’s remains to the community stream.
Few neighbours who heard her cry at night started coming around to know what happened last night but Obidike told them that everything was alright adding that Aisha just went out in 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 meet 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 body was found beside the stream, still misteriously not decay and with no smell and the news spread to the entire community which raised investigation from every corner. Events unfolds and information was revealed from Obidike’s little daughter who rushed out when Aisha collapsed and was chased back to the inner hurt by her father. With such clue, the police was 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 the sitting room and bury her beneath.
Obidike was charged to court and when the court order was pronounced, the full weight of the law fell on him. He got 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 regrets, 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 are minutes like hours?”
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