Everywhere around me was abuzz with noise, but as it is I can barely hear them. It was like been immersed in a body of water. The voices came to me like they were from thousands of miles away.
On so many occasions I have come across kids like me running around laughing and playing, with a care freeness that I have never experienced in what now seems like millenniums ago.
I have come across kids who swear they hate their parents.
‘I wish I could go live with my Uncle. There I never get to do anything; I never get to be nagged like my mum always does.”
‘Who does he think he is? Is it because he is my father? I am sick and tired of this house!’
‘I wish everybody would just disappear, I have the meanest parents.’
If only they know.
If only they know what it is like not having parents.
If only they knew.
They would understand how ignorant and foolish they sound.
I would give an arm and a leg just to have a father or a mother, even if they don’t do anything for me.
Even if I will walk in rags and eat dried bread garnished with mould.
For I now see that their mere presence alone is a shield from the harshness of the world.
They are like the shell of a coconut nurturing and protecting what it carried inside.
It would take a hell of a lot of crack to get to the soft milky fruit or its juice.
Parents shield you from the monster called Man.
* * *
There had been just four of us; myself, my sister, my brother and my father. My mother had died when my brother was only two years old and though I am the eldest I still could barely remember her face. The story was we had been rich, went to the best of schools and was the envy of the neighborhood. Then my father started having an affair and my mum couldn’t take it, she went to her uncle and told on my Dad. Things got bad and the man removed him from his work place, collected his properties that my Dad had been in charge of and implored my mum to leave my Dad. There was a separation and shortly after my mum called my Dad to inform him of her sudden illness. The next day she was dead. And so our world tumbled down. We became the proverbial Grace to grass. This was the tale I heard in whispers from the women in our neighborhood. Things went from bad to worse, the landlord of our house started demanding we left since we couldn’t afford the rent. My father the agile and good looking man became a shell of his former self, shuffling about like a man who was terminally ill. But the only illness he was suffering from was that of poverty. Education soon became a luxury we could not afford, even when transferred to public school, fees were still unable to be paid and so we started repeating the same class over and over again. We became the kids other kids mocked for always putting on the same old clothes; we became the house that people brought food to every once in awhile. We became the house that the community contributed money to in other to pay bills and buy food. I got into fights every day, because I hated to be laughed at and everyday my father will beat me up for fighting, but now I see he did it out of frustration.
Then my Dad got a side job in oil business, I think he was the guy that helped transport fuel for a filling station. Gradually things started to look up, we moved to the house my dad had been building before the fall from grace, the only property that my mum’s uncle didn’t confiscate. It was only the roof he did but we eagerly moved in and gradually we fixed the place up. Then the lady my Dad had the affair with moved in with us. I hated her—there was rumor that she was even responsible for my mum’s death, but who was I to talk?
That fateful day we were cooking at the backyard, arguing amongst ourselves and when my sister and brother fought over something, I recalled him saying, he would tell our Dad when he got back from his trip that day. I calmed them down and we had our dinner, keeping that of our Dad’s in a small food warmer for when he returned.
Then our small Uncle that was staying with us came to us and said we should ready our things, we would be travelling to the village the next day. It was odd because our Dad didn’t like us going to the village, he had issues with most of them, and he didn’t mention us going to the village after he returned. I tried to find out why we were travelling but I got no coherent explanation. I remember wondering about the noise I heard from the fenced house next to us, I would have sworn someone was crying. That night we slept fretfully.
The next morning a car came, and there were people in our house, coming and going all the while whispering. Our small uncle was perpetually on the phone and so were the other men in our neighborhood. When the women came I saw no one could meet my eye, those who did, their eyes were filled with pity and something like shock, and others had red puffy eyes.
It was then I knew, and yet I couldn’t believe.
I demanded to know where my father was.
My siblings started crying even though they didn’t know why.
I hated that I was been treated like I wasn’t a humane being with brains.
When we refused to stop asking for our father, they told us he had been involved in an accident and that he had been taken to the village.
I was in shock; I remember begging God to spare his life. He was all we had got.
Four hours later, in the village, they brought my father’s corpse.
They had lied to us.
He had died instantly in the accident on his way back to us.
* * *
You don’t know sorrow, loneliness and hopelessness, until you are an orphan.
Sometimes when I go about in the streets running errands, there are times I see a person laughing so hard it tugs a smile from me and I can’t help but to thank the Almighty for giving this person a reason to laugh this hard. When I see people joking and playing around with a fond smile on their face I pray to the Almighty to continue to give them a reason to be happy, for even though I can’t smile others are there being happy.
And when I see someone staring into space I wonder what their problem is and I pray for them, when I hear someone complaining bitterly and sadly, I pray for the Almighty to lift their problem off of them. It is not fun. I should know shouldn’t I? I am the orphan that was disserted by all.
After the funeral we became burdens, people started shying away from taking us in. And finally we were distributed like little puppies without a mother, I didn’t want to part with any of them, especially my younger brother, my father would have hated it too, but we were children, our opinions were never sought, we were voiceless. So we went along with the tide and before I knew it I was with a woman I wasn’t even sure how we were related.
I became a background in the family, a servant that was only spoken to and not expected to speak. I was given orders to do chores that I would have at least had the satisfaction of grumbling for good thirty minutes before doing it had I been with my father. But with this family, I didn’t dare. Whether I wanted to or not, whether I was capable or not, I did as I was told.
I had no future, so there was nothing to look forward to.
I had no family so I belonged nowhere.
The days came and went, people came and went, and some kind and others were so not.
And I stomached it all.
I yearned for my siblings but I couldn’t see them, since those who thought for me didn’t think of it.
I stomached it all.
As my father would say, if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger.
And so I woke before everyone else in the house and catered to them all, and when I went to bed last at night, I remember my father’s words.
Today I am standing in front of the house where my little brother has been staying. I haven’t seen him for two years now. My grandmother had come to the family I was with, demanding she be taken to where my brother stayed. She claimed her son, my father, has been appearing to her in the dream crying and begging her to go get his son.
That was how we got here and met this crowd; they were mostly youths and women shouting on top of their voices.
I stayed back because from the words I hear from the crowd alive with anger and indignation I know deep down that something was wrong.
Then the crowd parted and I saw my grandmother crying uncontrollable with a small person in her arms.
My heart was beating fast as I forced myself to meet her halfway, then I looked into the face of the boy in her arms and I saw it was my baby brother. His head lolled back in her arms while his arms hung down.
“Is he dead?” Was the first thing that came out of my mouth because if he is then there was no God
“No.” my grandmother said.
“He is barely alive.” I woman whispered in consternation.
Yes. He was barely alive. Every inch of him was covered with either a scar or a fresh bleeding injury. Someone had beaten him unconscious.
“Madam so he is your son and you left him for that evil witch? She has been treating this boy in this neighborhood worse than a slave, for god sake where have you people being? Or did you sell the boy to her?”
And the people went abuzz with curses and promises. They wanted the woman my father had had an affair with to come out and face someone her own size—she had been the one that had taken in our last born. As we moved on into the car we had brought, more people came to gather at her door. But the woman knowing what she had done locked and barricaded herself in her house.
I was numb with shock for I barely recognize my brother; I could effortlessly count the ribs jutting painfully out of his chest.
He was only six years old.
What could he have possibly done to that woman?
Why is mankind so cruel? I wondered as the car went into motion increasing the distance between we and the evil house my brother had stayed in for two years now.
Two years.
The tears streamed down my eyes.
What was wrong with people? What had propelled that woman into doing what she did?
Why?
Many people had promised to help when my father had died, when they had all gone home they had forgotten us. After all we were not their kids. The tragedy hadn’t been them it had touched. So it was easy to forget.
Oh mankind.
My father had had nothing, and yet the little he had had been snatched up quickly.
Now we were homeless, voiceless and powerless.
My father had imbibed and drilled into us about God and His Mercy. But right now I couldn’t see it. The darkness around me was too strong.
My father had once said, God will never place upon you a burden you cannot bear.
Well father, I am beginning to doubt the soundness of your words, for I am about to drop from the weight of this burden.
* * *
Three days later, my brother was out of the hospital and my grandmother was begging this aunty of mine to also take in my brother. At least compared to where he was from my place was like heaven, or so my grandmother saw it. She couldn’t take us back to the village, she explained. What kind of life would we have there? It was better we stayed here. After hours of talking, the woman accepted. I wanted to tell my grandmother that we wouldn’t mind staying with her, that my aunts husband snuck into my room to give me candies at night and rub my legs but I could see even she too didn’t want the burden that was us, and so I kept quiet and only asked to have the address of the house where my sister was staying.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger
I tried to keep that believe. I tried to believe I would survive and be better and stronger; I tried to believe that one day God will come to our aid.
Then my brother started getting sick again and when I told them, they said it was just cold he would get better.
Then my aunt’s husband started to get bolder and wasn’t contented with just rubbing my legs despite all I said.
I watched programs on T.V and heard my Aunt who was a nurse talk about children being molested and how she is baffled by the fact that they never open their mouth to talk and I realized I had had enough.
Yes I was twelve years old, yes God had deserted us and yes, we had no one. But it doesn’t mean we didn’t have each other.
So that night when his wife was on night duty, he came to my room, ignorant of the fact that I was ready for him. The light was off, so when he opened the door, peering to see as he called my name softly I emptied the bottle of perfume I had carried from his wife’s room while I was cleaning that day, their son had accidentally sprayed it into his sisters eyes some weeks back and for hours she hadn’t been able to open her eyes, the only difference was the fact that I had added dried pepper into the perfume, while he screamed and howled in pain, I dragged my brother and we stepped out of the room then I jammed the door and quickly turned the key to lock him in. Let him explain to his wife the next morning what he was doing in my room.
“Where are we going?” My brother whispered to me in the darkness, the fear evident in his voice and I told him we were going to get our sister.
My father had said that God took care of every living thing on the surface of the earth even the birds, so far He obviously hasn’t gotten to us, but until then we would take care of ourselves. Man could be heartless, selfish and wicked. I could be all those things too and more. If there was a God out there then let Him get angry and maybe then He would notice us, but until then, I would do everything in my power to protect my siblings and ensure they are never at the mercy of another being. For starters I had emptied my auntie’s jewelry box and taken all the cash I could lay my hands on and I am going to get my sister.
Let God notice us in His own time, meanwhile, I refuse to remain a helpless nameless and hopeless orphan.
I am Mercy and the world is about to hear of me.
On so many occasions I have come across kids like me running around laughing and playing, with a care freeness that I have never experienced in what now seems like millenniums ago.
I have come across kids who swear they hate their parents.
‘I wish I could go live with my Uncle. There I never get to do anything; I never get to be nagged like my mum always does.”
‘Who does he think he is? Is it because he is my father? I am sick and tired of this house!’
‘I wish everybody would just disappear, I have the meanest parents.’
If only they know.
If only they know what it is like not having parents.
If only they knew.
They would understand how ignorant and foolish they sound.
I would give an arm and a leg just to have a father or a mother, even if they don’t do anything for me.
Even if I will walk in rags and eat dried bread garnished with mould.
For I now see that their mere presence alone is a shield from the harshness of the world.
They are like the shell of a coconut nurturing and protecting what it carried inside.
It would take a hell of a lot of crack to get to the soft milky fruit or its juice.
Parents shield you from the monster called Man.
* * *
There had been just four of us; myself, my sister, my brother and my father. My mother had died when my brother was only two years old and though I am the eldest I still could barely remember her face. The story was we had been rich, went to the best of schools and was the envy of the neighborhood. Then my father started having an affair and my mum couldn’t take it, she went to her uncle and told on my Dad. Things got bad and the man removed him from his work place, collected his properties that my Dad had been in charge of and implored my mum to leave my Dad. There was a separation and shortly after my mum called my Dad to inform him of her sudden illness. The next day she was dead. And so our world tumbled down. We became the proverbial Grace to grass. This was the tale I heard in whispers from the women in our neighborhood. Things went from bad to worse, the landlord of our house started demanding we left since we couldn’t afford the rent. My father the agile and good looking man became a shell of his former self, shuffling about like a man who was terminally ill. But the only illness he was suffering from was that of poverty. Education soon became a luxury we could not afford, even when transferred to public school, fees were still unable to be paid and so we started repeating the same class over and over again. We became the kids other kids mocked for always putting on the same old clothes; we became the house that people brought food to every once in awhile. We became the house that the community contributed money to in other to pay bills and buy food. I got into fights every day, because I hated to be laughed at and everyday my father will beat me up for fighting, but now I see he did it out of frustration.
Then my Dad got a side job in oil business, I think he was the guy that helped transport fuel for a filling station. Gradually things started to look up, we moved to the house my dad had been building before the fall from grace, the only property that my mum’s uncle didn’t confiscate. It was only the roof he did but we eagerly moved in and gradually we fixed the place up. Then the lady my Dad had the affair with moved in with us. I hated her—there was rumor that she was even responsible for my mum’s death, but who was I to talk?
That fateful day we were cooking at the backyard, arguing amongst ourselves and when my sister and brother fought over something, I recalled him saying, he would tell our Dad when he got back from his trip that day. I calmed them down and we had our dinner, keeping that of our Dad’s in a small food warmer for when he returned.
Then our small Uncle that was staying with us came to us and said we should ready our things, we would be travelling to the village the next day. It was odd because our Dad didn’t like us going to the village, he had issues with most of them, and he didn’t mention us going to the village after he returned. I tried to find out why we were travelling but I got no coherent explanation. I remember wondering about the noise I heard from the fenced house next to us, I would have sworn someone was crying. That night we slept fretfully.
The next morning a car came, and there were people in our house, coming and going all the while whispering. Our small uncle was perpetually on the phone and so were the other men in our neighborhood. When the women came I saw no one could meet my eye, those who did, their eyes were filled with pity and something like shock, and others had red puffy eyes.
It was then I knew, and yet I couldn’t believe.
I demanded to know where my father was.
My siblings started crying even though they didn’t know why.
I hated that I was been treated like I wasn’t a humane being with brains.
When we refused to stop asking for our father, they told us he had been involved in an accident and that he had been taken to the village.
I was in shock; I remember begging God to spare his life. He was all we had got.
Four hours later, in the village, they brought my father’s corpse.
They had lied to us.
He had died instantly in the accident on his way back to us.
* * *
You don’t know sorrow, loneliness and hopelessness, until you are an orphan.
Sometimes when I go about in the streets running errands, there are times I see a person laughing so hard it tugs a smile from me and I can’t help but to thank the Almighty for giving this person a reason to laugh this hard. When I see people joking and playing around with a fond smile on their face I pray to the Almighty to continue to give them a reason to be happy, for even though I can’t smile others are there being happy.
And when I see someone staring into space I wonder what their problem is and I pray for them, when I hear someone complaining bitterly and sadly, I pray for the Almighty to lift their problem off of them. It is not fun. I should know shouldn’t I? I am the orphan that was disserted by all.
After the funeral we became burdens, people started shying away from taking us in. And finally we were distributed like little puppies without a mother, I didn’t want to part with any of them, especially my younger brother, my father would have hated it too, but we were children, our opinions were never sought, we were voiceless. So we went along with the tide and before I knew it I was with a woman I wasn’t even sure how we were related.
I became a background in the family, a servant that was only spoken to and not expected to speak. I was given orders to do chores that I would have at least had the satisfaction of grumbling for good thirty minutes before doing it had I been with my father. But with this family, I didn’t dare. Whether I wanted to or not, whether I was capable or not, I did as I was told.
I had no future, so there was nothing to look forward to.
I had no family so I belonged nowhere.
The days came and went, people came and went, and some kind and others were so not.
And I stomached it all.
I yearned for my siblings but I couldn’t see them, since those who thought for me didn’t think of it.
I stomached it all.
As my father would say, if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger.
And so I woke before everyone else in the house and catered to them all, and when I went to bed last at night, I remember my father’s words.
Today I am standing in front of the house where my little brother has been staying. I haven’t seen him for two years now. My grandmother had come to the family I was with, demanding she be taken to where my brother stayed. She claimed her son, my father, has been appearing to her in the dream crying and begging her to go get his son.
That was how we got here and met this crowd; they were mostly youths and women shouting on top of their voices.
I stayed back because from the words I hear from the crowd alive with anger and indignation I know deep down that something was wrong.
Then the crowd parted and I saw my grandmother crying uncontrollable with a small person in her arms.
My heart was beating fast as I forced myself to meet her halfway, then I looked into the face of the boy in her arms and I saw it was my baby brother. His head lolled back in her arms while his arms hung down.
“Is he dead?” Was the first thing that came out of my mouth because if he is then there was no God
“No.” my grandmother said.
“He is barely alive.” I woman whispered in consternation.
Yes. He was barely alive. Every inch of him was covered with either a scar or a fresh bleeding injury. Someone had beaten him unconscious.
“Madam so he is your son and you left him for that evil witch? She has been treating this boy in this neighborhood worse than a slave, for god sake where have you people being? Or did you sell the boy to her?”
And the people went abuzz with curses and promises. They wanted the woman my father had had an affair with to come out and face someone her own size—she had been the one that had taken in our last born. As we moved on into the car we had brought, more people came to gather at her door. But the woman knowing what she had done locked and barricaded herself in her house.
I was numb with shock for I barely recognize my brother; I could effortlessly count the ribs jutting painfully out of his chest.
He was only six years old.
What could he have possibly done to that woman?
Why is mankind so cruel? I wondered as the car went into motion increasing the distance between we and the evil house my brother had stayed in for two years now.
Two years.
The tears streamed down my eyes.
What was wrong with people? What had propelled that woman into doing what she did?
Why?
Many people had promised to help when my father had died, when they had all gone home they had forgotten us. After all we were not their kids. The tragedy hadn’t been them it had touched. So it was easy to forget.
Oh mankind.
My father had had nothing, and yet the little he had had been snatched up quickly.
Now we were homeless, voiceless and powerless.
My father had imbibed and drilled into us about God and His Mercy. But right now I couldn’t see it. The darkness around me was too strong.
My father had once said, God will never place upon you a burden you cannot bear.
Well father, I am beginning to doubt the soundness of your words, for I am about to drop from the weight of this burden.
* * *
Three days later, my brother was out of the hospital and my grandmother was begging this aunty of mine to also take in my brother. At least compared to where he was from my place was like heaven, or so my grandmother saw it. She couldn’t take us back to the village, she explained. What kind of life would we have there? It was better we stayed here. After hours of talking, the woman accepted. I wanted to tell my grandmother that we wouldn’t mind staying with her, that my aunts husband snuck into my room to give me candies at night and rub my legs but I could see even she too didn’t want the burden that was us, and so I kept quiet and only asked to have the address of the house where my sister was staying.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger
I tried to keep that believe. I tried to believe I would survive and be better and stronger; I tried to believe that one day God will come to our aid.
Then my brother started getting sick again and when I told them, they said it was just cold he would get better.
Then my aunt’s husband started to get bolder and wasn’t contented with just rubbing my legs despite all I said.
I watched programs on T.V and heard my Aunt who was a nurse talk about children being molested and how she is baffled by the fact that they never open their mouth to talk and I realized I had had enough.
Yes I was twelve years old, yes God had deserted us and yes, we had no one. But it doesn’t mean we didn’t have each other.
So that night when his wife was on night duty, he came to my room, ignorant of the fact that I was ready for him. The light was off, so when he opened the door, peering to see as he called my name softly I emptied the bottle of perfume I had carried from his wife’s room while I was cleaning that day, their son had accidentally sprayed it into his sisters eyes some weeks back and for hours she hadn’t been able to open her eyes, the only difference was the fact that I had added dried pepper into the perfume, while he screamed and howled in pain, I dragged my brother and we stepped out of the room then I jammed the door and quickly turned the key to lock him in. Let him explain to his wife the next morning what he was doing in my room.
“Where are we going?” My brother whispered to me in the darkness, the fear evident in his voice and I told him we were going to get our sister.
My father had said that God took care of every living thing on the surface of the earth even the birds, so far He obviously hasn’t gotten to us, but until then we would take care of ourselves. Man could be heartless, selfish and wicked. I could be all those things too and more. If there was a God out there then let Him get angry and maybe then He would notice us, but until then, I would do everything in my power to protect my siblings and ensure they are never at the mercy of another being. For starters I had emptied my auntie’s jewelry box and taken all the cash I could lay my hands on and I am going to get my sister.
Let God notice us in His own time, meanwhile, I refuse to remain a helpless nameless and hopeless orphan.
I am Mercy and the world is about to hear of me.
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