“With a song, they sponged off their anguish,
To behold their collective pains,
To celebrate their gains,
Give lyrics to the tune of their lives,
Cheat the tyranny of time,
And commune with the yet unborn…”
OUMAR FAROUK, THE SONG OF THE WOMEN OF MY LAND
It was a breezy morning at the hamlet.
Save for the chirping pianos that hoot and hover above the welkin; the obstinate bovids that chased their partners as they were hectic grazing on damp meadow with wildflowers blooming and the ‘gbedu’ created by the ‘yaro’ boys at the background, the entire locale was catapulted into a pose of taciturn tranquility.
Two fair females chaired their steatophygous heinies on two low bamboo stools, they interred their sweat-producing faces in a basket where they segregated grubby but tiny mites from the locally-made Nupe rice.
Both of them had regal beads called ‘iyun’ on their necks, wrists and even ankles.
Iyunade, the elegant peacock sang with a sonorous voice like the yellow-tailed black cockatoo to chase away aridity and hers was blended with melodious ambience.
She took after her mother whom the late king himself gave the name ‘Nightingale’ for being a nascent night songstress that composed enjoyable epithalamions for royal brides.
Her mother tied her ‘kampala’ wrapper strongly only to stop atop her boobs which stoop like a bat for they were of no colostrums at all, they were evaporated!
She shook her head rhythmically to the flowing tune of the song.
The more the shakes, the more her forehead divulged her wrinkles to the world.
Like a wailing pianio, Iyunade stopped suddenly at a dagger point and when her mother asked why, she responded that she had a vital request to make.
“And what is that?”
“You might not allow me to go but I swear by ‘Olokun’ that I would not stay long today.
Abike and Adesewa would have been waiting for me and if I did not go today, it would be like as if I were a liar.
I am sure that even the Atlantic Ocean cannot wash away my deepest sincerity”.
“Dapada! You should know that I forbid swear language in my roof, don’t ever use it again. If you want to go, you can go but don’t stay long”.
She thanked her with her two kneels and rose for the backyard where the water pot was.
As she appeared a short while, her mother called her back.
“You don’t even need to go, we have enough water at home and I am not doing any washing till weekend”.
“Iya e, let me go ojare”, she replied with a jocular tone and ran through the narrow path that led to the stream.“…Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die”
John Donne, THE GOOD-MORROW.
The bushy path made Iyunade a snail as she fought hard to reach her buddies on time at their usual joint, from where they would head to the stream directly if any of them did not have someone to visit.She did not want to be the bubble gum that they would chew today.
She knew she would become today’s theme at one if she did not hurry briskly to catch up with them before they leave the joint.
She settled her spanking skull under one cassia tree for a while when she felt a weird weariness like how the flesh breathed in the arrival of the whanger ab initio of a mortal copulation.
She sought things which she thought they could discuss.
Should they talk about the booze they were given by the strange man from the big city?
Or the woman who bit her spouse on the ear for not coming home yesterday?
It was this thought that she was reflecting as she rested her back on the trunk of the tree when she felt a soft touch on her nape.Instantaneously, she sprang up and spoke to her legs.
What is chasing me? She asked herself rhetorically.
She summoned courage from all corners of her body to see who was chasing her before she would die on the toxic lane.
Then, she stopped on her track and looked back.
Guess who she saw? It was Chris, the troublemaker.
He leapt at her and chuckled hysterically.
“Kunle, do you want to kill me? Why do you scared me? My kidney almost ceases working,” Iyuande uttered.
“Shut up! Remember you are alone with no route to escape. For your information, this is the day that I will unwrap you and get what I want”
As he tried to kick his mission, Iyunade kicked him too on his groin and fled away...When plants were engulfed in photosynthesis, they had no care for those around them.
They only share their buds for cross pollinations and passers-by called it “dancing”.
Unknown to men, it was the personification of the creative creature.
The atmosphere was tense.
“Oro!” Kunle cried as her mother helped with the cut from his body.
“Sorry dear… That’s how it will be for some days but trust me you will feel better, soon. The cuts are much. You’re in coma yesternight. You have not told me how it happened. Those farmers who brought you home said that they saw you lied unconsciously on the Widow’s Road and they could not hint what the elegiac epic was. So now tell me, how did it happen?”
“Iye mi, may you live long ojare. It is known to all and sundry in this hamlet that the fabulous path of the widows would be grave when the twilight calls because no lass dares to to the brook to fetch water without being hurt.
In the evening of that yesterday, I went as usual to have a bath in the brook then I stepped on a peel and slipped.
Before I know it, two Alsatian hounds embraced and engulfed me, tattooing caricaturic cartoons of cuts on my fresh flesh with those acute blades of theirs.
“They are THREE MAD DOGS,” he elucidated.
“Eeyah, may you not come across this again in Ogun’s name. He would protect you to and fro”
” Amen”, he said, twitching his face like a twitter who felt like howling.
“Kunle, I have one story to tell you and I want you to listen with rapt attention”
He looked baffled, “story? You have not told me any since my cradle. Strange!”
“Yes, story! I could not tell you, you were too small then.
I wish you could even have this manly heart to take it,” she drew an imaginary love shape on the air. She coughed…
“Take care, ma. Should I get you water from amu?”
“Never mind. One day, my mother sent to the night’s market to procure potatoes.
As I was heading back home, a hand landed on my shoulders and gripped me so tightly that I almost choked beneath my lingerie.
In a nutshell, the air blown to divulge the stark nudity of the hen and he had his way with me.
I cried for ample centuries to the extent that spooks could pecullidly hear the murmurings of my mourning.
This unwanted copulation resulted to Kunle, you…”
“Ah! You don’t mean it! Mum, tell me it is a joke. If I fathom, you mean you’re raped? That I am a bastard? Who was that loony being that did that to my mother? Tell me now and I would have his head cut instantly!”
He sprang and the metal strings of the bed drum wrath into his voice.
She was crying, “It was YOU!” She bellowed.
“How come?”
“Foolish man, do you think we have not heard about your story?
Do you think I don’t know that it was the tapper’s daughter and her friends that recreated you this?
Why is it always you? What do you gain from it? If you don’t rape today, you would be chasing pretty lasses around tomorrow like a cop! Is it a spell or curse? Let those girls rest in peace!
Their parents are remonstrating. Go! Go far away and look for yours! I was not of this village too, your father married me from the metropolis. Three young girls beat you like this? Yeye boy! It is a litotes if I call you a shame. Let the girls bark, they are anyway THREE MAD DOGS!”
You can also read FICTION: When vengeance backfires
