This story was trending here before the hacking incidence. I just had to bring it back for people like me who like reading good literature more than once. Enjoy. . .and please, some encouragement in form of comments would be much appreciated. Thank you.









Papa ate noisily. Usually, when Sista served him lunch in his big stainless plates; he would first poke the egusi soup with his middle finger to spread the salt or pepper before squeezing the fufu into large balls which he swallowed, each with a half grunt as though counting. But today as he ate, he was quiet. He would swallow and then look at her from head to toe, while shaking his head in disbelief. She stood close to the door wringing her fingers in a nervous fidget with wary eyes that followed Papa’s every motion; feet ready to dash outside once he stood up with a curse, as he did when furious. Papa’s anger was fiery and lethal; he would curse you in the name of Amadioha and hurl any object close by at you, although he stopped that after he sent he to the new clinic at Harbour Road by throwing a table fan at me.

Sista was pregnant.

The tension in the air was severe. Even the mosquitoes seemed to suspend their ‘zzzzzz’ sound as they did only when we sprinkled otapiapia[/i]around our little room, paying special attention to underneath Papa’s bed and behind the dusty brown sofas – the gleaming golden liquid staining the unpainted wall with its raucous smell consuming the room, and then the frail creatures will fly around in crazed frenzy until it died down.

“Who is the father?” Papa swallowed silently again, as though his usual gulps will mute Sista.

“I said, [i]Who is the father? !” He banged his left fist on the table and the plates jumped, Sista jumped too.

She did not say a word still. Papa washed his hands and sipped some more water and as he shook the water off his wet hands, I saw weariness in his eyes. Mama’s enlarged photograph; the one in which she wore a white laced blouse with her yellow-star wrapper around her waist and her handbag on the crook of her right arm, was perched on the stereo behind him.

Sista was sobbing now. Not like the kind of sob she did as she hugged me tightly, when Mama’s coffin was being lowered. This one reeked of histrionics and it nauseated me. Maybe if Mama had been here, she would have taken care of her ada, her first daughter. She would have warned her that boys were dangerous, that she was too young to follow them around. She would have warned her especially about that alike, Dele, who thought he could have anything he wanted because he was Oga Landlord’s only son. I had warned her, the day I caught them touching each other at our backyard but she told me to shut up and stop paddling another person’s boat, that she loved him, that he was her all in all, the sugar in her tea. Then last Tuesday she was permitted to leave school because she had a cold. The next day, she could not even leave the room so I walked to school alone after we knelt down to ask for Virgin Mary to heal her; a prayer she did not finish, running outside with her hands clasped at her mouth, stifling vomit. Papa was too busy to notice, he had travelled to Maiduguri to buy fish.

I wanted to move over to Papa and clear the table, but I hesitated. It seemed like by walking across the room, I would snap some invisible strings which still held his sanity. His eyes were bloodshot now and they focused far beyond where my washed school uniform hung languorously to dry outside.

“It’s Dele, is it not?” He finally said, rising up from his seat in one fluid movement.

Sista glanced at me. I shook my head; I did not tell him a thing! As papa made for the door, he blurted: “So his father takes my wife and now the son has taken my daughter, today we will know who gave the tiger its spots.”

Sista dashed, but it was too late. Papa grabbed and dragged her by the arm, with me behind - pleading softly, outside to Oga Landlord’s room and when he banged on his corrugated door, the darkening growing in his eyes was the same he had when he sent me to the new clinic at Harbour Road, by throwing the table fan at me.

I am so in luv with dis story pls continue

Okay na! Luv ur attention to details.

Thanks guys. The drama just dey begin sef. . More up ahead. :-)

Strange but true

We are waiting ma

Beautiful people, :-) I planned to end this piece here but I don't think Sista's Pregnancy should end just yet. So I will update in a bit.
#Surulere

Suru laye gba o. I will kuku wait