It smelled of damp. Acrid damp. The gold brown roaches pattered about, and the stale air hung hard and heavy, tinged with mothballs and the odour of rotting wood. A large black rat, its nose a dusky silver, scurried hurriedly across the dark expanse of floor underneath the narrow bed, then stopped to sniff at a pair of tiny feet curled up against the far wall. The girl who owned them lay in a fetal position, diminutive knees drawn up to her chin. She shivered. Her cheek was smeared with dust and an intricately woven cobweb draped itself daintily across her nose. The sprightly rat nibbled at a toe, then brushed off in an ungainly sweep when its owner jerked it out of the way.

Her name was Ulonna, and she was not quite eight years old. She was used to this; the persistent rat, the dust fumes she repeatedly inhaled from under the bed which caused her eyes to smart and her nostrils leak sticky fluid, the spiky haired spider which unperturbedly weaved its web cunningly across her nose. By now she had been underneath often enough to know just how to move her head right without banging it against the rotting wood frame of the bed canopied above her. She slept soundly, and dreamed of a nice big bed, its downy white sheets bellowing about her. The rotting wood frame of the narrow bed above her would become the sturdy, majestic canopy, the rank smell of damp wood would only be the exquisite, rich scent of the bed down. The silver-nosed rat gloriously metamorphosed into a sweet little pet gently muzzling her cheek, and the web in her nostrils became as a result of her face buried too deep in the down. She slept on, dreamt on. Nothing could harm her here; in her dreams underneath the bed, she was safe.

Sometimes, even in the dream, he would come. Even in her dreams of the white bed, he would find her there, exposed and unprotected. And she would snap back to reality, very glad, very relieved indeed that she was still safe underneath her poor, narrow bed.

There was something wrong with the bed, something crawling and evil. There had to be, it was the fault of the evil spirit harbored within it. Every night, dutifully, she made the bed. Time had been when she slept in it, snuggling tightly against the faded pink bedclothes. Then he came. Always he was drunk, his eyes a clear cold red, bloodshot and puffy. His shadow loomed dark and monstrous over them both as he did what he did, sometimes rolling her over along with all the bedclothes. He humped hard and long, his sweat soaking into her skin, his spittle drooling onto her chin. There was something wrong with the bed—there had to be. She could read it in the way its rotting frame creaked against his dead weight when he passed out on her. It was there in the lingering odour of sweat and liquor and sex. So every night she made the bed, then crept underneath to sleep in peace with the regal roaches and the silver-nosed rat and the fuzzy spider which wove its cunning web across her nose. She was safe here, there was no fear. In the damp darkness she was one with them.

He would come still, always. Even now she could hear him stumble in through the door in a drunken haze. He would climb heavily onto the bed to hump unsuspectingly the life-sized Barbie she draped tangled in the bedclothes. And she would sleep soundly beneath it all, dreaming of the big white bed and its downy, billowy sheets, as she lay underneath the narrow creaking bed and the dust fumes stung beneath her shuttered eyes.

But tonight he was not drunk, indeed he was clear eyed this time. He called her name sharply and with a murderous edge to it. Cold fear gripped the child underneath the bed. She did not move, could not move.

“Ulonna!” The harsh barking grated across the room. He hissed, stomped about.

“Where is that fu— LovePeddler!”

When her mother died – the larger bed in her father’s room had been utterly soaked in the blood which spilled from her mother’s impaled, distended belly. The one kitchen knife had reached cruelly past skin and flesh to pierce unforgiving into the womb, killing the fetus in it. When her mother died, she’d left a note. “Be good to our daughter,” the note said. Ulonna hadn’t known, when her mother died she’d been too young to read.

“Ulonna!”

The pair of puffy eyes raked underneath the bed, reddened now with rage. Her father’s rough, calloused hands dragged the wide-eyed, bed-ragged girl up and out from the dark, damp safety of her hideout. He slapped a hard palm brutally across her now tear streaked face, bruising her lower lip.

“I got into a fight today trying to make some money to pay for your schoolbooks, you slut!” His spittle flew free. He hit her again, and again, till the blood and snot rushed from her nostrils and her screams became only a trembling whimper. With an arm like an iron gauntlet he pinioned her onto the bed.

“You listen, you are going to do what your mother would if she was here, and you’re going to do it right!”

He tore off her bedclothes, gripping her naked flesh hard, slapping apart her quivering legs. He ground hard against her tiny, malnourished frame. He was rough, he was brief. The white lights flashed in and out of the child’s eyes as the pain haze intensified. Dissociating, she could hear nothing, see nothing. The sweat poured from him. He pushed and grunted and groaned deep and primal. The Barbie fell off the bed, a rotting wood frame gave underneath their combined weight. The bed rattled and creaked and fell apart at the seams. An oblivious mosquito whined its music about her ears, fluttering its wings as it moved along. Her virginal blood trickled slowly, a silent witness, between her stiff thighs.

When he finished she lay there unmoving.

She could only think; where was she to sleep now? The evil spirit had left the bed and found her underneath. There was no escape. The evil spirit was everywhere.

Written by Kelechi Chinwendu Kelechi. https://www.lionspot.com/2017/11/10/marriage-private-affair-nigerian-myths/

This is very evocative ..............And beautiful in its gut-wrenching sadness.

That man is a pure devil

I doff my hat to you...
Well written...
The title though... Calling it captivating is a massive understatement, but it's the only word I can think of right now...