When does life begin? Is it at conception, at birth, or is it when one realizes the essence of life? As they say, ‘life begins at forty’. I am not yet forty, so, can I pretend to be oblivious of the many happenings of the past and wait till I am forty before starting out life?

Many happenings of the past… Better forgotten than remembered but still have to be remembered to live a better tomorrow– a better life in forties as is my case. So, we begin from the past.

Somewhere in the South Western part of Nigeria– Osun– a family of five cramped together in a small, sturvy room, enduring the agonizing melody of feasting mosquitoes. It was always a daily routine: coming back from a long day and retiring into a room of joyous mosquitoes. That night, one of the five was not sleeping– a young girl of about sixteen. She is tall, has shining dark skin so smooth that even the moon loves to kiss. Her Fulani nose must have passed through the most patient heavenly angels, and her hips? Too rounded for a sixteen-year old. Nature most likely halted creation to make out enough time to mold a perfect African beauty.

She lay, her head resting on her palms with her eyes widely open. It wasn't insomnia nor were the mosquitoes virulent enough to keep her awake. She looked right to find her mother lying beside her younger sister– one of the twins– and returning her eyes to the other side of the room, she saw the other half of the twins together with the youngest son– both boys– locked up in sleepy merry. Not just her eyes were roaming about, her thoughts were as well. I understood fully what was keeping her awake because I understood how well she thought. Because, this girl is me. My name is Mariam and here is my story.

Part II

Ding dong. Ding dong. The school bed sounded for an emergency assembly. As soon as the students converged, a middle-aged stout man mounted the podium and went off in British English.

“Good afternoon, students. This emergency assembly isn't without a purpose. The plenipotentiary of the school…”

“English”, I murmured underneath my breath.
“Better not let him hear”, Mirian, my friend and classmate whose name often got confused with mine, replied sharply. I let out a soft smile and wandered off in internal soliloquy as I watched Principal Badero laboring to address uninterested students who found his English rather foreign and cumbersome.

Principal Badero was said to have been tutored by British missionaries during his college days and that was where he got his accent from. It was also rumored that he was obsessed with becoming a lawyer. He thought learning big grammars would make him a good lawyer but fate instead got him a teaching job at African Church Grammar School (ACGS), Apomu, Osun State. Even though he had risen to the rank of a Principal, his obsession with English made him retain his teaching role. He taught English Language to Senior Class Two (SS2), my class.

Principal Badero was now reading from a paper, all smiles, to the delight of applauding students. I was lost in thought that all I could see was his smile even though my ears were almost deafened by thunderous claps. It was the same thought always. Even as I lay that night restless, the scene of couples, who had three children together, fighting, swearing and tearing off clothes of each other kept replaying in my head. Just that morning while preparing for school, my mother got her husband's trousers burnt by pouring hot charcoal on it. The man in retaliation, hit his wife hard in the face, and back and forth they struggled to wriggle out of each other.

“Be brave always
Doesn't mean you shouldn't be scared…”

That familiar line from Principal Badero half-jolted me to reality. I was struggling between coping up with whatever it was the Principal was reading and remembering what I did to that man when he shredded my mother's cloth to pieces. The sight of my mother's saggy breasts in full view of the public made me furious, and lifting a plank nearby, I knocked the man unconscious.

“Mariam!”

My name echoed from two different worlds. One from my head, and the other, right before me.