Round and Round

"Mum, this room is spinning!"

"What's that noise about?" Her mum queried from the kitchen. The irritation in her voice was palpable.

"It's spinning like a ball!" she yelled again, her eyes focused on the moving cement floor. In terror, she steadied herself on all fours, clutching desperately at the bedspread for support. Her eyes shot to the other side of the bed and to her utter amazement Judith was soundly asleep, breathing slowly but heavily, her shirt soaked with sweat.

Suddenly the door burst open and something landed on her face. The force of it sent her tumbling down from the bed and her head came in contact with the hard cement floor. Before she could recover, she felt something hit the back of her neck with such force that sent her rolling on the floor.

"Now get on the bed and sleep and stop disturbing the peace of this house!" Her mum said, and then stomped out of the room. In her dazed state, she heard the clanking of keys and she knew the door had been locked from the other side.

Her quintessential mother. Her infamous bouts of violent anger had become second nature and had earned her the titled: "Madam Hulk Hogan." A man once remarked about how athletically adept she was at throwing object at offenders at the slightest provocation—and the offenders were invariably her two daughters whom she regarded as mischievous chaperones. She never spared the rod.

The two slaps from her mum drove her further into delirium. The room was spinning even faster now and she struggled with the urge to shout. She lay on the floor and shut her eyes tight, willing herself into unconsciousness.

"Sha-sha, what's the matter?"

It was a whisper, hushed and measured. She opened her eyes and saw the worried face of Judith looking down on her.

"This room is spinning and mummy just slapped me."

"I know."

"You know?" Jenna asked.

"Yes. This room is rotating."

"If you knew, then why did you ask?"

"I needed to confirm from you."

"About what?" Jenna asked, "this room or the slaps?"

"That this room is rotating."

"You weren't sleeping?"

"I was pretending to sleep—" Judith paused. "See, let us run away," she continued, "If we stay here, we will die. The room will kill us or mum will kill us. And I don't want to die."

Judith was breathing heavily now.

"How can we run?" Jenna asked, "The door has been shut."

"Let's remove the louvres from the window." Judith replied.

Quickly she dragged her 10-year-old body to the little cupboard at the corner of the room and fetched a small plier. Jenna watched her with fearful eyes as she removed all 10 louvres from one side of the window, laying them carefully on the bed.

"But mum would kill us if she finds out," Jenna said in a terror-stricken voice.

Judith didn't say anything. In a moment, he was gone. Jenna heard the sound of her feet scurrying off like a rat that had been set free.

Jenna stood in the middle of the room, undecided, making calculations, hyperventilating, weighing the consequences of the decision she was about to make.

She wanted to say, "Look, Mum, Judith has removed the louvres and has escaped through the window!" But she stopped short. She knew it would only make matters worse. She knew her mum would beat the living daylights out of her for aiding and abetting a crime: for not informing her when Judith was removing the louvres. She might even be grounded for the whole day as punishment. She couldn't imagine it. In three quick moves she was out of the room, running as though she was being chased by demons.

******

"Who's this?"

Jenna sprang to her feet, trying to orient herself as she looked around with blurry eyes. It was almost dark and she had fallen asleep under a pear tree that was close to the Ezeakatam river. She had spent the whole afternoon looking for Judith. Exhausted, she had decided to take some rest under a pear tear in the hope that Judith would show up because she was too terrified to go home alone. She knew what awaited her. But she had dozed on the ground while waiting, and now two boys in their early 20's were standing right in front of her.

"I'm Jenna," she said, getting to her feet and dusting her gown. "I'm looking for Judith my sister."

Still lying on her bed now, Jenna began to cry as she recalled what happened after that. The boys had dragged her to a corner, and raped her.

"No, I can't forgive her!" she said to herself, weeping loudly, "I can't!"

She sat up and began to think of Judith. No one ever saw her again since she ran out of the house through the window. No one knew what had become of her, if she was dead or not. But most people agreed that she was likely dead. And her mum was to blame. How could such a person be forgiven?

Jenna stopped thinking. She couldn't go further. Her pain was choking her, strangling her. It would have been better if her mum had changed after what happened that day, but she didn't. Things got worse when the woman remarried.

There were times when Jenna felt that she could not breathe. She ran from home at age 15, and at age 17 she was in Lagos, alone, helpless.

In her early days in Lagos, she hungered for food and happiness; hungered for a reprieve, a relief; hungered for sensation, for spontaneous change within; hungered for the could-have-been, wept for their loss; she hungered for the resurgence of hope, of vigour, of her dead strength; hungered for the blessings of tomorrow. She hungered for human connection, for friends, nay, a friend who would hold my hands and say, "I've got your back."

And she found a friend at last. But her life got worse for it.

Jenna stood up and walked to the kitchen. She took a knife and walked back to her room. There was no point. All of life had been rigged against her. It must all end now. Yes, right now. She slash the wrists of both hands, and waited for the proverbial boatman to take her to River Styx.