AHUBA: a short story

Ahuba arrived at the Ekanem Children's home a tiny, frail, quiet thing carefully bundled in an almost threadbare, amber coloured, Hi-target wrapper. She went about her business silently and never caused trouble for the other children, the childcare workers or anyone for that matter. She favoured the woodshed and dark corridors where she stayed for hours and brooded on nothing. Sister Unyime the Matron who went by Sisi consistently told Ahuba that she was a possessed girl on a mission, having killed her mother during childbirth therefore, she was evil. “ ifot, Witch!. Stop hiding in corners and giving others the scare of their lives. You're an old, evil soul and if you keep this up, ma'basi, by God you'll never find yourself in a family and even if you did, the mother who'll adopt you should be warned." Ahuba never did find a family. At a tender age when other children dreamt of going to parks, visiting museums and finding themselves in loving homes, she had violent dreams of her blood stained hands, a woman's split stomach oozing out blood and vacant brown eyes staring hauntingly at her. While the others yearned for warm hugs and bed stories, she thought of how it would feel to snap Sisi's thin neck or poke out the eyes of the little babies in group three who wouldn't stop bawling no matter what was done to appease them. Above all, she yearned for what Sisi said she couldn't have; she wanted a mother.




One time, a retired headmistress who couldn't bear children came to the home for adoption. Ahuba's drabness drew something out of her, so, with extreme excitement she hastily pointed "that one, I want that one." After the necessary inquisition and signing of papers, she came back a few days later for Ahuba who was dressed in her finest and ready to leave for her new home. The woman gave innocent smiles and Ahuba had felt sorry for her, for what would befall such innocent act of kindness. The headmistress bent to her level when they were almost to her car, smiled tenderly and whispered "You can call me mother, Ahuba." Ahuba had frozen, broken into hysteria and bolted. The woman sadly drove away childless, wondering what she did wrong. Vexed, Sisi marched to the corridor where Ahuba was huddled sobbing and bellowed "come right here!" Ahuba swiped at her eyes, stood on wobbly legs and went to Sisi who slapped her hard across the face then pulled her ears. "Keep playing these games and you'll find a home only by the grace of the Almighty. Do you hear me? It‟s only by the grace of the Almighty!” She left Ahuba with those words ringing in her ears and splotches of wet saliva on her forehead. Knowing she might never leave the children's home brought her sadness, yet knowing that another mother's life had been spared brought her immense happiness. She wondered why Sisi didn't notice that she had justly saved another mother's life. One moment Sisi would lament how evil she was then the next moment she was eager to ship her off to a new home. She didn't understand Sisi. She didn't understand herself. Something was wrong with her and whatever it was, only Sisi found it disturbing. If she could muster thoughts like poking out a child's eye, did it validate what Sisi always bemoaned? Maybe Sisi's fears went beyond Ahuba killing again. Maybe there was more. After the hysteria incident, she acted the possessed part more often than not, became even more withdrawn and isolated from the other children and drifted into the dark recesses of anger, hatred and self loathe.





"Have you ever felt intense pain such that tears brew and you cannot shed them? Screams and howls want their way out of your mouth and you can only manage dry heaves? Have you ever needed a release but all the outlets you found never seemed to let it out completely?"




Ahuba closed the diary and studied the ceiling. Using her index finger, she breached a gap in between the page she was reading and listened for sounds. Nothing. Just overpowering silence. The room was dim, bare, reeked of old things and saw more darkness than light. Most of her neighbours were in bed, some in light, troubled sleep, and others in deep, sound ones. But there she was, on her rusted iron bed wide awake, blood thrumming in her veins. The rest of humanity were all cosy in their little rooms and had no idea a suicide was being planned a few yards of them. They had no idea that a suicide note which had been stealthily drafted for years would find completion and equally, readers by the break of dawn. She fiddled the diary lightly and brooded. The diary was the last thing she stole that evening from the crawling supermarket a few blocks from the one room doghouse apartment where she now lived. There was no money to buy much that she needed. Her job at a local drink parlor didn't pay well, plus Ahuba was sufficiently reckless when it came to spending. She started early; moving food and petty things from other children's bags, dipping her bony fingers inside the offering box at the local church and stuffing people's giving into her ragged clothes, shoplifting in small market stalls when market women weren't looking, carefully, unsuspectingly moving clothes from laundry lines, to guilefully soliciting small change from visitors, church members, and passersby.




A regular visitor at the home saw her one day soliciting money in the stifling heat and coaxed her into his vehicle back to the children's home. She twisted and untwisted her fingers all through the ride to the home till they turned bloodless, certain that Sisi would dig her grave. When Sisi saw them and heard what Ahuba did, she knelt on the grass and thanked the man profusely, apologizing for neglect then dragged her to the dark corridors where she lighted a candle and dropped the hot wax gently on her fingers and knuckles till they became raw, red and swollen, till Ahuba's pleas and screams turned to heart wrenching sobs, till Sisi was satisfied she would never steal again. "No mother wants a thief for a daughter do you hear that Ahuba?" She nodded limply in affirmation with terrified, tear streaked face. Before leaving, Sisi took out a kerchief and a small 1cl bottle of anointing oil, folded an edge of the kerchief then dipped it into the bottle and wiped her knuckles all the while muttering cleansing words, for herself or Ahuba, she couldn't tell.





Few years later, a family of three visited the home. The woman saw Ahuba huddled beside the arm chairs and sympathetically urged her to come to them. Ahuba stood up with stick legs and only when she was halfway across the room did she notice the little girl clutching the woman's slender hand, staring straight at her with something almost resembling dismayed disgust. The girl seemed to be about her age or older. "Come darling" the woman coaxed gently when she sensed her resistance. With vacant eyes, Ahuba swiftly took in the girl's perfect white dress with pretty pink frills adorning the hems, her beautifully plaited cornrows with colourful beads dangling from their ends, the matching socks and polka dotted shoes on her feet. Her nutmeg coloured brown skin was flawless and everything about her screamed "well loved by a mother". Right where she halted, she turned and made for the woodshed, her safe haven. There she sat on one of the logs, and rocked from side to side, her whole body vibrating with tears that must never be shed, while she hugged herself tightly, humming little nothings and wishing she had never killed her mother.




Envy coursed through her tiny little frame afterwards whenever she remembered the girl and her family, the protective way the mother wrapped her arm on the girl's shoulder splintered her heart with longing and the perfect, doll-like appearance made her look impoverished. She suddenly began to wish for things she couldn't have, she wanted to have all those things the girl was adorned in. If she couldn't get a mother's love like Sisi had said, then at least she could get for herself things that could replace motherly love. Hardly anything passed her without a yearning in her entire being to posses it. She couldn't understand it or control it and the more she took, the more she wanted. Many times she was caught but on such occasions, she lied brazenly, even cried and slept her way out of justice. As she grew, there was something about her that made it impossible for men to pin her with crime; something feminine. She had for once in her life found power and she wielded it well. Nothing seemed to be able to fill this hollowness and yearning and quest she couldn't explain.

Why did everyone carry about their business, having no idea that underneath the layers of beauty, skilled coyness and slyness was an unstable and damaged woman?

Why did Sisi's words keep making her guilty even years after she ran away from the home? Why would a woman who she had never seen haunt her all the way from her grave?

Why would her mother never find it in her to forgive?

Was forgiveness too difficult a thing to ask a mother?.

If so, shouldn't a mother's love overlook all the wrongs of a child?.




Sometimes after a horrible nightmare would leave her hollow and drained, she thought about Sisi, confusing thoughts that left her more drained and empty. How Sisi's small, strong voice calling and giving orders from the front desk scared and at the same time eased her nerves whenever she would huddle in the corridors and wallow in guilt. How her sweet incense and lavender smell was the only smell she could remember from the home. The nightmares grew more frequent over the years. She saw a faceless woman, bloodied from her stomach down, with outstretched arms as though she was calling for help. At other times, she saw herself in a long, narrow, white corridor with no windows or doors and thousands of babies covered in blood and whitish fluids crawling towards her. She would scream and scream till she woke up panting and drenched.


Then, the nightmares changed. She saw the woman, tall, frail and heavy with child walking briskly along the white corridors, looking over her shoulder as if she was being chased. The long corridors changed to thick patches of shrubs behind a large paint less building whose sign post read Ekanem children's home. She saw the woman push out a baby and cut its cord of life, saw her lean over the baby and whisper "You weren't supposed to come, you leave me no choice. Your name is Ahuba." The weak woman stood awkwardly and made to leave, but next thing she was on the ground. Sand and dried grass blades stuck to her face, dark liquid oozed from the fingers clutching her lower abdomen and her vacant brown eyes locked unseeing on the baby's unsullied ones. It was too lucid, too familiar. Just like the story Sisi told her when she ran into her three days earlier at St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church. Only in Sisi's story, a young nun had placed a bloodied butcher's knife beside the dead woman, picked up the silent baby and discreetly walked into Ekanem children's home.




"What if the truth you knew was the lie you were told? What if the guilt you bore, you were actually free all along? Tonight, I'm signing out of earth's time book. I'm ending it all. I know it won't make a dent in history, no one will know, no one cares. Everyone is a liar"

Ahuba withdrew her finger and snapped the diary shut. She never imagined her death to be like this. Never imagined she would take her own life. Who would give justice to the real ifot, witch?. The dead cannot mete out justice. Only the living. Her eyes grew heavy and her head hurt too much from crying. Streaks upon streaks of tears had dried on her face and lips. She tightly clutched the rope dangling from the curved rod above where the ceiling would be as blackness enveloped her.




Later, a butcher's knife, a rosary, a white handkerchief and a 1cl bottle of olive oil would go missing from the store proximal to Ahuba's compound...