Blog - February 1, 2018

Episode 1: #Fiction20

There was a dead man laying on the rug, and Armani stared at him, unshaken , with a smug smile, feeling content and working out ways to make this look like what it wasn’t: A suicide.  

Abuja, 1993.

Hadjia Hassanat sat in the compound  of the beautiful building she loved to call ‘Castle’ and heaved a deep sigh. She was many months gone and knew the baby would pop anytime, she kept hoping that the moment came earlier than the doctor  envisaged , just so she would get it over with and push out the ‘thing’ inside her . She was tired of  carrying a bump so huge and she had grown really fat over the years. Her  husband always had a  busy day but he  made sure to check on her through the company messenger who came home twice a day to see how she was faring. He had spent his earlier years as a Bureau De Change apprentice, now he owns and operates five branches of his and this meant he had to be constantly available. It was from this business he was able to build the huge edifice that Hadjia loved so much and many more. Many people in the neighborhood spoke in whispers about how haunted the house was. They went further by saying she probably lived in a different world in her head, where she was queen and everyone next to her were peasants who dropped at her feet at the mere sight of her and she roasted each one anytime she felt like it, as a daily meal. Talks went round about how she supposedly killed her first child  and fed her to the dogs and was on the verge of killing the second, Armani before she was rescued and taken far away to Ibadan, to live with Hajia’s aged mother. There were different versions of the story, some said she had bouts of madness where she would suddenly talk to herself and make spontaneous decisions on who to kill, they said she had tried her hands on many killings but her first successful one was her first baby, whom she killed by twisting her neck 360 degrees and leaving it dangling. None of these stories fazed Hadjia, only she knew how much she loved her dead baby. Oh her dear Jamila, the baby girl who everyone described as beautiful and who had full curly hair like her paternal grandmother’s.  She did not deliberately decide not to breastfeed her, it just was not something appealing to her. Why should she breastfeed a child who had caused her so much pain by draining her beauty and making her so fat? She regularly felt tired and everything was such a bore. Her hopelessness skyrocketed by the minute and she had lots of blame for herself. It had to be that she had  ill luck and wasn’t destined to feel the joys of motherhood everyone talked about even despite having a child.  She knew she had strange thoughts from time to time but she would mutter ‘Audhubillah’ and that would be it. One Tuesday afternoon when Alhaji had travelled for Hajj, Jamilah turned white and Hadjia didn’t know what to do, the shock at seeing her pretty baby looking all white, made her fixated to the spot and she watched as life left her fragile little body. It took  a scream from the house help to jolt her back to reality. She watched as the baby’s body was taken away and as her husband was called home. She also saw how everyone wailed and had lots to say about how wicked she was and how the baby would have survived if she had been a more attentive and virtuous mother. ‘Salam alaykum  Salam alaykum, Make everybody lock their gate o, fight don start” . A loud voice rang through the Neighborhood and she jumped to her feet and scampered for safety, the force she applied in reaching for the front door made her wheeze round and then she fell to the floor with a thud. The last thing she remembered was her husband’s voice calling her name from far away: “Hassanat, Dan Allah Kar ki mutu”.    

December 2016, Ibadan.

Armani had lost her pregnancy four times in a row and she was beginning to question her choices and blame herself a lot. The doctor said she was consuming something which was affecting her body and wasn’t letting the babies stay. She had told her husband everything the doctor said and they had taken precautions every time regarding what she ate anytime a positive pregnancy result came in. They had prayed and fasted, they had even done marathon fasting where they did nothing but pray for 72 hours. Her husband, Jaleel, took time off work many times than one just to be with her and follow instructions that the Pastor had given them. They had met Pastor Samuel during one of their quests to seek a solution to their problem and threw their religious belief  (Islam), to the side. Their only intention was to conceive successfully and that they were ready to get through any means. The fifth pregnancy came and to their surprise, it stayed over four months which was the regular month of losing it previously. It was on a day during this period she came across the message on the paper in her husband’s box. That was the day her life changed forever, that was the day she took a knife, waited for him at the door, and stabbed him repeatedly, until all life left him.     Dan Allah Kar ki mutu means ‘please don’t die’   All characters and events in this narration are totally imaginations of the writer and have nothing to do with any known person, event or history.    

Comments (27)

  1. February 1, 2018

    Just wow!!! And it had to end that way?
    I imagined the scene while I read….please say there’s a continuation? I enjoyed reading this

    • February 1, 2018

      Glad you loved it! Oh yes, there is a continuation, the next blogger takes the baton!

  2. Eniola

    February 1, 2018

    Issa WOW! Keep it coming…

    • February 1, 2018

      Thanks my darling, for being such a consistent cheerleader. Please when are you getting back to Blogging? We miss you

  3. Ifunanya

    February 1, 2018

    This is great. Can’t wait for the next one. 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾

    http://www.sunlightdreamer.com

  4. Waliyullah

    February 1, 2018

    Waoh! Brilliant plot, exciting narration. Can’t wait for the next episode, the suspense is at the apex.

  5. Abdulhammed

    February 1, 2018

    Hmmm nice but I got lost, is it 2 different fiction

    • February 3, 2018

      Thanks bro. No,it was just a throwback and it will get clearer with the next episode.

  6. Olájùmòké

    February 1, 2018

    Interesting read, intriguing too. Beautiful choice of words, great wordplay! Please, can the episodes be longer? Felt like I read only 5lines *sobs*. Waiting eagerly for the next episode….

    • February 3, 2018

      Thanks darling. Hahhaha we made it restricted to 1000 words so we don’t bore our readers o.

  7. Toyeen

    February 2, 2018

    With that smug smile on her face, Lord knows why she thinks killing her husband is the solution to whatever he did wrong.

  8. February 8, 2018

    […] Read episode one here […]

  9. February 8, 2018

    Loved it.. gotta read the next one noww. – Titi

  10. February 8, 2018

    I finally get to read this and I am super glad the next one is just there waiting for me to consume.

  11. February 11, 2018

    Oh.. My heart!
    Let me go and read the next one

  12. February 14, 2018

    […] Read more here […]

  13. February 15, 2018

    […] Episode 1 […]

  14. March 1, 2018

    […] Episode 1 […]

  15. March 8, 2018

    […] Episode 1 […]

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    […] Episode 1 […]

  17. March 22, 2018

    […] Episodes : 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, […]

  18. March 29, 2018

    […] Previous Episodes : 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 […]

  19. April 5, 2018

    […] Previous Episodes: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 […]

  20. Apinke

    June 21, 2018

    Wow
    Wow
    Wow
    I just started reading the fiction series, it’s such an amazing read🤸‍♂️🤸‍♂️🤸‍♂️🤸‍♂️🤸‍♂️🤸‍♂️

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