Bittersweet 5

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride... that was me. A girl full of hope, clutching to promises like lifelines, believing that a better life was just beyond the dusty path that led from my village. My uncle had said he would take care of me, send me to school, make me somebody. But reality was nothing like the dreams I had allowed myself to indulge in, in my young mind.

 

My days blurred into an endless grind. Sometimes my uncle’s wife would place hot bowls on a wide tray balanced on my head, beans pudding, corn pudding, things I had never dreamed I’d be selling on streets. The weight pressed down on my neck and my skull like punishment. I was still a child, scrawny, underfed, invisible, but I had no choice, no voice, no say. My pain meant nothing to anyone.

 

At night, when the house was quiet, I would cry into my thin pillow, careful not to let the sobs escape my throat. This was not the life I was promised. This was not the story I was told when he came smiling into our village, speaking sweetly to my mother, swearing he would give me a future. I would whisper into the darkness, Why is life so cruel to me? But silence always answered.

 

One Saturday, after one of our usual brutal farm days, we always left at 6am without food, I found myself walking slowly at the rear of the group. The midday meal, if it could be called that, had been garri soaked in water. Our fuel. My blistered palms throbbed, my feet ached, and my body felt like a sack of bones barely holding together.

 

Then, out of nowhere, it happened.

 

A strange bird, black, heavy-winged, swooped out of the sky and struck me across the face with its feathers. The moment it touched me, a cold shiver coursed through my spine. Goosebumps rose like thorns. Within minutes, itchy blisters began to erupt all over my skin, angry and raw, spreading like wildfire. My skin felt as though it had been set on fire from the inside out.

 

I stumbled, feverish and weak, my vision blurring. I could barely breathe. My companions eventually had to carry me, as my body no longer obeyed me. When we reached home, they laid me down on the hard ground. My uncle stood over me, arms folded, eyes narrowed. He didn’t touch me. He didn’t come close.

 

After a long, cold stare, he simply said, “Take yourself to the Health Centre. Go. Don’t come near anybody. What you have is dangerous.”

 

Just like that, I was alone.

 

No one offered to help. No one walked with me. I rose slowly, every movement agony, and began the long trek, over an hour on foot, burning with fever, my skin on fire, my clothes scraping against the blisters. People passed by. They said, “Sorry,” with pity in their eyes. But I couldn’t respond. I didn’t even have the strength to lift my head. I felt like I was slowly dying.

 

Somehow, I made it to the clinic.

 

The nurses looked at me with alarm, gave me Calamine lotion and some tablets. That was it. Then the journey back began. I cried silently as I walked, tears mingling with sweat and fever. I sat by the roadside several times, gasping for breath, trying to summon just enough strength to keep going. No one waited for me. No one cared if I returned or not.

 

When I finally arrived, they had cleared out a room for me, the one closest to the latrine. It was the former store room, dank and full of cobwebs, with cracked walls and a leaking ceiling. They pushed an old mat into the corner. That was my new home.

 

I was segregated. Exiled. Food was dropped at the door like scraps for a stray dog. No one came in. No one checked on me. The days blurred into each other, long, painful hours of itching, burning, crying. Fever dreams haunted my sleep. Sometimes I would wake up screaming, but no one came.

 

I was completely alone in my suffering. Alone in a room that smelled of mildew and old shame. Alone in a world that had promised me love and instead gave me torment. No voice, no love, no mercy.