We began to live from hand to mouth for the rest of the year.My father and her illegal wife had sold most of the property—Television, Radio, Refridgerator, yet they couldn’t meet up. Now.
they began to appear religious, trying to attend vigils and other church services. However, Toyosi didn’t cease from going to herbalists to get solution, but they had none.
December was drawing close, but we had
nothing at home.
Toyosi threatened to walk out of the
relationship to wait for her
husband’s return but John persuaded her
to stay to take care of
Bode with him for the moment.
Toyosi would weep all alone sometimes. I
wondered what
actually was wrong with her. Did
anything go wrong again? I
would ponder. I thought all was getting
better, but I never
knew something had gone wrong between
the illegal couple
which I didn’t know.
I intensified my asking for my mother,
but I didn’t get any
direct answer. Toyosi asked me to see
my father concerning
my mother’s issue. When I did, John
didn’t reply me. I
wondered how someone could be so
stubborn. After all these
‘nine plagues of the Egyptians’ which had
come upon him and
his family (except me), this man still
refused to let my mother
go. Certainly my father is another
Pharaoh in the making, I
thought.
It was soon going to be New Year day,
yet there seemed to be
nothing at home to use to do the New
Year day. Bode was
complaining vehemently. The evil hand of
malnutrition seemed
to have had much grip of him than any
other person in the
family. Bode’s once bulgy cheeks had
shrunken so much. His
neck had gone thin for lack of balanced
diet and one might
easily pass him for a kwashiorkor
patience. The sicknesses
which swept across the family, sparing
me those times, really
did much to their financial status.
Toyosi expected a response from her
husband in form of
money, but she got nothing.
The New Year gradually dragged in. It
was all hunger-strike for
us. If not for Mrs Omotayo who gave us
some cooked food,
we wouldn’t have had anything to eat
throughout the New Year
day. Toyosi humbly took the meal from
her that day and shed
tears. Bode shed tears too, asking his
daddy why he didn’t
perform his responsibility as a father to
take care of the need of
the family in the New Year. It was then
John joined in the cry. I
wanted to cry too, but all I had was
laughter. My father was
angry with me. He thought I was
laughing at their calamity, so
he ordered me out of the room.
I clutched to my pen and then began to
write something:
NEW YEAR HUNGER
Glancing at life sometimes
You are left to wonder
Is it worth living?
Yes to some it is,
Cos they have what it takes
To make life worth living
But to some it’s not,
A capital NO,
Cos to them it is but
A moment spent in woes
While some celebrate
A New Year indeed,
Others Celebrate
A New Year of Hunger…
I flipped back. I had written over fifty
poems so far. I
remembered how I begun those days;
how Toyosi tore my
first sets of poems. But I wrote them
again and she didn’t get to
know. If only I knew where that Judimax
was, I would take my
manuscript to them and get published. It
would be a dream
come true. I would make the whole world
ask Toyosi and my
father where exactly they kept my
mother; six feet under the
earth or where else?
I remembered my mother again. My
patience was no more in
place. It was already more than a year
since she was jailed for
no reason at all. Something made me
think of committing
patricide. I was going to thrust a knife
through my father’s belly
at the dead of the night and end it all at
once. I wouldn’t be
without my mother all day. It would be
better to kill my father
and then get killed in return than to allow
this sinner go scot-
free.
I went to bed, waiting for my father to
sleep as well. I was
going to rise up and walk straight to his
room to do the job, I
thought.
I got up from bed and reached for a knife
close by, a kitchen
knife. I began to walk stealthily to his
room. Toyosi left the door
ajar. I didn’t care where she was. I
opened the door gently and
found my father dozing on the bed. I
walked straight to him
and lowered the knife into his body with
all my strength. I
watched him grope for death. Now I
needed to escape into the
night, never to be seen again, but then
Toyosi appeared at the
door and screamed! I knew she
screamed. going by the raised
muscles on her neck.
I woke up from my nightmare. So it was
a dream, I sighed.
How on earth would I have killed my own
father?
To be continued
