10 YEARS PREGNANCY

One could start one's day with a soothing stretch accompanied by a widened yawn or with the warmth of kisses that sit gallantly on the cheeks or forehead. Nonetheless, neither was the case for Ajekuikale on that ugly day. Though the Saturday's morn wore brightness so intense that could be noticed by a blind man, it proffered a groan of pains to him.

Ajekuikale, a man who was in his late thirties always wore gaiety on his face as though he owned all the happiness in the world. To his family, he was the very devil's embodiment but he was the best Samaritan to brawlers on the street. He could exchange his heart for bottles of drink for his pals but wouldn't drop a dime for his family at home. Though he had no job, he did receive his late parents' pension.

Until that shocking Saturday morning, no one in the neighborhood knew of Asabi's hidden pregnancy. Asabi, Ajekuikale's wife had been pregnant for ten years, even before she bore her second child. "How is that possible? Are you sure about this?", people on the street asked one another with their mouths shaped by astonishment and their hands making every gossip-like gesture.

Asabi had gone through a quasi-hell life ever since her marriage to Ajekuikale. Life after marriage offered her a wide assortment of bitterness and affliction. Her body was a haven for Ajekuikale's punches and slaps. Although the uncertainty of surviving life's unyielding challenges dandled her like a baby, her enduring indulgence kept her moving; she didn't yield to the calls of divorce.

Asabi would feed her two children and her useless husband with the token she earned from her tailoring work. She even almost lost the pregnancy of her second child when she was beaten black blue or even purple by her husband. That day seemed too cruel to her. She had earlier complained of serious fever to one of her neighbours but was too stranded to treat herself medically. Luck pretended to be on her side when her husband announced the reception of his parents' pension to her. However, her hope of getting some amount to treat herself was stabbed very quickly. She rather got loads of punch and battering which landed her at the hospital. 

To be candid, tens of months is not enough to tell the tale of Asabi's predicament till that fateful Saturday, when she delivered her ten months pregnancy. People could not believe that she had been pregnant with detestation and ruthlessness for her husband for ten years. She had nurtured wickedness to maturity in her womb over the years.

Asabi woke very early, around 4:30 am that Saturday. Her husband and children were still asleep. She boiled a bucketful of water and took it to the bedroom. Very romantically, she patted her husband on the back which made him partly conscious of what was about to happen. She then baptized him with the hot water. While he groaned in severe pain, Asabi took her patience, hope, and luggage, and left with her kids. She left with a heightened hope of finding the reality of a better life.

-Owoeye Tobiloba Moses