Thursday evening, just before sunset. Vicky sat on a cliff watching the reluctant sunset. Above her; an azure sky extended to kiss the orange-tinged top of a hill standing on the far western horizon. Beside her (on the ground), a smartphone that played her favourite music playlist even though whatever was once upon a time sweet symphony in the music had turned into an annoying cacophony that was unbearable to her ears. In spite of that, she was hesitant to stop the music. She urged herself to end the music but her hand mysteriously failed to move. Yes, mysteriously.
Her eyes were fixed on the river flowing and bellowing below her. Watching the flowing river for a long time had hypnotized her. Tears were slowly welling up in her eyes and spontaneously breaking off into large drops which moistened her eyelashes before launching themselves into the river, becoming homogenous with its water and flowing far away; away from her into the massive lake in the south.
That was her happiness. She allowed herself to shed more tears. People of the village – this particular village that had been home for Vicky for two years now– claim that the water of the river is healing. When people get sick, they drink the water from the river. When evil haunts them, the chieftains and the priests in the village shove a scapegoat into the river and let it drawn. Perhaps she could get healed too. It’s the tradition.
Tradition: this dreadful monster that spikes up melancholy and abhorrence in Vicky’s heart. That thing had become a ravaging inferno that had burnt her tolerance. She had once been told that the tradition is never on the wrong side. If one does not conform to what society and its traditions dictate, that person is the problem. With this, she had been subjected to all the rituals that one has to go through by the age of sixteen.
She lucidly recalled a particular moment when there was a celebration and the gods were expected to appear. When they did, they looked like men with their faces smeared with ash and at the same time, the elders of the village could not be seen anywhere in the vicinity. One particular god whose face had not been sufficiently smeared with ash looked like Hatoni, one of the elders. When she confronted her mother with regard to that, she was told that nobody questions the gods.
That was however not the matter at stake at that particular moment. Apart from the many traditional challenges that life in the village had posed to her, something more disturbing had devoured her peace in a blink of an eye. But before that had happened, it had presented itself as a beautiful red rose with its soft petals wide open, as though inviting her to embrace it as well as to release its aromatic scent. She accepted the invite, little did she know that roses have thorns too. Thorns that had pierced her heart, clattered it making it ooze all the hope she had.
It was a young man, about twenty years old who had promised Vicky a lot of love with a magnitude more significant than the number of stars in a clear sky. Probably, Vicky was convinced because the man’s eyes were as vibrant and as magnificent, and as luccicante as those little stars. His name was Alex. He was tall, he was dark, yes – he was handsome. He was the perfect epitome of her teenage dreams. She had met him millions of times in her dreams before they had actually met.
She had met the man on Tinder; a reputable dating site. The tension and prurience of their conversation had quickly exploded into sparks of infatuations and fires of love. Long ago, people used to fall in love at first sight but now in the age of modern communication technology and high internet speed, people are falling in love even before sight. On Vicky’s side, the passion that had filled her heart was imitable and she was amenable to the invitation and persuasions of Alex to his house in the city.
They met. On a fateful Saturday evening. They met, at Alex’s house. They met; to assuage their passion and love a bit by physical means.
The following morning, Vicky went back to her home and that was the last time she heard from or met Alex. That was the end of their luscious conversations. Alex blocked her and cut off all forms of communication between them. Later, she realized that the house they were in had been hired by Alex to serve the purpose of that one eventful night.
It didn’t take long before Vicky realized that she had become expectant. The pregnancy grew bigger and bigger every day. In the beginning, it seemed as though she was adding weight but her mother kept wondering why her daughter’s weight got concentrated in one particular part of her body. It was not pellucid to her because the very thought of her seventeen years old daughter being pregnant was unfathomable. Her expectations had been that she would grow, complete her education and enter into a decent marriage.
Vicky’s father, on the other hand, had been appointed as one of the junior elders in the village. He held the view that educating girls was worthless and that they should have been married off once they hit puberty. He started making the suggestions four or five years before but Vicky's mother always reprimanded him.
It reached a point and Vicky could no longer hide the growing tummy. The lachrymose and pain that filled their small house on that particular day when her mother broke the ice and decided to talk to Vicky about the sudden changes she had noticed were so intense that words alone are not in anyone’s grip nor grope to describe. She confessed to her mother how she became acquainted with Alex, how she sneaked from home to go to the city to meet him, and how she suddenly lost contact with him.
“You have spoilt it! It’s now broken and nobody can fix it,” Vicky’s mother said in agony.
“You know your father very well. You also know that traditions dictate that a woman who gets pregnant outside marriage is a disgrace to the community and should be banished. You know how much I protected you from early marriage. My daughter, you have betrayed me.”
As expected, once the child was born, Vicky was summoned by the elders and questioned about her ‘illegitimate’ pregnancy. She tried to speak and defend herself but her tongue became momentarily paralyzed. Her father, sitting in the council of elders, could not be on her side because he feared that he would be dismissed. He watched his daughter banished without blinking his eyes even though in the trial of his conscience, he had been subjected to immense suffering.
**********
Sitting at the cliff, it has been two years since her banishment. She had moved to the neighbouring village with her son. A kind-hearted woman had taken her as her own daughter and promised to provide for her. However, her past kept haunting her and as time went by, living was becoming more and more unbearable to Vicky. That was the reason she sat on the tall rocky structure – the cliff – on that particular Thursday evening.
She wanted to jump into the river. As the myth goes, the river eliminates problems and after meditating for hours at that cliff, she was convinced that she was the problem. She began to count down from ten in her mind before she could take the honourable jump from the cliff. Ten… nine… eight… seven… three…
Before she turned to two, she heard a small pattering sound behind her. She became alarmed, suddenly, as though she had been in deep slumber. By instinct, she knew exactly what she could see once she turned her head to look at the source of the pattering. She restrained herself until she felt a soft pat on her back.
“Maa… maa… maa…” a childish gibberish followed the pat. It was her son, Kelvin.
To her, that was a moment of enlightenment. A moment of recharged hope. She slowly turned her head to look at the child, tears effortlessly streaming down her cheeks and her nose was running. She didn’t know how the child had crawled to the cliff. She looked at the child’s eyes and they dazzled like the million stars Alex had promised her. She could read the innocence, hope, and helplessness of the baby from his eyes. Her conscience condemned her for wanting to die, for living each day based on the past.
“I may have a damaged past, but this baby… this child…” emotions overwhelmed her.
“This child must live and he lives because I have shown him how to. Sometimes, we have to live for the sake of others and I have to live for the sake of my son,” she thought.
“Don’t worry,” she told Kelvin who was in the midst of celebrating his ability to crawl to the cliff where his mama sat. “Mama shall always be there for you.”
She slowly stood, picked up the child, placed him on her back, and briskly walked back to her new home.
MUNGAI K
Awesome
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