Fiction: Our Secret

By

Abdul Abubakar

Jude!!

I’m standing close to the window in St. George hospital. My gaze is outside, watching the commotion as a woman kneels on the ground in front of a doctor. My heart on the other hand is here in this room. It’s dark, cruel and very angry that mother is soothing your head with a towel. Tears slip down her face as she cleans your eyebrows.

I stare at her with disgust. Bile forms in my throat and I look around for a trash can to throw up. I suck it down after I discover there aren’t any. It goes down slowly, then the burning pit in my stomach swallows it up.

“Olorun ran u” mama says while staring at you. She raises her hand in a prayer-like position. “God do not help monsters” I say under my breath.

I wish you would just die. I wish you will wither and feel no more. I wish for your lips to turn blue and your body lifeless. I wish this and more bad things for you.

I want to thank Angela, your wife whose lover smashed over you with his car. I never liked her, but I’m beginning to. I’m filled with gratitude.

Mama calls you her comforter. I call you my oppressor.

To her, you are like Jesus. The saviour who protected her when she had nobody. To me, you are the devil, the stealer of my innocence.

I remember the day we met. You had driven your BMW to face me – I face your compound mama and I lived in Ajabandi. You were dressed in a colourful kaftan and your black shoes had shone brightly. Mama had cried and danced in gratitude as you showered us with gifts. You gave me N1000 and I had bought a snack with it. You had told mama we were going to live with you in an estate you built in Abuja. I stared at you consciously and at that moment I thought you were God sent.

We moved to Abuja where you enrolled me in a good school. You bought Mama a shop where she sold clothes imported from Dubai. We worshipped you. “Olorun omo” Mama calls you.

The night you came to my room; I was reading. I asked you what you were looking for but you didn’t answer me. Instead you put your middle finger across your lips. “Be quiet” you said. Your voice was cruel.

I moved far away from you but you stepped closer. You groped my breast, I felt suppressed; my breath cut short. I tried to shout but you covered your mouth with mine, your breath smelled of alcohol. I hit, slapped you but all my effort was in vein. It didn’t stop you from tearing my panties and it also didn’t stop you from having your way with me.

When you were through with me, you stood up from me while I cried on a blood stained mattress. Before you left, you threatened me. “If you tell anybody about this, you will find yourself and your mother lower than the condition I met you in” you said cruelly. Your nose in a
sneer.

I never told mother, she would have believed me anyway.

It was our secret, our dirty little secret you called it. Mine and yours alone.

After you married Angela, I thought you were gong to stop. I thought it was going to be different. You became demanding, possessive. You bought me clothes and underwear. When I showed them to mother she called you a loving uncle.

I cried myself to sleep every night after you left. I wished you were gone but you kept coming; night after night. I felt worthless. My body felt like trash.

“Martha, the doctor is here” Mother says. She’s standing close to me now. I look at the doctor. He’s examining you. “Doctor, do you think he will walk or see again” Mother asks.

“It’s a possibility ma’am” the factory say.. “I hope not” I say at the same time.

Mama and the doctor look at me. He arches his eyebrows while she has an angry line on her lips. I do not stare at them. My eyes are on you.

Why won’t you just die? Why won’t you fade away.

The Pierce say “Two can keep a secret If one of them is dead.”

I think it’s time this secret becomes mine.

Mine alone.

Mother is outside. I looked through the door earlier. She was crying, in tears while the doctor consoled her.

I walk slowly to your bedside. I do not feel guilty on what I’m about to do. I do not feel happy either. No joy, no guilt.

I watch as the poison I inserted into your drip moves steadily. It enters your bloodstream. You do not stir, you do not feel bothered. Why won’t you stir?, why won’t you moan in pain and despair.

I watch your last breath seize from your body. It feels like forever.

Gone!, gone!!, my heart says.

“No guilt” my mouth says

The tears come, I let them flow.

Abdul Abubakar

My name is Abdul Abubakar. I’m a student of Kogi state university. I’m a writer. Most of my stories have been posted on my Facebook account. I read mostly romance. My favourite authors in this categories are Julia Quinn. I also read other categories of fiction such as ‘Crime’ and ‘Paranormal’, my favourites being Kresley Cole and Nalini Singh.