AAJO (JOURNEY)

MANSION ON A HILL.

The night the accident happened, you were in the car squeezed in between your two big sisters who had been watching funny videos on their iPhones and were chewing gum very loudly. You had been slightly irritated because your dad refused to stop for ice cream and your sisters called you a spoilt brat. You had been irritated because Lara's arm kept hitting your face and she did not say sorry just because she was the first born. You had been irritated because your dad wouldn't let you sit at the front even when you had called shotgun.

Perhaps the irritation that you felt was a sign that something bad would happen, you would think a few years later. 

You were going to the airport that night so that the family could begin a new life in America. Your dad had already sold the house because you all would be staying at America for a long time, you had heard from Lara. You eavesdropped on all their conversations. They did not include you because according to them, you had been the one to murder your mother. 

"If you had not been born, mother would not have died," Imade always said when you both got into a fight.

The car had entered a pothole so that Lara hit your face again. You had accidentally spilled the chilled Pepsi on Imade and she was not having it. She had pushed your face away and slapped your head angrily.

You remembered bawling so loudly that your dad had to remove his hand from the steering wheel so as to reach to the backseat, fondle your cheeks and tell you sorry. He had not seen the trailer coming at him but you had and you had screamed but it was too late.

                                               ~°~°~°~

You remembered that you wanted to tear your wounds out.

The hot pain that filled up your insides made your eyes water but the tears would not fall. You heard the nurses say that it was not fair for a ten year old to go through that type of pain and you agreed with them. You kept screaming and screaming and you called death to come and take you because if it did take you, you would be with God. But as the days went on, you had feared death and you had prayed to God because your dad had always told you to do so at bad times. Your heart conscripted with sadness as you thought of him.

You knew that you would never see your family again when you were released from the hospital. You also knew that you would have to suffer because you had no other person in the entire world. Your mother's relatives, you did not know, and your father's were jealous of him or so you had heard and you also had no way to contact them. You were all alone.

You did not know the way back home so you wandered around the streets of Lagos. Even if you went home, who would take care of you? Lara would not be there to cook, Imade would not be able to shout at you any longer and you wouldn't be able to see your dad smile ever again. Besides, you remembered, your dad already sold the house. You were ashamed when you realized that you missed your dad more than the rest. You cried mostly because he would never hug you or buy you ice cream and toffees.  You cried because you wanted him back but nothing could bring him back to you.

When you started begging, you felt disgraced so you stayed in one place and muttered sweet nothings to yourself. People looked at you strangely as if they thought you were mad but others reached into their purses to give you some money. You made only five hundred naira that day.

The second day, you were determined to make more so you ran after people and prayed for them and told them that you had not eaten for some days. Some shrugged you off and cursed you, while some others smiled and squeezed dirty naira notes into your hands.  These people even went as far as to ask you were your parents were. You told them that they were dead and you found yourself despising the pity that would cloud their eyes immediately you uttered those words so you stopped telling people but this made business bad for you because they just assumed you had run away from home.