Zarah - infinite dreams

Chapter One

#Unedited#

This chapter is dedicated to @JohnExcel56 For being the first person to vote on this book.

You glow differently when you are not hurting, miserable, or messy

-Unknown

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ʐaʀaɦ aɖaʋɨʐɛ

Adavize Ruth, Zarah's mother, leaned against her wooden door. Her dark brown eyes, dull and lifeless, staring into nothingness, did notice her elder daughter, Zarah, walking into the compound.

It was a typical Nigerian "face-me-I-face-you" compound consisting of twelve painfully small rooms built so close together that there was hardly any room for the thirty-nine people and livestock it housed.

Amid angry mothers, squalling kids, rowdy teenagers huddled up in different groups, chattering at an annoying pitch, the bleating of goats and sheep, and the cackling of chickens, Zarah's mom looked like a soul drowning in torpor.

Save for the clanking of plates by her five-year-old son beside her and the desperate scramble of her younger daughter's tiny hand to find something to satisfy her hunger in her mother's bosom her world was one drowned in absolute listlessness.

As Zarah neared her mother, she observed her with a sad smile. Her mother looked much older than her age, having thinned considerably over the years. Tiny facial wrinkles had started forming around her eyes, her once thick black hair now flecked with grey, and her bony hand loosely clutched her eight-month-old daughter. She barely resembled the young and pretty person she had once been.

"Mother," Zarah called softly, clutching the brown envelope she held in her hands to her chest.

"Hmm?" Her mother hummed in reply, she cast a glazed look on her daughter's face. It took her a few moments for her brain to register who it was.

Her previous tepid disposition dissolved into that of a tender and loving mother.

"Oh, Zarah! You have come?" She asked weakly, her voice inert and hollow.

"Yes, Ma."

"Okay, go inside and rest. There's food on the table for you."

"Okay, Ma." Zarah decided to keep her good news to herself for the moment. She padded toward the door but paused and winced when she noticed the ear-splitting sound her seven-year-old brother, Joseph, was so engrossed in creating. She snatched the plates from his hands and dashed into their one-bedroom apartment, ignoring his loud cries of protest.

The stifling air hit her as soon as she entered the dimly lit room. Using her left hand to fan herself, she walked over to the window and raised the old, worn-out curtain covering it, pegging it with one hand while the other hand still clutched the envelope and plate firmly. The only source of light in the tightly packed room was the rays of sunshine that peeked through the window and the translucent curtains.

She placed the envelope and the plate gently on the only table they had in the room and proceeded to take off the blue cotton shirt she was wearing. It was already dampened with perspiration and clung to her body tightly. She threw it on a heap of clothes beside the bed, leaving her with just a white undershirt and faded blue jean shorts.

Taking the food from the table, she slumped into the plastic chair beside the bed, exhaling loudly. She removed the steel plate serving as a cover for the food. It was Jollof rice prepared with palm oil.

"Joseph!" She yelled.

No response.

"Joseph, oh!" She called again, but her voice was drowned in the chaos and loud chattering noise in the compound. She realized there was no way her younger brother could have heard her.