Noorur-rahman

Some Hurtful Memories

"Few month after we left Zaria, I learnt that Yakubu was into human trafficking." My eyes almost fell from its sockets due to shock. What's that? "Subhanallah!" Abbah's wife mumbles looking death shock at my aunt who only smiled. It looks like she have told a lot of that story. She seemed unaffected.

Or maybe she's just strong and bravery is her motto.

"I got a lot of that look," she chuckles in between her sentence, as if it's something minor.  "But I'm a human right activist in South Africa. I have a foundation there for women and children that suffered domestic violence, so this is one of my motivational stories to the women, it became boring at some point." She added, she's still smiling broadly as if she didn't just said her ex-husband was a human trafficker. Who smile after saying something like that?

"How did you learnt about that?" Abbah's wife eagerly asked, the horror was still there, I can see how her eyes are dancing with fear of the unknown. We're currently in the kitchen making dinner, more like two of them making dinner while I hang up around my aunt. And that kind of story is not what I needed!

"He's negotiating my price that's how I learnt about it!" Auntie Rabi'a replied carelessly still marinating the salad.

"What?!" We exclaimed at once, which startled her. So much so that  the wooden spoon she was using to mix the salad slipped from her hand and fall on the floor.  "Wow, you frightened me with that!" She said holding her chest. "I easily get startle."

"This is very serious, Rabi'a. I can't even begin to imagine it." Aunty Jamila went on expressing how bad that was.  And all of a sudden, the kitchen becomes too small and suffocating for me. "Oh dear, I don't what I will have done in that case."

"Yes, tell me about that. I didn't liked him before the marriage, but I never thought of him to be a despicable human. Its turned out that his occupation was marriage, he'll marry young girls and then sold them afterwards. And I wasn't any lucky, he sold me to a merchant in Kenya. I was young and It's hell, my pretty face didn't help at all. I had no choice but cursed my luck for being a girl. I was forced to live a life I have no idea how. And being stubborn had been like dead sentence in that place. I first had to die to reclaim myself again."

My stomach tightened!  I try to focus, yet in vein. I feel like my gut is building in my throat at the idea of what my aunt went through, she's obviously sugarcoating the story, making it sound less dreadful and pitiful. It's sad that she went through that alone. Briskly, I closed my eyes to calm my nerves, the story is really very triggering, some well kept memories of mine flashes in my mind,  making pretty much anxious. I feel beads of sweat forming underneath my hair, then it replay once more.

Sold! I quickly go through my mind dictionary and redefine sales in my own terms, yet the definition from what I have always known didn't change in anyway. Transfer of properties, goods or services  from one party to another.

That's slavery! Was she married only to be sold as if she were some property? My aunt is no property, goods or any service! Ya Allah this is very cruel! As my mind went berserk with several awful thought, my aunt continue talking without the care of the world. I couldn't take it anymore, how can I continue listening to that went I can fit in that shoe? I shouldn't,  so I hurriedly left the kitchen. Before I completely leave the kitchen area I heard her calling out to me. I couldn't just stand there and I pretend she wasn't hurt or it was just another sad story that leads to triumph. No, triumph shouldn't be achieve in that manner.

"Hey, why did you rushed out like that? Was I too sorrowful." Aunt Rabia asked with a straight face, though seeing my distraught one, she quickly smiled and sat next to me on the two seater sofa in my room.  Yeah, she followed me!