Lydia's pain

Lydia's pain Episode 7

"Good... good afternoon ma" I greeted on bended knees and she nodded her head, scanning me from head to toe.
"Please ma, I...need...food" I added, also demonstrating with my hand into my mouth.

She looked at me from head to toe again, I knew she was wondering why a little girl like me could be looking so dirty and tired, maybe even smelly.

"How much own o?" She asked with eyes still glued to me.

"I don't have money ma. Please help me ma, I haven't eaten for four days now" I said almost in tears.

"And you're still alive? Abeg leave that story and tell me another one, I'm tired of hearing that same story from people. Anyways if you want to eat, you must work for me. My food is not free" She said looking away.

"Please ma, I'm so weak and don't have strength. Let me eat first, I will work for you after eating" I said as the tears gathered in my eyes began to drop freely on it's own.

"Noo, wash all these plates first then you eat" She said pointing at the piled up plates in a black basin behind her.

By Blessing-Enejo Abrahams Elleywrites.

I was still going to beg her when a woman who was carrying this small flask came to buy food from her, holding her little son in school uniform with the other hand and just wouldn't stop staring at me. I tried avoiding her eye contact but she just wouldn't stop. The woman selling food had to yell at her to take her food after calling on her severally.

"What are you staring at? Do you know the girl from anywhere?" She quizzed handing her the flask.

"Noo, just wondering the kind of person who did this to her. He must be an an!mal" 

"Did what to her?" The woman selling food probed, covering her big flask of food but her attention was on the other woman.

"She's pregnant now" She spilled, and my heart splitted into two as soon as I heard her.

"It's a lie!" The woman selling food exclaimed with mouth agape.
"How manage? As small as you are you've started doing the do? Children of nowadays" She said with folded arms.

I bowed my head in sh@me as the people who sat there eating started to stare with their spoons and hands suspended in the air.

"You mean she's pregnant like this?" One of them asked.

"Unbelievable!!! " Another said in exclamation.

"Are you truly pregnant?" The woman selling food quizzed, and I nodded my head. As soon as I nodded everyone there screamed in awe with dropped jaws.

"Please eh, leave here and go front, I no longer need your services. In fact, food is finished" The woman selling food said.

"Madam please give her food, she might be truly hungry, I'll pay" A man said from behind but she shook her head.

I stood there watching as those people there started talking to each other in whispers and my legs became too heavy to lift. I managed to lift them after several attempts, and I walked out of there crying and in sh@me.

I walked for another 10 minutes and when I couldn't proceed anymore cos I felt too weak to do so, I spotted a big restaurant and I decided to go in there and also try my luck maybe I would get food, but paused when I got to the entrance door, contemplating wether to go in or not when a waitress suddenly stepped out, telling me that her Madam asked me to come in and eat.

I looked left and right to be sure it was me she meant.

"Me?" I asked with a hand on my chest and she nodded, opening the door ajarWell, I didn't see the Madam but I ate to my fill. Till date I still don't know how God did it, and how manage the owner of the restaurant knew me to the extent of giving me food. How did she know I was starving?

When it was time for me to leave, the owner of the restaurant whispered from another room suspected to be her office, asking them to package food for me, and I was also given 20,000 Naira. My hands were trembling when I was collecting it that I immediately fell on my knees in tears. I asked them to allow me go into her office to thank her but they refused, and I left with the packaged food and money wondering if I was dreaming or not.

I walked for another few minutes constantly checking the money in my hand, and I decided to go into an uncompleted storey building by the road to rest.

I was in the building till the next morning after sleeping on the floor, and I left there to the restaurant maybe I would come across the owner this time so I could show my gratitude, and to also beg her if I could work there but on getting there to my surprise, the place was empty. I had to ask a bike guy by the road to know if the restaurant doesn't open on that particular day, and he told me that the place had been empty for close to a year, and that nobody was selling there...