I Know My Mother👩🏽(IKMM)✅

Crowd

"Sweetheart, please wake up. I have something for you."
'SwEETheARt!"

The woman smiled at her with a mouth full of large, broad teeth.

She was going to die.

"No! Stop! It hurts! Help me!! Get away from me! Jesus!!! HELP ME!! JESUSS!!!"

Nneka shot up from her sleeping mat. Her arms and legs itched from mosquito bites. As she scratched the soft itchy bumps, she thought about the dream she just had. her body was covered with a thin layer of sweat. Maybe one of her village people decided to target her last night. A strange woman clothed in a black robe was painting her face with a strange sticky red liquid. The liquid burned her skin like an acid eats up the flesh. She couldn't move her limbs. The woman's face seemed familiar, but she couldn't recognize it because of the strange white markings drawn on her face. They made her beautiful face look demonic. It was a terrible experience, but the important thing was that she was awake and she was alive.

She surveyed her room carefully.  It was a relief to find that everything looked the same as she left it before she slept. Her long fingers swiftly and harshly pinched her thigh. Her grandmother told her that if she pinched her thigh and felt pain, she would know that she was not in a dream. She was always right. The soft rays of sunlight peeping through the window reminded her that she needed to begin selling drinks this morning. She could see the faint skyscrapers standing proudly behind her neighbors' old concrete and zinc roofed buildings. Sometimes she fantasized about living there, instead of the filthy, unsanitary shelters she currently lived in, She inhaled fresh air mixed with the pungent smell of car fumes and the aroma of roasted corn. She peered at the scene a bit longer. The bridge which was towering over a small river supported a scanty line of cars creeping on its road. Her heart dropped.

"Oh Lord, help me. It's going to be a slow day. Let me get ready, sef."

Her throat was a bit sore from shouting to attract customers in traffic all week long. If you were quiet, you were ignored. Shouting was the best way to attract attention to your wares in the midst of honking horns and humming engines. She stood up groggily and donned a dull, tattered mint dress and dirty, scruffy pastel pink plastic shoes. Her lips were dry so she dabbed some red lipstick and Vaseline on her lips. Her turquoise plastic stud earrings were secured in her ears. Whenever she wore lipstick, she noticed she had more male customers patronizing her. Her long, rough kinky hair was held up in a sort of fluffy ponytail with a thin yellow rubber band. She hadn't had any new clothing in two months because the economic recession made clothes too costly for her to afford. There was no time to bathe. She got out her blue plastic basket and red head scarf. As she walked out the back door she glanced at her grandmother, who was wrapping small portions of moi-moi, steamed bean cakes, into small transparent plastic bags.

Hawking was not only their lifestyle, it was the only way they could survive.

She had just finished her morning prayer when her grandmother walked in. She was using her walking stick again. Tears welled up in her eyes. Ever since they moved house, her grandmother had been working herself quite literally to her death to support them both. Her originally plump cheeks had sunken. Her hair, which had been full, luscious and thick was now reduced to limp strings of grey hanging on deadly to her scalp. Her eyes had developed very dark circles that made her already brown skin look more tired. Folds of skin sagged from under her arms and over her loosely tied Ankara wrapper. "Nna, take this bread, and eat it well." Nneka unwrapped the nylon bag and stared at the squeezed bread in her hands. Some of the bread was already eaten, and it had finger marks to prove it. "Mama, at least you have eaten. Today will be very long, and you need energy." She felt relieved and happy. She swatted off a fly on the edge of the bread and swallowed it quickly. It tasted dry and she could taste exhaust fumes. She still ate the bread.