Ray Anyasi's Blog

I must be the reason the world rotates and revolves. I must be why they say everything that goes around comes around. I say this because my life has decided to be religiously Karma compliant. Every damn thing I have ever done wrong has come back to haunt me. Every mistake, every misjudgment, every mischief, every misconduct, every single thing with the exception of nothing; they’d all sailed unforgivably into my future to wait for me.

Usually, they would hit me hard like a boomerang then leave me to my regrets, but this one will never go away.

I joined the Biafran army in mid 1968 when the Nigerian civil war was at its deadliest. My son, Theophilus had just been born a few months back. It pained me to have to leave him and his mother behind in my village, but that was what all the men were doing those days.

When the war ended, I moved back to Benin with my family and managed to get our lives working again. Theo grew up and was ready for college; I was able to raise adequate funds to send him to the UK. When he finished school and became a man, he got a good job and sent me money often. He made me a happy man again.

Five years ago, Theo got married to a French girl, Christine. At first, I had a problem with my first son getting married to a foreigner, but he assured me it will not in any way detach him from his roots. I only got to meet Christine six days ago when he eventually brought her to visit me in Orlu, the south-eastern Nigerian town where I live.

Christine turned out to be an incredibly loveable decent lady. Everything about our culture fascinated her. She likes to listen to me tell stories, any kind of story. She would take a little stool and sit by the side of my easy chair. That is how I know she’s set to listen to my stories about my forefathers and their lifestyle. Those moments fill our evenings. Sometimes, it would take Theo to urge her to bed so papa can rest too.

On this particular evening, I decided I had talked too much about myself. On the other hand, Christine had told me very little about herself. I thought it would be interesting if I let her talk about her parents and childhood.

‘My mother lives in the small town of Le Peyrou, south of central Aurillac,’ she said.

I was nodding like I knew where that was, ‘Hmm, Aurillac,’ I repeated to myself.

‘You know there?’

‘It’s in France, right?’

‘About 150 miles east of Bordeaux,’ she added.

Now it was no more interesting, I stopped nodding.

‘She likes Theo,’ she said.

‘My boy likeable to all,’ I said proudly, ‘where did you grow up?’

‘In Fargues-Saint-Hilaire near Bordeaux, with my mother. She worked as a hotel maid for a long time before she remarried and relocated and I moved to London.’

‘You talk so little about your father,’ I said, curious.

‘Because I know so little about him.’

‘What happened?’

‘He left my mother three months before I was born. My mother said he was a good man and loved her so much, but I do not see anything good in what he did to his wife and his unborn child.’

‘He just packed his things and left the house and that was it?’ I thought it was so gross but did not say it. Maybe she could read that from my countenance.

‘Practically. Yes, he just left us.’

‘Have you seen him since you were born?’

‘He never returned to us or to anyone who knew him. My mother waited for twelve years, hoping he will come back to her,’ she shook her head and slightly bowed it, perhaps to hide her dewy eyes from me, ‘he hurt her so bad.’

‘I am so sorry about what he did to you, it sounds exceedingly hideous.’

‘The annoying thing is, she keeps making excuses for him. She said they were so in love it would be hard to believe he would leave her that way. Up to last year when I last saw my mother, she still kept a locket he gave her. His picture in it and on the back, they engraved the words, NICHOLAS EN ROSSAINE, TOUJOURS. He had a replica with her picture, according to her.’

‘Nicholas en Rossaine…’ I muttered to myself and allowed my voice trail off. ‘Is that his name? Nicholas?’

‘Yes, my mother is Rassaine.’

That was the point things began to get really curious, ‘What did your father do in those days for a living?’

‘He worked in a manufacturing plant in Bordeaux, but was just fired before he left. My mother said things were going terribly bad for him. He was broke. Nothing seemed to be working for him. Before he started the job at the plant, he was a captain in the army. He was expelled for what he thought was a minor offence.’

‘He must have been frustrated.’

‘There are no excuses for what he did.’

‘Did he say where he was going to when he left?’

‘He was not specific, he wanted to join the army again, but they won’t take him back. He said to my mother he was going to join the army of another country, but she did not want him to be a soldier anymore. They were expecting a baby for God’s sake. He had insisted that being a soldier was all he knew best to be. It became a long-standing argument between them. Then one morning, my mother woke up and instead of her man beside her, all she saw was a note. He was gone to a foreign land and left nothing but a promise to return soon with enough money to restart their lives together.’

‘Maybe he does not deserve as much blame as we put on him,’ I said, staring blankly into the increasingly blackening sky.

‘My mother said he was a good man. I don’t know what to believe. Why can’t a man stay back at least to meet his first child? Why can’t he stay with his wife through whatever circumstance? Why then do they say it’s for better and for worse?’

Her voice was faltering. I had no answer for her, all I had was a fear that had become all too familiar, yet unaccustomed to. It was that scary feeling that yet another element of my atrocious past was storming right back to me with its torturous nemesis.

‘Did your mother tell you what he looked like?’

She stood up and went inside the house. She returned shortly with a monochrome photograph of him and handed it to me. I recognized the flaming blue eyes. I remember the ruddy hair, the firm jaws under a tanned chiseled face. I remember everything. Frame by frame, all the events of 30 years ago rushed back to me like it was yesterday.

‘Nicholas the red gorilla,’ I said slowly and thoughtfully.

That was what we called him. He was one of the troops of French mercenary soldiers that came to fight for the Biafran army. After they helped push back federal troops in the first Onitsha battle, Nicholas the red gorilla was asked to command our battalion. He was mean in training; he made us do the toughest routine than any other battalion. It goes without saying; Nicholas had no fans in the battalion.

I guess the only reason people took a second look at Nicholas was that he always wore a locket with the picture of a charming lady with a sultry smile.

Before Nicholas came, we smoked marijuana freely. That was the first activity he outlawed the moment he took charge. If any soldier was caught smoking marijuana, the punishment was severe. It included being wiped forty strokes and forfeiting food for an entire day. There was also the risk of demotion in military rank.

We found a way around it. We smoked in a hideout in the forest where only a few of us knew. One evening we were there, me and two others. It was supposed to be just like every other day; little did we know that stories of our joint had leaked to Nicholas the red gorilla.

Each man was on his second wrap when I looked up, and who I saw standing only eight feet before us was the devil himself. He had a hellish sneer on his face, there was no forgiveness for us, that was assured.

What happened next happened so fast. I swear we did not pre-plan to do what we did next.

Just like Nicholas thought us in training, I and the soldier on my right picked up our rifles and fired simultaneously at him. Point blank hit.

It played out as if we had it all planned, like we had rehearsed it before.

What I would never forget was the shock in his eyes.

He did not fall immediately, he staggered and leaned on a tree trunk.

The shooting was brief. I dropped my rifle and ran towards him. I was not thinking clearly for sure. I wanted to hold him close, like I was thinking I had healing powers.

One of my partners pulled me back, ‘What are you doing?’

‘I thin…I, we should help him.’

‘Do not allow his blood to stain you,’ he said coldly, ‘and we have to get out of here quickly.’

They ran away immediately. I stood there staring at the man, now dead on the ground. He held his locket tightly.

It was as if I was half crazy, half stupid. I bent over and took the locket from him. I turned the back and saw the words. NICHOLAS EN ROSSAINE, TOUJOURS.

How can I tell this tale to Christine? My guilt is forever.

I often ask myself if there is ever a measure of desperation that can justifiably lead a man to become the devil’s dirty-job man. The answer I get each time depends on my mood at that time. Well, that is me finding excuse for all the wrongs I have done to half of humanity. Did I just say half? I guess I am just insufferably pathetic.

My name is Mallick Chapra; I grew up in Tehata in the north eastern region of West Bengal state in India.

When I was growing up, I was inundated with what people in my village were saying about me being such a phenomenally bright kid. It somehow got into my head. I was always thinking people expect much more from me than from the other kids.

As I grew up, I attended the University of Delhi. It is one of the most notable tertiary institutions in India; it means it is one of the most expensive to be in. How did a village boy whose father is only a peasant farmer get to afford such an expensive school without a scholarship grant? People often ask. I say it is part of the purposefully orchestrated elements of the complication of my situation.

You see, I am the only son among six sisters. If you know anything about India, especially my region, you would know what an issue that is for a parent. It means six dowries to pay and at least one University degree to fund.

My father was a little old shrewdie –or so he thought. He made himself this clever plan to meet all his responsibilities with the least sweat.

‘It will be killing seven stones with one bird,’ he said while beaming at us that early morning he woke us to announce it. I did not bother to correct his expression; you wouldn’t want to dampen his mood that morning if you were there too.

To be fair to him, his plan sounded a bit smart at that time. He would sell all his farmlands with the exception of one, the smallest of them all. The money he would realize would be enough to send me to the most prestigious Universities in India to study the most prestigious profession in the world. That would make a good-paying job as certain for me as night follows day.

When I then begin to earn super big, I would easily fund the dowries of my six sisters. After that, I would help him set up a petty business that can continue to put food on his table because he might be too old to farm by then. He said with this plan well executed, he can die a satisfied man with six daughters successfully married to decent men and a son who lives the big life…AWESOME!

My father was dead serious about this plan; he stayed committed and played his role true to the letter. He was lucky to find wealthy buyers for his farmlands, two of them. One was a pharmaceutical company, the other an estate developer. After he had put aside plenty funds for my University degree, he had something left to upgrade our house from a thatched roof to zinc.

My role was to go to school and come out with good grades. In that aspect I did not disappoint. I came out with the second best grade in my class. On my graduation day, my father cleared out all his savings to throw a party. That was not to be considered reckless by him; his son was going to be snapped up by a big internationally known health institution very soon.

Graduating with good grades was not an end; it was only a means to the end we desired. It seemed that fact managed to escape every other person’s mind that evening at the party. Though I stayed positive about reaching that goal, I did not pack my suitcase and run off to that la-la land with my father. I knew there would be intimidating job interviews to sit through. I knew there would be weeks or maybe months of finger drumming, waiting for that call from a prospective employer.

It started out just that way. The first three job interviews I went for jolted me with a disturbing reality. I was not as bright as I thought I was or there were just too many geniuses out there who compared better. I never made the final cut no matter how much I impressed myself in the interview.

I told that to my father, but it was not enough to put him on the road back from his dreamland.

‘Keep trying, Mallick my son, keep trying.’ He said. ‘Every hospital that has rejected you would soon come running after you when they wake up from their sleep and realize what a treasure they have allowed go. The sad news for them will be that by that time you would be somewhere else earning twice what they can ever offer.’

How in the world could he say that with such certainty?

I travelled back to Bangalore and kept trying, this time with more vigor. The 24th interview I went for was the one that made me most crazy. A new hospital built by a Silicon Valley firm to cater for the healthcare needs of its expatriates and other IT execs in Bangalore were hiring. They needed only three freshly graduated local surgeons with good IQs and abilities to learn fast. I thought, Booom! That is sure another way I can be described.

I applied instantly. I was invited to the interview sessions. We were up to three thousand that showed up. We were first put through a written IQ test. I easily flew through that and got into the shortlisted 400 who would take part in another written interview. This time, we were tested on a variety of subjects from clinical knowledge to bed side manners. They asked how you could tell a mother that you just mistakenly slit her son’s aorta in a surgery. I simply answered I would do my best not to mistakenly slit her son’s aorta in the first place.

I scaled through this huddle, alongside 49 others. We were arguably the 50 most brilliant Indians without a job. Only three would find one at the end of the day. I began to have a good feeling I would be in that number. It was my lucky day finally; the pay was good, working conditions were only next to heaven. I felt free to take a sweet jolly stroll down that cool breezy lane leading to my father’s dreamland. I could become all he dreamt I could be after all.

The next process of the interview was to put 50 of us remaining through a one-on-one oral test with the chief surgeon. He was a British-Indian with grey over-grown beards and bald scalp. He called each person by number from a list with a loud voice that sank the heart of whoever he called.

We crowded the lobby to his office in wait for our turns. After questioning, a candidate would leave through a different door that led to a larger waiting room. This was to ensure that those at the lobby do not begin to ask what the questions were.

I heard his loud baritone call my number, ‘Number 31.’

I hurried into his office, feeling lucky and a bit more confident than every other person. He fixed a stern look at me, sitting behind his large mahogany desk.

‘Good day, sir,’ I said with a forced smile.

He gestured at the seat opposite him. I sat.

‘Chapra Mallick,’ he called while adjusting his glass frame and looking at the sheet of paper he held.

‘Yes, sir.’

He raised his head to take a thorough look at my face. I forced another smile. It was not working for me.

He pointed his left hand at the door, the door I came in through. ‘Leave,’ he said with a deep voice I barely heard.

‘Sorry?’

‘I ask that you leave my office, gentleman.’

I did not get whatever joke was going on, I must be missing something. ‘But…bu..but…’

‘Thanks for honoring our invitation, but we can’t hire you, sir. I wish you only the best in your search for employment somewhere else.’

Somewhere else? Is this old man kidding me?

I searched his face for a sign he might be joking. No, I was not being punked. He meant what he was saying.

He raised his voice, louder than he ever did. ‘Number 32.’

I noticed my legs were heavy now, my stomach began to cramp. I needed air badly; his office now seemed too small. I managed to stand up and faced the other door.

‘No,’ he said huskily, ‘leave through the same door you came in.’

Why not? I was not asked a single question. I was feeling like an idiot.

Number 32 came in. the sultry lady I was eyeing all day. This time my head was bowed as I found my way through the door.

At the lobby, the candidates left to be interviewed began to ask me, ‘What did he ask you?’ all eighteen of them were asking the same goddamned question.

There was supposed to be a question for Buddha’s sake. How can I be rejected by a man who only saw my name and face? Am I being followed by an evil spirit?

I looked at them who questioned me. They waited earnestly for my response. Instead of an answer, I broke down and began to cry. I wept shamelessly.

After that sleepless night came a bright morning. I got a call from a hospital manager. He saw my CV on the internet and wanted us to meet. I went to see him in his office that day.

The pay was amazing, $75K per annum. It meant in only two years, I could put down money for six dowries and in the third, set up a business for my father. Our dreamland was now at its least fantastic, but it came with a price. To be able to earn all that money, I had to agree to go ethically bankrupt.

Millal clinic was where parents who want to selectively abort female fetuses go to. That was exactly my job description. The first patient I had was a couple who already had a son.

What my stupid corrupt mind told me that time was, look at the good side, you are saving this little boy from the future pressure of struggling to fund a dowry if his parents cannot afford it. Save the little boy from the miserable life you had.

I did 31 more before I came back to my senses and resigned. Every time I see a woman, especially the ones who have become of immense value to society, a part of me dies. I never stop wondering if I had killed the next generation’s Indira Gandhi.

I finally found the shame to tell this story. My father named me Jorge-Hernandez Castrella Gonzalez after a Cuban boxer he met the year I was born, but I grew up to become a sorry coward. I live in a little town near Ossa, near the Peru border region of northern Chile. Ossa use to be a gentle town blessed with a beautiful scenery and families that have perfected the art of minding their business. Everyone lived relatively happily till mid 2011 when young boys and girls began to disappear.

At the beginning, it was at a rate of a person or two in a month. Each case was duly reported to the police, but we were all aware of how ineffective police could be around here. They would do a flimsy nosing around on each case then put the victim on the eternal missing persons list. When we suspected the occurrences weren’t just cheap coincidence, we called for and organized a more elaborate community security routine, it did not help either.

Things got out of hand in May 2012. Two people each were missing in the first three weeks and on the Thursday of the fourth, seven girls were declared missing. In that last number was Senorita Selena Reyes.

I will be 27 in a few weeks and I have been dating Selena almost my entire adulthood. The last time we saw each other, we were having a petty argument over when to begin to live together. She was very traditional; she insisted we would have a wedding at the chapel conducted by Father Xavier Augustine before all our folks. What do I care about ceremonies? All I wanted was her waking up every morning under my roof. As always, she won the argument, she then rode a bus to her father’s house, except, she did not get to her father’s house.

The next morning was crazy. I went with her parents to the police. I answered all the questions they had for me and did all I could to assist them do their job. That period, I was a mad man. I would wander the streets night and day with the innocent hopefulness of a five year old.

Three days into the search, the police still had no clue what might have happened to her and the other six girls. Selena’s parents were devastated. I was going mad. I still traced the route from my house to her parent’s house every five hours or so.

One evening, the fourth evening after her disappearance, I was walking by the market. I was lost in my thoughts and paid little attention to all that went on around me. I was rightly on the sidewalk made for walkers and moving slowly, so I cared less about motorists, but this one, he kept honking loudly after me. It did that for long before I noticed it. It was a Ford minivan. I flung a pedestrian glance at it then walked on. The Ford kept crawling right by me and honking continuously. It did that so annoyingly that others by the roadside began to yell swears at the driver.

It was then I decided to ask the driver what his problem was. I lowered my head a little to look through the window.

Ahh, a very familiar face.

A face I would never forget, Martinez Calderon. We went to school together and he once dated my cousin, Maria. That was however not the reason I would never forget his face. Martinez bullied the crap out of me, that’s the reason why I would never forget his face.

This time, he was beaming a generous smile at me.

‘Jorge-Hernandez mi amigo, come in now.’

‘It has been ages,’ I said the moment I sat on the passenger seat beside him. He wore Khaki brown pants and an off-white tank top; he also wore cheap metal-rimmed sunshades. Apart from the heavy beards he’d now grown, he had not changed much from the last time I saw him eight years ago in Santiago.

‘Si, mi amigo.’

‘Como esta?’

‘I’m fine. Where are you headed?’

I shrugged, ‘I have no distinct destination, just having a walk.’

‘Hmm, interesting.’

‘I heard you are based now in Albuquerque.’

‘Yes, but I’ve been in town for the past couple of months. I have a business to take care of. What about you? What do you do?’

‘I am very much in town. I run an electrical workshop.’

‘Electrical workshop? Like you fix electrical stuff?’

‘Yes, why do you look surprised?’

‘No, no, no, I am not surprised. Maybe a bit happy. I have been driving around all day looking for someone to fix a broken generator for me.’

‘Ridiculous, there are hundreds of us in this town.’

‘Not just anyone. I need someone I can trust. It is, uhmm…it is, like a secret work. I want…’

‘Secret work?’

‘Classified. I know I can count on you.’

He drove me straight to this compound and I did not ask much question as we travelled on the way. I was only curious to see how secret or classified repairing a generator could be outside the Pentagon.

He pulled up beside a brick fence and we stepped out the vehicle without wasting time. He opened a wooden gate and let me in. It was an old brownstone reputed to have been built by President Jose Manuel Balmaceda himself. To the best of my knowledge, it was last occupied by an aged Araucanian couple eleven years ago.

‘Does anyone live here?’ I asked him and began to slow down my steps behind him.

‘Not exactly,’ he said, then he turned back to look at me, ‘I might not be in a mood to entertain too many questions, so it would be nice if you just stick to doing your job and leaving in peace.’ This tone he used reminded me more of the Martinez of years ago than the one who said almost every word through a broad smile in the car.

He showed me the generator under a zinc-roofed shelter, ‘Wait here,’ he said, ‘I will return shortly with tools.’

Without delay, he returned to hand me a dirty sack filled with tools. I went to work instantly. While I was working, I couldn’t stop wondering what made the work such a secret that just anyone can’t be trusted to do it and why Martinez thought I could be trusted to keep his secrets.

Clues to my answers were not too far away from me. I raised my eyes from the generator and saw a girl’s scarf, a multi-coloured silk scarf. I recognized it quickly even though it was heavily stained by grease and mud. Selena had it on her that evening she left my house.

Selena was right there in that building, I was sure. Droplets of sweat began to form on my forehead. I was trembling.

Martinez joined me again from the main building. ‘Any progress?’

I looked up at him, ‘Yes, yes,’ I had coupled back the generator and was getting ready to test it. I started it through the ignition key; a bulb glowed from the corridor. It worked, but not for long. We heard a loud cracking sound and saw a bright flash from a spark from inside the main building.

Martinez started running inside, ‘Turn off the refrigerators, turn them off quick.’ He was shouting as he ran, ‘if the surge damages them we’re finished.’

After ten minutes inside, he came out to meet me again, ‘There was a little burning in a circuit box inside. Can you fix it?’

‘I have to see it to know,’ I said and followed him.

The moment I stepped into the sitting room, two of six bulky men pulled out pistols and pointed them at me.

‘Who is this you got here?’ they were asking angrily and rapidly.

I threw up my hands and was about to dash out through the door, but Martinez pulled me back.

‘He is an old friend, a childhood pal. He is fixing the power source for us.’

I did not have the mind to look straight at their faces but I was sure from the way they spoke they were Mexicans and the dark men were Americans.

‘Man, you can’t go out the street and drag in anybody to this place. That is fucked up shit, men.’

‘I told you he is not just anybody. I can trust him. He will fix the power and be gone quickly,’ Martinez said calmly.

One of the black guys stood up and pointed his gun close to the back of my head, ‘Now get your ass to work, if you as much as look around, you’ve got to be sure I’m gonna blow some brains unto the damn wall right here.’

Though I worked with faltering hands, I was able to do a quick job. They got their power back and I couldn’t wait to be out. Martinez led me back to the gate. He gave me eight ten dollar bills. I did not say a word but turned quickly to leave through the gate. He forcefully grabbed my elbow to pull me back.

Then he whispered into my ears, ‘If you make the mistake of telling anyone whatever you saw here, I will kill you.’

All I saw was a scarf, but I had no doubt they had Selena and the other missing people. From that place, I can’t tell how I got back to my house. Till the morning, I couldn’t figure out my mind, I wasn’t saying anything, neither was I thinking. It was like I blanked out through the night from that moment I left the building.

It was at day break I began to think of running to the police, but just like always, I was scared, too scared to move an inch. I locked myself indoors all through the day. I knew where to get my Selena back, but too afraid to do a thing about it. It felt as if Martinez and his gang of heavies were stationed outside my door, waiting to see if I would step out to speak to anyone.

Very early the second morning, the news broke all over town. In that same compound, the police found fifteen bodies without internal organs. Selena’s was one of them. All the culprits were gone with the harvested organs.

Every day in this town, I think of those fifteen boys and girls. I see their faces when I see their parents and siblings. I know they will never forgive me for folding my arms in pusillanimity when they needed me to show a little pluck for the first time in my life. They were sorely unfortunate that the only man who had the chance to rescue them was the most pathetic chicken to ever walk the earth.

I go down this road a million times each day. I hate myself each time I go down this road. I shall now take you down this road.

Four years ago precisely, I saw a man in a forest near my village. His legs were killing him, they hurt badly. He had a deep machete cut right across the shin bone of one leg and on the other; the ankle seemed to be twisted. He was in too much pain he couldn’t even move his upper body. Added to that, the circumstance that got him into that state did not allow him room to scream for help. He just winced and winced more.

When he saw me approaching, he employed all else he had to plead for my assistance. He made pleading gestures of rubbing his palms together at me, he made deeply sympathy-drawing facial expressions and some mumbled words to win me. He begged me like I was the lord of his life.

I knew how to help him. I could carry him on my shoulders, though he was a hefty man. I could then take him to the village, to somewhere he can be taken proper care of. He could be handicapped forever, but he would live –he wanted to. That would have been the right thing to do…but I did not do it.

Over the years, I’ve made a pathetic defense of how I acted that day by saying stuff like, ‘Well, I’m only human,’ but when you look at it, even the vilest of humans would fault me.

My name is Reuben Nduma, I just turned 39 eleven days ago. It means I shall have decades of this one tormenting memory ahead. I live in the little village of Lujulu, 29 miles south of Yei in the southern region of South Sudan, somewhere near the DR Congo border.

In May 2001, I got married to Sarah, the daughter of the village’s school headmaster. Sarah was dangerously beautiful. By my standards, she was the most beautiful woman in the whole of Lujulu. Everyone thought she would marry one of the rich and better-looking men in town. She chose me instead, what she saw in me I always wonder.

Things started out well for us on our way to having the most enviable matrimonial union mankind ever saw. Our first year together was the most blissful of my life. In that year, we had our first daughter. Shortly after that, things drastically moved from a sweet romance to a bad, bad scary movie.

It all started with a shameful rumor. Men talked about it in drinking joints, women gossiped about it in markets. Young girls and boys jeer to it on their way to the stream. No one said it to my face until the day a friend decided to make me stop looking the fool. It was believed that Sarah was having an affair with Nduak Eboula.

Now, Eboula was the kind of man you do not want to start an argument with, let alone a fight. He was one of the most powerful men in my little village. He oppressed the weak and allied with the strong. Eboula was the face of impunity in my village. We feared him and will always for wisdom’s sake let him have his way, no matter how painful it is.

When I heard the rumor, what I thought was, if God forbids, it turns to be true, will I ever find a way to confront Eboula? What powers do I have to call into use to make him pay or even stop? There was none I could think of.

He had all the powers in his hands. If I decide to go physically, he was stronger. He could drag me to the village square and literally beat ego out of every DNA in me. What if I choose to take the case to the village’s elders meeting? Eboula was so influential he could make everyone of them publicly confess the sky was dusty brown and the earth blue.

There was no way I would stop him. I only began to hope the rumor was false. To a large extent, I trusted Sarah, so it had to be false. I was wrong. A few days later, she was caught in bed with him.

Our family shame was made public. Sarah was booed everywhere she went. I was pitied by the men for being the unfortunate husband of the woman Eboula fancied. They advised me to have a divorce or he would kill me. It costs nothing, I only had to go before the shrine of our ancestors and declare that Sarah has brought shame to me and my kinsmen and so would cease to be my wife. It would be stamped by the gods, ancestors and the living of Lujulu.

I seriously contemplated that path, but Sarah begged. She said what she did was completely out of her will. She claimed he threatened her in many ways if she refused. How can I begin to see her as a victim here? It was hard. I did not know what to believe, but I knew Sarah was still worth the world to me. I forgave her and we began the thorny process called moving on.

It was not easy for me. Every day, every night, as long Sarah’s voice was there to be heard and her face to be seen, I remember the hurt I felt. I remember how she betrayed me. I imagined her in his arms, on his bed…those thoughts, those pictures formed by my imaginations of them together, they kill me slowly. Yet, Eboula, the terror to the weak and friend to the strong, walked the streets like nothing ever happened.

We did our best to continue to live as one family till early 2008. Those scarily recognizable signs began to reappear in Sarah. Those same things she used to do when she was having that affair with Eboula, she began to do them again. A walk to the stream or a trip to the market began once again to take two hours more than usual. Also, they must now be done after dusk.

The few times I tried talking to her on these observations, she said I was being unnecessarily over protective and childishly over possessive. She said she was trying to have a good time with friends all the evenings she stayed out late. I might not have had a proof in black and white, but my gut told me there was no other friend outside Eboula and the good times she talked about were spent on his bed.

This time, I had made up my mind that if my suspicion was by any means confirmed, there was no amount of begging that would keep her a minute longer in my house. I would head straight to the shrine of my ancestors and make those fateful declarations once and for all.

The last months of that year were when the LRA was wrecking havoc in our region with reckless abandon. They had raided several villages around, so we knew that Lujulu was pushing up on their target list. How soon? We did not know, but we knew that day would be just as nasty as the other villages had it.

It is often said by the elders in Lujulu that a scheduled war does not consume the wise. With the help of a friend, I moved my daughters to Darfur. The one we had in 2001 and the second, who bears a heart-wrenching resemblance to Eboula’s eldest daughter. I was certain Joseph Kony cannot touch them there. I was also making plans for I and Sarah to move, but before I could put that plan to work, that bloody day came.

It was in the early hours of the day, the 18th of Nov. 2008. I still had a little sleep to sweep out my head. Sarah had stopped sharing our bed with me, so she slept in the other room.

First, I heard distant screams, then close ones.

I jumped out of my bed. Then I heard a few gunshots nearby. The screams on the background never stopped. There was then a loud noise inside my house like the door in the room Sarah slept was forced down.

I heard her scream.

A very short scream.

That was all I heard from her. I was a little slow in deciding whether to run away or to go help her. We knew how the LRA operated. They kill the men and abduct the women and children. If they had guns and machetes, there was absolutely nothing I could do to help her.

I decided to run. I escaped through the window. Two or more LRA fighters quickly went after me. I took the road to the stream, an area I was sure I knew so well. That was the reason I was able to lose my chasers.

It was in the middle of that forest while I was escaping that I saw that wounded man. I took a closer look. Of all the people in Lujulu, it was my greatest enemy. Mr. Impunity-is-my-style Eboula. He desperately needed my help. We could hear the sound of the approaching LRA fighters. They were quite a distance away. I could lift him and take him back to the village without being seen by the fighters.

I began to think, does this dirty man deserve my help? Does he deserve to live? What angered me the most was the way he was asking for my help as if he had no idea how he tortured me daily.

On the floor nearby, I saw a machete. I picked it up. I could just slit the cat’s throat and be done with it. Then again I thought, does he deserve a quick death?

No. I dropped the machete. The LRA men were nearer now. I would allow them finished the job as they wish.

I turned my back on him.

He began to cry, calling my name. I listened to hear him say he was sorry for what he did to me. He did not say it. I hid and watched the LRA men kill him in the most horrible way imaginable. I then walked away telling myself he deserved his fate.

Today, Lujulu has been resettled. Eboula’s children have returned from the refugee camp they were moved to. My children are back from Darfur and Sarah did not return alive from Kony’s abduction.

I go down this road every time I see the faces of Eboula’s children and wife and that of my second girl.

I am constantly reminded of the day the gods handed me a rare chance to be transcended into their higher realm. A chance to act like divinity, a chance to forgive in an extraordinary fashion, a chance I blew.

Love at first sight was bullshit till I saw Sarah. Her skin was smooth, dark and shiny like the skin of a Moroto cobra in rainy season. She flashed a bright gorgeous smile –not at me, at the driver of the bus we rode to work. Quickly, my mind captured that smile and stashed the picture away somewhere in my brain where it is untouchable. Simply put, her smile was only a tiny fraction of her entire beauty, yet, only the most blessed and purest of men deserved to be seeing such smile every day.

I said a hearty good morning to her and she blessed me with that smile, it was proof enough that God loves me. That was how we became friends. Every day from that day onwards, we took not only the same route, but same bus to work. We will often sit next to each other and have a good cheerful conversation all through the ride. She constantly reminded me of that girl in that Bryan Adam’s song, Eastside Story except that in my case, I gave her my name and number and got hers.

Soon after, I invited her to have lunch with me in my favorite restaurant –I mean the restaurant I’d loved to be frequenting if I were rich. She agreed to join me for the lunch but not that easily. She made me beg on a knee with a gift in my hands. That was just for me to have the chance to spend a fortune on a skimpy meal while sitting opposite her, grinning from ear to ear. After spending a third of my monthly take-home pay on a Chinese dish in a Kampala restaurant, she said it was a fair meal and thanked me. By my standards, we had a great time; I saw that smile over and over again.

Our friendship was the stuff of a fairy tale, at least from my end. My friends who saw us together envied me. One said I was too lucky for his liking. So, on a certain evening after work, I decided to push that luck a little further. We met at the bus station. Just like me, she’d had a pretty tough day at work. We decided to take a sit under a tree and talk before we hop into a bus.

‘I like you Sarah,’ I said while scanning her countenance. It goes without saying; my heart was already beating fast.

‘Of course you do,’ she giggled softly.

‘Do you like me too?’

‘Will I be sitting here if I didn’t?’ she sounded as if my question was the silliest thing she ever heard from a grownup.

Being loved back will mean a lot to any man. If the woman be Sarah, then it will mean everything. ‘Sarah, I like you beyond the, the…normal…normal like between friends. I mean –I love, love…you. I love you. I want you and I to, to, to be more than friends because I ar…ar…am in love with you, Sarah.’

As I stuttered and chewed my tongue for up to three minutes trying to say those few words, Sarah kept this bowled over stare on me like she thought I must be out of my mind. The moment I said the last word, she busted into a mocking laughter. It was humiliating, but I was prepared to soak that up.

‘Sarah, this is no laughing matter,’ I managed to say from trembling lips.

‘Of course it is no laughing matter, but it makes me laugh all the same.’

‘I know you would have preferred a more articulate speech, but please pardon my fal…’

‘It has nothing to do with the way you said it. As a matter of fact, I’m flattered to see that I took all your boldness away,’ she kept the smile everlasting as she spoke, ‘the thing is, you’re not just my type as it concerns intimacy. I like you, you’re nice and caring. You’re a good person, but definitely not the type I’d date. I’m sorry I laughed, seriously, I’m sorry.’

‘So, so, I can’t get anything from you?’

‘What do you mean by anything?’

I too don’t know what I meant. I was just saying arrant gibberish.

‘We are still friends, aren’t we?’ she said, ‘I like to remain your friend, always.’

The way I saw it then, it was the hardest thing to do in the world. To be just friends with such a woman with astronomical desirability. To think that you would eventually have to condescend to marrying a mere mortal female after being that close to a goddess. It was unthinkable.

That night I could not sleep. I talked about it over and over again with my roommate, Yacob. Yacob was what I considered a chronic loafer. He had no job or any perceivable skill and he was uninterested in finding one. He was annoyingly content with living off others. He lived in my apartment, he ate my food, he wore my cloths…everything he did, I funded and everything he used, I owned. I wasn’t complaining though, he was a fun company to have. You never get a single boring moment with Yacob.

I talked to him about Sarah almost every night. Actually, he was the one who urged me to ask her for a proper affair. He said I’d regret not acting fast if another man came for her. That particular night, he told me a girl is naturally programmed to say no at first; even to the man they’d die to have. He encouraged me to keep asking till I get a yes from her.

He could only say that because he wasn’t there to see the look on her face while I spoke like a five-year-old in front of a clown. If he’d heard the heart aching sound of her laughter as if I was being world-recordly ridiculous, he wouldn’t be asking me to try again.

What I thought that night was, I must be out of my mind. How could I even dream of such a union, not to talk of asking for it? Sarah was way too good for me. A girl like her should have or be waiting for a better man to come around, someone definitely wealthier with a high class. I must have been dreaming to think that ordinary me could have extraordinary her.

I wanted to give up on her, but Yacob won’t let me. He insisted he was sure about what he was saying. I was easily inclined to put a little faith in his theory. Why not? He was a guy who had nothing to impress a lady with, yet he occasionally got decent hook-ups. So, I let him take an advisory role in my “Project win Sarah”. Yacob then suggested that if he added his voice to my case to her, I might gain some points. He asked me to invite her to our apartment, my apartment. The idea was simple, bring her and let him spend time singing my praise. He said I would come off as the generous and altruistic gentleman who keeps an annoying old friend in his apartment. I liked the idea, so I bought it.

Getting Sarah to agree to visit was another hell of a hurdle. It was twice as hard as getting that lunch date. I preached, I begged, I sent gifts…heck, I even had to punch a man in the face for brushing against her on a walkway.

Then she agreed to visit my apartment by 2:00pm on the 27th of October, 2012. On that Saturday, I, Constance Matulele, was a very happy man. I sanctioned Yacob to clean the apartment as hard as was humanly possible and cook her favorite meal. Sweet potatoes porridge with smoked fish. I bought new table covers and curtains for the doors and windows. One would think we were expecting a Saudi princess. To Yacob’s credit, he was a terrific cook, the meal was just, Sarah-befitting.

Then she showed up in all her majesty. 4:16pm, being the exact time of her arrival. After all the anticipation and waiting, her graceful legs stepped through my door, it was worth the wait. I introduced her to Yacob quickly and he went to work at once. He began to tell jokes after jokes and making witty comments. I liked that he kept her happy, but a part of me was jealous that she’d never been that excited in my company.

We served her the meal; she gave it an easy pass mark. I served her a glass of fruit juice, an expensive one. She took only a sip of it then made a bitter face; you’d think it was vinegar in the glass. She said she’d prefer diet coke instead.

Instantly, I grew wheels under my feet and was at the nearest department store before a second thought. They were out of stock; I checked the next store, same story. I then had to go a lot further than would take a jiffy. In the end, it took me about twenty-seven minutes to find a bottle of diet coke and return to the dignitary I was hosting in my apartment.

In my apartment, right in the middle of my sitting room, a gruesome shock was waiting for me.

In the excitement of having found what the Queen demanded, I busted into the room, Yacob and Sarah swiftly jumped off each other. They couldn’t be quick enough for me not to see what they were into. Everything now seemed like a horrible dream, but I remember clearly their position, what they were doing had no other explanation.

Yacob stood away with his hands thrown up.

‘This is not what it looks like, Constance, let me explain…’ he was saying rapidly.

Sarah wasn’t saying anything, she was busy rearranging her hair and pulling down her skirt properly. Her composure was nowhere near apologetic and it made me mad.

I couldn’t understand it, I still can’t. I mean…how could a girl who couldn’t give me as little as a warm hug descend this low to Yacob? What did he do to her? How can they do this unspeakable outrage to me?

All the majesty of her personality I held in my head vanished quickly. In my sight at that moment, she became the dirtiest thing I’d ever looked upon.

Yacob was on his knees speaking frantically. I wasn’t hearing anything he was saying anymore. A million thoughts ran through my head so fast it was like I wasn’t thinking at all.

My hands dipped into the bag I held on the other hand. I brought out the bottle of soft drink she demanded and without thinking, flung it at her quickly.

She had no time to react before it hit her on the temple.

From that moment on, everything began to happen fast. She sprawled uncontrollably all over the floor. Yacob sprang from his knees to hold her.

The bottle was broken and my anger was rising even further. I picked a piece of the bottle, Yacob turned to me to wonder what I was up to.

He should have known.

I drove the piece of bottle through his neck. He held his throat and fell on his back. His blood was spouting up to the ceiling and spraying all over us.

I couldn’t control myself anymore; I grabbed a longer piece of bottle and began to stab it continuously on Sarah’s chest like a maniac. I did it up to thirty times before I was able to make myself stop. By that time, my hand had been deeply cut by the bottle. Everything and everyone in the room was soaked in blood. Her blood, his blood, and mine, everywhere I looked.

That moment, the devil in me disappeared and I was left to realize what in the world I’d just done.

I had two bodies to explain.

I became scared, very scared. I had to do something fast. I cleaned myself and changed my cloths, and I bandaged my cut hand.

All I could think of that time was to run away and I’m still running. Not just from the legal consequence of my crime, but from their ghosts. I see their faces all the time. The face of Yacob when he was pleading for mercy and forgiveness, and the face of Sarah, the innocent look she maintained as if she meant to say to me that a goddess can never be wrong.

I’ve been able to cross the border into Kenya, but there is no border to cross inside my head. I’m trapped in the torturous gaol of my conscience.

Have they really done anything to deserve such death?

Theirs was a rare and impeccable boy meets girl tale, but I killed them.

What do you think about this confession? Please leave a comment.

I have a lot in common with my mother. Most of the time, we thought alike, we wanted the same things in life, we shared a similar look, we talked alike…we shared the same secret. Apart from having different surnames, the only thing that separates us right now is, she’s in an immaculate white coffin and I’m in a stupid black dress.

Many of our friends and a few of our relations are now gathered to say the sweetest words about her. None can talk about this secret we have that is now killing me.

Terry Monagan was my step father. He was a kind man, though he cared little about me. He was generous; he donated forty percent of the annual profits from his many investments to charities. He took responsibility of my fees at school all the way from junior high to my first year in college before he got into trouble. I never fully appreciated everything he did. Terry reckoned whatever he did for me as part of his charity works. He duly filed it out with the IRS to the last cent. My mother and I thought that was very cold, so I never said thank you to him for once. All that aside, Terry was a good man and did not deserve what I, Kate Huntsman and my mother, Witney Monagan did to him.

It was early 2007 and the signs of the recession were beginning to show. Terry had a business partner and a long time friend from way back in college, Mr. Jay Menez. He and Menez had many investments together. On the 18th of March, my mother hosted a dinner party in their apartment in west Houston. The apartment was on the eighteenth floor of a high rise building somewhere near Memorial Park.

On that evening, everyone could easily notice that Terry and Menez were not as friendly to each other as they used to be. Terry drank plenty wine and Menez drank so little. On a happy day, that would be the direct reverse.

Mid-way through the dinner, Terry said to Menez in a voice that was almost husky, ‘Can you please join me at the balcony?’

Menez did not hesitate to follow Terry, it was clear they had a lot of straight talking to do. They got into that right away.

From the window, we could see them having a heated argument and gesturing furiously, especially Terry. All of us inside the house could not hear their words to know exactly what the argument was about, but we could tell it was serious.

Our observation of their exchanges was short lived. My mother started a fresh conversation, not letting that controversy take the shine off her dinner party. A guest told a joke and we moved on.

Soon, some important guests stood up to leave. A rich couple that invested in Terry’s private equity firm. My mother asked me to go get Terry from the balcony so he could say a proper goodbye.

As I joined Terry and Menez in the balcony, I realized their fight was more serious than we thought. They did not look up to see me come in. Money was in the middle of the matter. It was always a serious thing when Terry and Menez talked money; they manage to shut out the rest of the world.

I listened to them exchange words harshly and I could figure what it was all about. One of the firms they invested in, Lomana Foods was losing value. They were losing money by the day, but Terry was losing it faster for some reason. Terry began to find a way of stopping the free fall, he was fortunate to find one. A bigger firm agreed to take over. For Terry, it was the only way to salvage something from their bad investment.

Menez wasn’t buying any of it. He was CEO of the firm, he wanted to remain in that office and steer the firm through the storm. He strongly believed he could bring them back to profit-making once again, but Terry had lost faith in such a possibility.

I noticed too that for Menez, it was not just a business decision to sell or not to sell. Much of the blame of the company’s misfortune was placed on him; he wanted a chance to take back his pride. Also, the firm that had agreed to buy Lomana Foods was headed by a major long time rival of Mr. Menez.

‘Johny does not want to buy up Lomana because he thinks he can turn it around or thinks it’s a good business to run, no. he wants the deal simply to mess with me. He would count this as one point to him,’ Menez said.

‘I don’t care whatever you think his reasons are; just sell this thing to him. They agreed to buy all our debts, you can’t get a better deal anywhere in the world.’

‘You can tell him to go hang himself with his crazy deal, I’m not selling.’

‘Look, Jay. I share your disgust for Johny. I think he’s a scumbag. That son of a bitch is full of crap majority of the time. But look here, what he has just slapped on your desk is not crap. It is what anyone in Wall Street would scream sweet heaven over. I will sell Lomana to the devil if he offered half this deal.’

Menez was very angry now, he moved away from the waist-high metal rail he and Terry leaned on. ‘I have said everything I have to say to you and it is final. We’re not selling.’ He began to walk away.

There was nothing Terry could do. There will be no deal without Menez’s signature. Now he was leaving.

‘No, you can’t turn your back on me when I need your corporation this much,’ he said. He had a grip on the collar of Menez’s shirt and pulled him back. ‘I can’t let you ruin everythi…’

While he was saying that, something tragic was looming.

His pull on Menez had been heavier than he intended. He probably forgot they were eighteen floors above the street of Houston and all that stood between them and a tragic fall was a rail.

Menez quickly toppled backwards over the rail. He seemed to be putting up a struggle to hold on to it, but, no, his grip was weak. Terry’s attempt to help him hang on did not succeed either.

I screamed.

I turned around and ran back into the house. My mother and the guests had heard my scream and were running to the balcony.

Menez hit the ground and died instantly. It was the first real tragedy I witnessed all my life.

Early the next morning, some cops came to take my witness statement. I did not tell them I was there in the balcony when it happened. All I said was that I saw through the window as Mr. Menez was struggling with the rail then I screamed.

Things turned around when the assistant DA returned personally to tell me one of the guests told him I was right there with the vic and the perp in the balcony.

That would be good news for Terry’s defense. Having me testify as a direct witness that it was all an accident was all they relied upon to get Terry only the sentence of a second degree murder instead of the death penalty the prosecution council was pushing for.

I had fixed a schedule with the defense council to prepare me for my testimony as a prime witness before my mother came to change everything. She called me into her bedroom to have a discussion with me. She began to tell me things that at first left me speechless.

She said I must testify against Terry.

‘Why, mom?’ I was utterly confused, ‘Why do you want me to do that to him?’

‘The reasons are complicated and you might not understand it all now. In years to come, I know you’ll thank me for making you do this,’ she said.

‘I cannot betray Terry.’

“I’m not asking you to betray him. All I ask for you to do is to protect yourself and your mother.’

‘How can I do such a…’

‘All you need to know now is, if you don’t do as I say, Terry and I would be divorced, you would have to drop out of school and you and I would be homeless. If you follow my plan on the other hand, things will continue to be fine and I will reward you with a quarter of a million when this is all over.’

‘You want to pay me to in effect kill your husband?’

‘The way this is going, you might be implicated as an accomplice.’

‘How?’

‘From what I’m hearing, you might follow Terry to jail. The DA is preparing another suit against you.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You saw Jay struggling with the rail, you and Terry did not try to…’

‘Terry tried.’

‘How can you prove that when your statement says that you ran away immediately? How can you prove to everyone that you did not fold your arms and watch Terry struggle to haul Jay over and screamed when you were sure he was falling? How can you prove that you and Terry do not have any arrangement to hide the truth? My little girl, this is how, do it my way.’

What touched me the most in all these –of course apart from the money- was my mother’s desperation. I’d never seen her want something this badly.

She helped me contact the prosecution team.

At the trial, when she was being cross-examined at the witness stand and she was trying to insist that her husband was a decent gentleman, the attorney asked if she could say Terry was not quick tempered.

She said in response, ‘Everyone reacts. Terry is always a thoughtful person. Apart from one or two isolated instances of fits of anger he’d shown in the past, he’s always been a gentleman with me.

“Fits of anger”. The prosecution ran away echoing that through the trial. I’m sure she dropped that on purpose.

When it was my turn, I testified that I came into the balcony and saw Terry struggling with and eventually heaving Menez over the rail, and then I screamed and ran away.

Terry was sentenced to death by electrocution.

I did not strap him on that electric chair, neither did I turn on that switch, but I gave the state all the power to do so.

I would go now to the police and say the truth. I would take the full jail term for lying under oath and any other charge, but nothing will bring Terry back.

How can justice ever be resurrected after the just has long been buried?

What do you think about this confession? Please leave a comment.

My name is Sandy Hartch and for all I care, I’m guilty. So, very guilty. Though I’ve been able to travel half a globe away from the scene of my terrifying atrocity, I’m still haunted by mental snapshots from that day and the day after.

In this historic Chinese town where I try to hide from my past, every morning just like everyone else, I get up and go on my business, but somewhere inside my dark mind, I pray for what no other normal person would. I keep hoping that I get hit by a bus or get into some terrible accident that would take me into a long comma. A comma I would then come out from with a permanent amnesia. That has not happened and I still have my memory. My life’s meanest enemy.

I was born in a small Irish town, they call it Clonoulty, a town hard to find on a map. A year after I lost my mother, I dropped out of school. I grew dispassionate about everything. I also stopped seeing my friends. My father was deeply worried about me. He loved me so much –or so I was raised to believe. At my mother’s funeral, he told me his last promise to her on her sick bed was that he would do all in his power to protect and take good care of me. I trusted him to keep his words.

If he still lives, I suspect he would remember those exact words. He barely forgets things, and I took after him. What you are reading right now is my confession. It is the only way I have boldness to do it. I have visited shrinks after shrink; they all said the same thing. That I am imprisoned by a past I must shed. They all have urged me to say it to them, but I can’t. I can’t make my lips produce the words to confess my deeds or say his name ever again without feeling my heart being ripped apart. So what I decided to do was, write it all down on this long paper and drop it where someone would easily find it. If I may ask for your help, please read and drop it too where you know someone else will easily find it.

It was fourteen years ago I woke up to the most fearsome morning of my life. The morning after a night I wished would never end. I heard a soft knock on our front door, and then a loud one followed. I knew instantly it had to be the O’Neils. My father was the first to respond. I heard his dragging footsteps as he went to open the door. Then clicks of the door key, after which I rose from my bed to join them in our sitting room.

Mrs. O’Neil sat directly opposite me. I greeted her good morning as politely as ever. I can remember the shaky voice with which she responded. Her fingers trembled slightly, she clasped them but they trembled all the same. Her eyes were reddened and sunken. Not only had she not slept in the night, she must have cried all through it. It was easily noticeable, grief darkened her countenance. Grief blended with fear in varying proportions at different moments. Though she spoke like she held a smidgen of hope for the best, there was no hiding that she was subdued by an unbearable weight of fear for the worst.

“Jacob did not come home last night,” Mr. O’Neil said, he tried to sound calm as he said those words, but we knew better.

“What did you mean he did not come home?” my father seemed alarmed by the news, “like, he did not return and you haven’t seen him?”

Mrs. O’Neil shook her head, “We’ve asked all the neighbors and…” she was close to tears, her voice trailed off. Her husband placed his arm on her hunched back.

“We’re going from home to home to ask his friends, perhaps we can find who last saw him,” he said, facing me.

I did not know what to say. I managed to avoid any eye contact with my father.

“Is it usual for him to spend the night outdoors without informing you?” my father asked.

“No, never,” Mr. O’Neil said.

My father turned to me; I was next to him by his right, “Was he here yesterday?”

“He was here,” I said, “he came to check on me.”

“By what time was that?” Mr. O’Neil asked.

“Some minutes before two pm.”

“Did he stay long? When did he leave?”

“We spent about an hour together here in this room, he sat there,” I pointed shyly at where Mrs. O’Neil sat.

“When I was at the workshop?” my father asked me.

I nodded.

“Where did he go from here? Did he tell you?” Mrs. O’Neil asked.

“No, he did not say, but I thought that he was going straight home because he mentioned having a lot to do at home.”

“You did not see him off?” my father asked me, “you always do.”

“I was already having the stomach upset by the time he was leaving,” I said.

My father began to nod slowly, and then he turned to Mr. O’Neil, “Where else have you been?”

“We have only been to the Samson’s and the Buickol’s.”

“Hopefully, by the time you see more of his friends you might be able to get a good lead, or he’ll be home before you.”

“We pray so.”

“And you should not waste much time before you report to the police. The sooner they begin to assist, the best for us.”

“We will go and make a formal complain now,” Mr. O’Neil said then stood up, his wife joined him. “Thank you so much Mr. Hartch for your assistance.”

“It’s our collective worry,” my father said, then he put his arms around me, “be calm darling, be calm,” he said softly, “they will find him and nothing will happen to him.”

“Please do not let yourself be troubled, young miss,” Mrs.O’Neil said, “it will be alright, my dear.”

My father offered to go with them till they find him. They politely declined, but he insisted. He could see they needed a company badly.

They made a report to the police and that same day, two policemen came to question me. I told them exactly what I told his parents, but the thing is, it wasn’t the whole truth.

On the day before, it was in a sunny summer afternoon. Jacob came to visit me like had became his little afternoon ritual. Because I’d noticed my father wasn’t the boy’s biggest fan, I did not want him to notice Jacob was around. So, I took him into my bedroom. I’d grown so fond of him that it did not quickly occur to me it was the very first time ever I would have a non-relation opposite sex visitor inside my bedroom behind a shut door. When I think about those days now, I begin to wonder if we’d fallen in love so soon.

We met only six weeks ago at the community library. I used to visit the library quite often, not because I loved to read, but my father, who was worried I was turning myself into an insufferable recluse would endlessly encourage me to go where I can make new friends.

Jacob was one of those friends I made; in fact, he was the only one I kept beyond two weeks. He was three years older, I was only sixteen and we were expressly swept into that la-la land where teenage lovers love to dwell.

In those days, I always talk about love. I enjoyed the sound of it on my lips. I think I must have told him I loved him about a thousand times, or more. I thought I did love him, though now I can’t use the word anymore and do not know what in the world it means, but I think what we had was the same thing many other couples have and they call it love. You know, I never needed the company of anyone like I needed his.

I thought my father would be happy about my new happiness. I rediscovered the old cheerful me just after the first few days I spent with Jacob. Nonetheless, my father would have loved to think my mood improvement was largely due to his efforts.

To be fair to him, he did a lot to try to drive the grief of my mother’s loss out of me. He sold his truck seven months after my mother’s funeral just to pay for a vacation for the two of us to Dar-es-Salaam. To give you an idea of how uninterested I was with everything then, I did not bother to ask where in the world that was. All I knew was, we took a train to a shiny airport in Dublin then took a flight that landed us in a dusty airport. We spent two nights in a mosquito infested hotel and then reversed the route. From dusty airport back to shiny airport, to a train ride and back home.

Then Jacob came and changed everything. He was brilliantly humorous and carefree. To add to that, he was intelligent and hugely selfless, always willing to share and sacrifice. He was also good looking, boyishly pretty.

On three different occasions, we’ve hidden in a particular dark corner near my father’s auto workshop to kiss by moonlight time. So, as I led him into my room that day, I couldn’t deny within myself that I wasn’t anticipating something more physical. As a matter of fact, I was expecting that the moment I make us sit on my bed, he’d descend his beautiful self on me.

He had a different approach, he preferred to sit and talk, looking me in the eye…and sometimes down my chest. As was typical of him, he would at occasions say something funny and self-deprecatory. Then he would make a fool of himself…make faces…anything to keep me laughing.

Those moments, those pictures of his face when he smiled, when he laughed, when he did different hilarious things like stupid pouted lips or a crazy frowny face, even the sound he made when he giggled or laughed out loud, they’re all plastered to my head. Stamped unto the deepest part of whatever part of my brain is the custodian of my memories.

Then came the moment I’d been silently praying for. We now sat so close to each other. I could feel his breath on my skin, a breath that conveyed the tang of overcooked broccoli. It flooded my lungs whenever he did that wide mouthed laughter. It did not repel me in anyway. In fact, it made me there and then fall in love with broccoli.

Then our eyes locked. Time was frozen for our sake. Then our lips locked too.

The only thing I cannot remember anymore was how exactly one thing led to the other. Where my memory is now sharpest however is in the part where my bare back was now flat on my bed and my legs spread apart into the air like a chicken on the grill.

I was perspiring profusely, a little more than he was. I can remember we were making more noise than was respectable. We were moaning –no, he was moaning and I was yelling in ecstasy. The world was dead and only the two of us were alive. It was so at that moment, or so I assumed.

I can also remember feeling like I was about to explode and that my pelvis could fall apart anytime soon.

Then I heard footsteps. Heavy footsteps.

Gosh, my father. It must be him.

Jacob did not hear nothing, he was lost.

The first thing that came to my mind was, “Do I remember locking the door with the key?”

The footsteps were growing louder and louder so I was sure I wasn’t just imagining things.

No, I can’t remember locking the door with the key.

At this point, I wasn’t going to explode anymore. Definitely not that kind of explosion would I get.

Jacob too had slowed down, he actually stopped seconds later. He too just heard my father’s footstep.

I was just about to ask him if he locked the door before all this began.

No, he didn’t.

The door swung open.

My father stood by it, bleeding many strong emotions through his eyes. Shock mixed with unspeakable anger.

In the same breath, Jacob had gymnastically sprung off me and was quickly recovering different pieces of his clothing from various corners of my room. His boxer shorts from a louver of my window, his t-shirt from a blade of the slowly rolling fan and his pants from near my father’s leg by the door.

 As for me, I sat still on my bed, my hands crossed around to hide my breasts and my legs closed. I bowed my head in shame, my humiliation was boundless.

Then my father moved. He left the door ajar and stepped into the room. I raised my head to look at him. His shock had softened into shame and disgust. His steps were towards Jacob. He took his cloths from him and ordered him to sit next to me. At first, Jacob did just as he was commanded, sat by me but avoided eye contact with me.

As my father came closer and was about to say something, Jacob must have thought he can’t stand the humiliation that was to come. He quickly picked his cloths from the foot of my bed where my father dropped them. Then he made for the door, swiftly. He was not swift enough though. My father sped after him. Before he went through the door, my father’s hand had reached him and pushed him on the back forcefully.

He toppled over.

On his way to the ground, his forehead hit the metal knob of my door. His body tilted over and he landed on the ground with the back of his head.

I cringed as he landed. Something told me it wasn’t good at all. My father too, he reached to pull him up. Then we noticed something. His naked, lanky body was convulsing. It was a short convulsion and it stopped quickly. I and my father began to call him loudly. My father was shaking his body.

Then he felt his pulse.

He raised his head to stare at me. A gloomy look blanketed his fat face.

He shook his head. I screamed.

“Be quiet now,” he said to me in a low tone. He held his head in his hands.

“Let us take him to the hospital.”

“He is dead, Sandy. No one can bring him back.”

“How can he be dead? He just fell, he…”

“I don’t know, I just wanted to pull him back, I…I…”

“What have you done? What have you done to him?” I began to weep; I fell over the limp body. Sobbing.

“I’m trying to think, be quiet.”

“Let us call for help.”

“They will send me to jail forever,” he said ruefully.

“But you did not do anything.”

“No one will believe me.”

“So what do you want to do to him now?”

He stood up and pulled me away from the body. “I will take him and place him somewhere.” He lifted the body from the floor and unto his shoulder, “tidy up this place, I will be back soon.”

“Where are you taking him to?”

He looked me straight in the eyes, “It will be best for you if you do not know beyond this point.”

Jacob was placed on the missing persons’ list and there he is till this day.

This is the memory that kills me every night. It is set at auto-replay in my head. It dries my sleep, it kills my appetite, and it makes me endlessly miserable…because it is not just a memory. It is a cancer.

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A single revelation can change everything. A simple finding of the truth that tells you all you ever knew was a lie. How would you handle that? If for instance it was revealed to you how your really came to be and it was a bizarre circumstance far from what is acceptable in your society. How would you take it?

I’m taking mine a lot weirdly. Thinking about it, it isn’t that weird to me, but if you read about it you will believe I’m just sick –as sick as my mother and sister.

My little brother was distraught when he knew of it-he is still distraught. He began to pack his cloths into a briefcase.

‘Where are you going to?’ I felt I needed not to ask, but the question just came out, for the need to break the hurting silence. I was standing behind him, next to the door of his room.

‘You do not need to know,’ he said without looking back.

I knew he was going to go away without looking back -far away where none of us can ever find him. I would do the same…if I was normal.

It is only now that I begin to look back and judge our circumstances and past events that I realized that there had always been signs pointing to this situation. It happened that I wasn’t looking out, no sane person would.

For instance, I was told some years ago that my parents were born and raised in San Francisco. They got married in San Francisco. They had decent-paying white-collar jobs. Then all of a sudden, they gathered all they had and moved up north, bought a dairy farm here in Wyoming, and then began to have babies. Also, my father once said to me and my brother we were a family way closer than any regular family. Until now, I never thought that made any sense.

My mother died five months ago of cancer. Her mother also died in like fashion. Before she breathed her last, she called me to lean my ear to her mouth. Then she said there was a diary she wanted me to find and read. She said some other things I barely heard and ended by saying to me something she said her own mother told her on her dying bed.

‘Love your father,’ she said with a weak faltering voice, ‘he will be good for you.’

She did not have to say that to me. I loved my father dearly, he was easy to love. He’s always been good to all of us. Everything he ever did, every risk he took, every time he got into a fight with a lousy neighbor…it was always for our sake. He was a good father.

I began to look for the diary immediately the funeral was over. I searched her bedroom; I turned it upside-down and inside-out. I emptied all the boxes in her room and properly examined all books. I turned her bed away and looked under. I dismantled her dresser. There was nothing as such to find. Then I looked into other places in the house. The basement, the kitchen…everywhere, there was no diary. After the frantic search which was followed by a more relaxed and concerted one, I gave up.

It was only today, early this morning, I found by a rare coincidence that my father had found the diary before me and had hid it somewhere he was certain no one would ever find it.

Yesterday morning, my father made a trip to Thermopolis and would not return until mid-day today. So, when I woke up this morning, I was moved to help him do something at the farm. Of all the spots on this nine acre farm, I chose this one spot to dig up and bury cow dung. I dug out a dirty brown envelope. In it was a diary, a black, leather jacket diary.

When I began to read it, it wasn’t written exactly in the form of a diary. More like a brief memoir. It was written in only fourteen pages, but it said enough to rock our worlds.

According to the diary, in 1969, May 2, a certain Lazarus Batovski was wedded to Catherine Nolan. Lazarus or Laz as he was referred to all through the diary was nineteen at that time. The woman, Catherine, was older. She was twenty-six. No one in the entire world has ever been loved the way Catherine loved Laz.

She got a job as an office assistant in a big firm and paid for Laz’s college fees all through. Laz was an orphan and Catherine was all he had, the only one he ran to when in any little need. They lived a love life that was like no other.

In the early spring of 1971, they had their first child, a girl. She looked everything like her mother and they named her Katharina, Kate for short. Laz loved Kate like he loved her mother. They continued to live as one closely knitted loveable family. Laz finished college and got a job immediately in a health insurance company. He was earning decently, they family was happy.

That happiness lasted a long, long time till Kate was twenty-one, freshly out of college. Then Catherine was diagnosed with cancer, a terrible cervical cancer. After two chemo sessions, it became clear she wouldn’t win. The countdown began on her and thirty-four days later, she died.

After the funeral, father and daughter began to bond in an extraordinary manner. Though Kate had gotten a job and moved out of the house to her apartment, she still spent a lot of time with her father. They were together fifty percent of the time they were not at work. Even while at work, they text each other constantly as if they’d never see each other again. If their closeness was beginning to look unusual to others, none of them noticed –or none of them gave a damn.

Kate had a boyfriend, Nick. Nick was sick of his girlfriend spending more time with her father than she did with him.

If he said to her, ‘Baby, let’s go to the movies tonight.’

She’d say, ‘Not tonight, I’m going with my father instead.’

At other times he’d ask her to join him for dinner and she’d say her father asked her too. She’d choose to do dinner with her father, always. Nick couldn’t take it no more.

So it was that certain evening, Laz was in Kate’s apartment with her when Nick called her.

‘Hey, Kate. How are you today?’

‘Fine, Nick. How was work today?’

‘Great, Sandy’s party is in twenty minutes, I’m on my way to pick you. Hope you’re home?’

‘Sandy’s party? Oh, I forgot. Damn.’

‘Are you kidding me? Well, get dressed quickly so we can hit the road as soon as I reach your apartment. Okay?’

‘I’m sorry I can’t go with you. I can’t go out tonight.’

‘Why? Are you alright?’

‘Yes, my father is in my apartment. He’ll spend the night and I don’t want to leave him to be alone.’

‘Well, breast feed him, change his diapers and call the baby sitter.’

‘Damn you, Nicholas. Watch what you say’

‘Are we gonna have ourselves a relationship or are we gonna nurse a grown ass man with all the time we should be spending together?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You spend too much time than is normal with him.’

‘And who are you to complain about that?’

‘I’m your boyfriend, goddamnit.’

‘And he’s my father for heaven’s sake.’

‘The time you spend with that man is…’

‘That man?’

‘Look girlfriend, I can’t take this shit no more. I’m done with this stupid affair. Period.’

‘You know what, super boy? I can’t think of a better news right now. Bye?’ She hung up and flung her phone to a corner of her sitting room.

‘Are you alright?’ Laz asked calmly, having listened to the entire conversation from Kate’s end.

‘Yes, it’s Nick. We just broke up.’

‘Over the phone?’

‘It doesn’t matter, dad. I didn’t love him from the start.’

He pulled her close and began to pat her back, then he began to stroke her hair too, ‘You shall find a man you love and deserve. But please never forget that I’m always here for you and I love you so much.’

As he spoke and caressed her, she felt that was the only touch she wanted and was surprised she did not feel awkward for that feeling.

He tried to kiss her cheeks, but she found his lips instead. At first he was shocked, but he did not rebuke her. Like a man that had no shame, he slept with her that night.

 They woke up the next morning without feeling dirty or any atom of remorse. In fact, they felt they were meant for that. She only began to wonder if that was what Catherine had in mind when she told her a few days before she died with a frail voice, ‘You should love your father, he will be good for you.’

Was she giving them her blessings?

In the next few months when the rumors of their affairs began to penetrate their elephant skins, they came up with a perfect idea. They sold all they had in San Francisco, including their house, then moved to Wyoming.

On reaching Wyoming, they changed their names from Lazarus and Katharina Batovski to Laz and Kate Tovs. Two years later, they had their first child together, a girl they named Catherine. That girl is me, Catherine Tovs.

Collins had left the house in his devastation. The revelation was too much for him to take.

He said to me, ‘Tell my grandfather that his son just got a little confused how to address him.’

My own biggest worry does not come from the shocking story of my origin. It is of what I feel right now. Thinking about Laz, my father and grandfather, I feel a strong attraction towards him. The kind that Catherine and Katharina felt. It makes me want him to do to me everything he did to them. It alarms me and I think I need help urgently.

I must be crazy…Katharina crazy.

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