Beautiful ashes.

   

    As I opened the door to the living room I was greeted by a big slap from my alcohol reeking husband, still in shock baba shade pounced on me and started beating me, I could have sworn they could hear my screams from the third building. They warned me but I didn't listen,all this miracle workings, black eyes, sleepless night, living from hand to mouth and abuse was caused by my hand!, oh I was the architect of my very own misfortune.

      Trouble sat gentle on its throne, but my naive self pleaded it into my life, it all started when I was in ss2,

I was 18 years old at the time when I met him, my darling Aluko, my best friend father. I had always liked older guys and I wasn't surprised when I felt myself getting wet at the thought of my friend's father, it was Labake, she would understand. Like the illustrious goat been fattened for the slaughter, I started dating labake's father who in turn showered me with love and affection, we went places, I had the most chic dresses, had fashionable jewelry and it wasn't long before I became chief Aluko's third wife, I had become my friends step mother and automatically my friend became my enemy.

     
       On my wedding night with chief Aluko, he just got on me, and kept on grunting like an old goat, I saw no light at the end of the tunnel, all I felt was pain, raw pain in my loins, I had to stop school, I never got to write my senior certificate exam, I never got to fulfil my dream of being a radio presenter, even if I wanted to go back to school I couldn't, I already had a ball on my structure! Yes I was pregnant!, my mother warned me but I didn't listen, greed made my father give my hand in marriage to a man three times my age with veracious wife's.

    
         I had my baby, which turned out to be still born, I cried like never before when I was told the news, that wasn't all, I found out I had vvi, I couldn't hold my urine, it just flows out of me like a broken tap, I Bimpe the village belle started smelling like a bed-wetting child, whenever I passed flies followed, my most painful memory was when my friend Labake came home a refined nurse working in one of the biggest hospital in Lagos and I was here in okitipupa village nursing the children and tending to the farm. Presently, I have no one to talk to, i am Bimpe and this is my story, I was once light, slim and pretty, I had hopes, dreams and aspirations, I once told my mother I would own the biggest radio station at our village, promised my sister I would buy her all the fine clothing materials she wanted, but now this dreams are just dreams because I threw that all away for the fine things of life, now I have no children, no money and no name all I have is a pot, bellied, old husband that abuses me at any given time of the day, fellow wife's that throw insults at me and a sickness, this sickness that may probably cost my life, not the sickness itself but the shame that comes with it, the sniggers and stares, the handkerchief that goes up as I pass by, and the pity I see when people look at me.

For I was Bimpe the village belle.