It is 12 midnight. The candle at the corner of her late grandma’s hut is already casting its farewell glow. Laura’s gaze continually falls upon her little child, Natalie. Natalie tries to grab Laura’s left nipple, but Laura keeps pushing her away as the pain is unbearable. Natalie is starving; Laura is ravenous. Sometimes Natalie can suck air from her mother’s empty breasts; then cry for minutes. Laura keeps looking at her little child with tears flowing down her cheeks. There has neither been enough milk in her breasts since the breaking of dawn nor enough food in the house to feed her eight-month-old baby. “Perhaps if grandma were still alive,” she quickly brushes off the thoughts while wiping out the tears, but more memories keep flushing her mind.
***
“Laura” Ms. Kumra calls from the kitchen.
“Laura!”
Still, there is no response.
“She must have sneaked out again without leaving a word.” Ms. Kumra’s voice echoed through the kitchen; her tone laced with concern.
In her mind, she quickly drifts her thoughts, crafting a mental memorandum to recite upon her daughter’s return, concerning her new escapade. The news of children of her age being abducted; their stories flooding social media and other news outlets, had become an incessant source of distress among families.
“This time, it is not even the children only, even grown-ups are victims of the trend. She was even here when aunt Mervie recounted how her husband was seized the previous month. Thank God for the police. They did a good job,” she kept on being worried, waiting to release fire on her only daughter and child.
“No parent should ever confine their daughter behind the walls of constraint upon her menarche,” Jennifer voiced slowly.
“It’s as though the world has bestowed wings upon you, and they want to clip them, instead of watching you fly,” Favor chimed in.
A shared giggle, celebrating their worked plan of rebellion, rippled through the trio as Laura leaped the fence of her home. As they headed towards Mama Aloevio’s unfinished mansion, three young men joined them. Handsome, tall, each boasting with a faint mustache. Laura smiled as Inno, the tallest, reached out encircling her waist with his hands. Jeffy and Vick fell into step alongside Favor and Jennifer.
Hand in hand, they moved forward with a synchronized gait, walking as in a procession venturing into the incomplete mansion of Mama Aloevio.
***
“Never be like Mom, Dear Natalie,” Laura whispers through her sobs. “I allowed Inno to caress me in that Mama Aloevio’s house. He deflowered me, left his seeds in me and I never saw him again,” her voice quivering with a mixture of regrets and shame, she turns away from her little girl.
“Foolish!”
“Embarrassing!”
This was how Ms. Kumra described Laura, after learning she was pregnant.
Foolish for being robbed of her honor and education. Foolish for not learning from her father who had gotten her mother pregnant while in college, but never took the responsibility. Foolish for being a young whore who sneaked out to sleep around. Embarrassing in the heavens, embarrassing even in the entire clan for a girl of fourteen to be carrying her fellow baby in her tummy. Embarrassing for a young lady to have a child out of a wedlock. It is a cause of deep shame, that earns her humiliation and contempt. Even her family renounces her.
“It was out of grand ma’s benevolence that she secretly called me behind everyone’s back to be living with her here; a quiet place from the scrutinizing eyes of the world, until I delivered you, my princess charming, through the C-section. The doctor kept telling grand ma that my amniotic fluid was too low, a C-section was imperative. Her heart swelled with joy the day she gazed on you, and as she nurtured you during your formative days. She bestowed upon you the name ’Natalie’ meaning ‘a new beginning’.”
Natalie is slowly running out of glucose. Her labored breaths leave the next morning uncertain. Laura desperately squeezes her breasts to draw the last drop of milk for her famished baby, but her nipples remain dry. Laura is afraid to fall asleep; the fear of losing her daughter gnaws at her.
She quickly grabs Natalie, wraps her in a baby blanket and puts her at her back. “At least, she should not die in my hands.” She quickly rushes out of the house and leaps into the dark. The night is serene and mellow. A huge moon, like a massive spotlight, illuminates her path into the wood forest in the east of her place. Natalie is silent and still; seeming as thou she has been rendered mute or dumb. The crying has stopped, no body movement can be heard. “She is already lost,” Laura thinks as she hastens her steps into the thickets of the forest, not as in a run, but a teetering of her tiptoes.
Within the thick carpet of dense green leaves covering the ground under a fallen tree, she conceals Natalie, cocooned in her baby blanket. Still no movement of any kind can be discerned. Only sporadic, shallow breaths can be noticed.
Laura doesn’t know what to do for her dying child. The weight of despair nails her to the ground. Perhaps she should just die too and forget about it or just abandon her baby for good, but the possibility of other villagers, who come to fetch wood or rubber, discovering the abandonment and reporting it to the law enforcers gives her second thoughts. The consequences of being arrested keeps haunting her, yet an allure of the prison’s free meals seem as a solace to her empty house.
She moves a few meters away from Natalie but pauses at almost every step she takes. The words of her grand ma are like chains bound on her, “In a society where mothers are considered as loving and caring, it is shocking to see a mother aborting or abandoning her child.”
She stands motionless, covering her face with her hands while sobbing. Perhaps it is the deep bond between a nursing mother and her suckling that compels her to halt with every step. Or perhaps the haunting memory of agonizing pangs of first-born birth that do not permit her to abandon Natalie like that.
The radiant morning star hints dawn is fast approaching. From afar, two men appear carrying timber. Her first reaction is to run. But that can only move her further apart from her daughter. She is not sure if she is really dead or not. She removes her hands from her face as the men are slowly approaching her. She remains motionless as a statue, her face smeared with tears.
“Ghost”
They both muse in hushed tones
“A female ghost? I heard they are the most dangerous,” the taller one says.
“Fear be far from us, let’s see if she speaks.”
They muster courage and press onward. Laura watches them as they approach. Her bones are too weak to move an inch. The taller one, with a deliberate strike, uses timber to make contact with her. She falls flat to the ground and faints.
“Not a ghost!” they both scream out, abandoning their timber as they rush to her side. The taller, gigantic one, takes her on his back, carrying her to their nearby house, just a stone’s throw from the wooded forest. He gently places her on a mattress. He presses his lips on hers, trying to deliver her breath deep into her lungs as he learnt in high school.
“She is alive,” he relays to the shorter fellow, detecting a faint life on her shallow breaths.
They prepare a nourishing porridge that brings her back to consciousness. Laura notices the two men sitting beside her; she tries to speak, but her voice falters. They offer her a glass of water.
“Natalie, Natalie!” Her voice like a whisper carried by the wind brings the two to a standstill. She springs from the bed, pointing the direction of the forest. The two swiftly grab her and guide her back to the bed as she explains her intriguing ambivalence. They all hasten to the wood forest, the sun standing high in the sky.
Natalie is still intact, deeply buried in her baby blanket, like a squirrel in a nest. Laura quickly cradles her, gently offering her nipple. Natalie slowly latches the breast and begins to suck. “She is still alive,” Laura smiles at the two strangers, relief and joy washing over them all.
—
Read – Boom – A Short Story by Damian Jeremiah, Nigeria
I am a passionate young writer from Malawi and a third-year medical microbiology student at the Malawi University of Science and Technology. I developed a liking for writing when I was in secondary school in Form 2, after reading the literature book “The Familiar Stranger” edited by Hudson Chamasowa – a compilation of poems, short stories and plays. The first highlight of my writing career was in Form 3 when I came in second on a regional level for the ‘Lyco poetry competition’ with my poem “We can’t tolerate” which carried a message of ending cultural practices in Malawi. From then I have always improved myself by reading and writing more. I have written over 20 poems and over 5 short stories, but none of my works has been published. I am so excited to have this short story be my first work to be published, it is a dream come true.”
That’s nice work Victor chisamanga👍 we look forward to your dedication and interesting stories and poems 😊
Thank you so much Arrings
Hello, I am also a young aspiring writer from Kenya, none of my works have been publish and I’m really looking forward to bein mentored by such a good writer like yourself. Here’s my email for you to contact me giannacynthia1’gmail.com