(Hi folks! this is the prologue from my new novel.Í'd aappreciateit if you all tell me what you think and help me polish it up, thanks!)


[i]'Beinformed that I have married another wife. She is in the village and she is already carrying my child. I want you to know

so that when I start travelling home more than I usually do, you won’t start questioning me’.[/i]I sit as still as the statue of fertility my mother used to keep on the small stool beside her bed. My brain is tired but my

heart is not. It will not stop beating loudly as if someone put a pair of megaphones in my chest and I am almost afraid that

he will hear it, that this husband of mine so proud and handsome will hear it and know that he has hurt me. I see the look

of disappointment that flashes briefly across his face as I school my features into a mask of indifindifferencealent that I

have honed over the years as the daggers have kept coming.

‘I have heard you’ , I say and I make to walk out of the room into the kitchen where I am in the process of cooking obgono

soup and eba for dinner

‘Is that all you are going to say’? He asks, his chest rising and falling like a breathing mound.

I stop in the door way and look back at him.

‘What else do you want me to say Oko mi? What is done is done.

It all sounds so practical coming out of my mouth and I am almost shocked at the words even as they are carried to my

ears, but I have changed. This new woman is no more masked but she is real. I leave the bedroom and walk into the

kitchen where Ebe, my first son is sweating profusely as he pounds the obgono seeds. He looks up at me and pauses briefly.

‘Mama’? He asks and I know that he sees the pain in my eyes.

He is the only one who sees what the others do not see. When I have cried in silence and wiped my eyes, he knows, even

when there is a huge smile pasted on my face. At nineteen he is a spitting image of my husband, tall and lanky with legs

that are awkward in their movement. He is awkward in his gait too as if he is learning to wear this new body of his which

seemed to have to grown overnight.


‘Mama what is it’? I shake my head mutely and watch his lips tighten in annoyance. He hates it when his father causes me

pain.Once, he tried to pull him off me when he was giving me the usual beating and had a broken rib for it. Now, the

relationship between father and son is one of familiar strangers. They speak only when it is necessary and I am left to

battle with the feeling of having failed as a mother and a wife.

Again I shake my head and sign for him to keep pounding while I order his two younger sisters out of the kitchen to make

their unholy racket elsewhere.

As I scrape off the scales of the fish at the sink I let my tears mingle with the salty water on the fish. I am backing Ebe so I

can cry all I want. Besides, the pain is too much to bear and I cannot wait till I am all alone. So I cry. And as the tears drip

on my hands, they fade into a blur that takes me back to the past, where decisions were made that caused the ripple

which is today my life, It all started in London, cold, cold London,

I am hooked. On reading the first line, I thought she was childless but it is not so. Well done and keep writing.

@Myne White-Girl coming from you,that's a huge push for my ego! thank you!

just logged in to comment on this one. read it about a week ago, a very strong start, pregnant with details of what is to follow. your writing style is ok, unique. dont give up on this, look at it as something that has an end. you have something here
anyway, in 'Again I shake my head and sign for him to keep pounding while I order his two younger sisters out of the kitchen to make

their unholy racket elsewhere.' the two younger sisters seemed to pop out of the blues. no hint of them in the original description of the scene when she walked in, her son was only pounding ogbono.
good job though