LIFE HAS NO COVER (Short Story by Osonwa Chukwuka)

"You are not the only one who feels that way", Ndiche would effortlessly say when I told her of the wretchedness that lives in me.
She says it all the time as though she's programmed to answer nicely whenever I complain, she says it over and over again that it seems the words are getting worn out.
Tears and wears from the constant friction between these words of assurance and a heart that hides its pains, assurance that my problems are just phases of life that will soon pass. But I look at her and I don't know what to think.
How could a heart which has known much pain than I have ever thought of forget to complain and refuse to buy my relative idea of the mistake called Life.
Born the only Child of the Okenwas, in the early 90s, she lost her dad at a very tender age, her mum has never been in the picture, she never met her and never got to know who or where she was before the Father's death.
I have known Ndiche for too long, more reasons her approach to life baffles me. She was still living with us the day she came back with torn bloodstained clothes, bare footed, disorganized braids, and tears like rain drops from the bent ends of zinc sheet, gently rolling down void ofwords. She had been raped by a total stranger on her way back Ekide market. She was in pains for long and was yet in pains nine months later during Buky's delivery. Buky- result of a terrible intercourse. And yet no other person got to know about that night- the creation day of the lad, apart from me. Had I not been there that night I would have sworn she was never raped, but it was I who washed off the cold sticky red lines that came out from her thighs, the testament to a lost virginity.
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Today I woke her with shouts from my night mare, a steady occurrence of the last two weeks and it's him I see with his hands taking a hold of my neck, his fingers leaving marks replica of the ones already on my skin, the only prove that my dreams are indeed nonfiction, his belt used to tie my hands to the bed as he thrusts in and out, in and out. I couldn't scream because of his singlets forced inside my mouth, so I began to count, counting his thrusts, taking note of every invasion, every single one of them, 37 of them. And he pretended not to see me as though it was a plastic vagina he had his thing inside.
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"But I am his" unlike Ndiche, this man is my husband and "I am his". HIS possession to banter, HIS tool for satisfaction and HIS "1.5 million Naira bride price investment". So because of " but you are his" that keeps resounding from my dad and my mum, his dad and his mum whenever I complain, I run to Ndiche, the only one who my story might mean something to.
While the one I am his was asleep, I sneaked out afraid to lie beside my terror 30years older than I am, I sneaked to Ndiche's house a hideout from normalcy, calm for troubled minds and a troubled mind I am.
She said "let me wash this smell off you and get you new clothes, please rest tonight and tell me everything in the morning".
And as I slept, my terror left our house and gatecrashed my dreams and because these past two weeks of honeymoon has been a mix of banters and its goal-like replays in my dreams, I can no longer juxtapose my dreams and my fears.
My screams wake her up and then midnight became morning and I told her all that has happened and she said "we both face the same fears". I wanted to get annoyed by her answer and being the older than I am she felt the rage, so she said "I see Buky's father everyday I close my eyes in bed".
I got to know that she has on her, like the stretch marks, an occupant of her darkness. Appearing every time she shuts her eyes and making long blinks an invitation of unwanted replays.
When the morning finally came, She said to me "let's go out breath in and breath out", the only thrusts nature permits a woman to share with a man, "get up, let's climb the hill out there" and probably convince stereotype that you too can climb something and that you're not a hill that should always be climbed.

Tomorrow, I will still be here because the one I am his will never come looking, he's too old to go in search of a 17 year old fifth wife. He might have come if I was the only one at his service but we are five and I am just the fifth who is yet to conceive. Or maybe if he loved me - no matter what that means, but he won't until he remembers his 1.5million, calls my parents and they will come searching.
Till then, let's make this moment ours and hope that "we are not the only ones who feel this way" and that one day the others will find us and we will all go out bare footed and climb a hill.
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Osonwa, Chukwuka Chukwubuikem Chukwuemelie - a young mind with a pen. osonwachukwuka@gmail.com
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Photo Credit: JONANTHAN TORGOVNIK.
Culled from http://www.motherjones.com/media/2009/06/rwanda-rape-intended-consequences-jonathan-torgovnik/