#CHILDHERO Contest: “Unseen Shadow” by Heaven K. Kalu

The scars of the past…

How do I begin to narrate my ordeal as a child till I knew where to draw the line? Where do I start my scrawl? When did all this happen? Why have I decided to open the closed books in my shelves? Well, my name does matter but let’s pretend you know while you don’t……

***

I vividly recollect that fateful day like yesterday whilst playing football with other children; my elder sibling came calling out for me to come home quickly because mom wants me. Staring at strange/mourning faces with absolute quietness in our compartment all dressed in black outfit startled me a bit but on a second thought, maybe there’s crucial meeting for some kind of family issue? What do you expect from the little me?

So, I walked up to where my mom was and sat on her lap and inquired why we have all these people around? Suddenly, a woman in her Quadragenarian stormed in and broke the silence through a loud scream and cried her way to where mom and I were.

Honestly, I barely knew what it means to lose one at my age, so I felt entertained by the way the woman was crying since she came in as I watched her dramatize. I was to clock six years about that season when mum finally broke the news to me that my beloved dad whom I barely enjoyed fatherhood with had just passed on.

Mom started trading just to make ends meet without external aid from either her family or my dad’s. Life became sour, uninteresting and struggling had a better part of our lives hence without it, there won’t be lunch. Gradually, dearth came visiting and refused to leave because it found a comfort zone under our roof. I remember mom compelled my sisters to hawk the foods she prepared outside the building in order to recover profit and pay creditors in our environs. Growing up in such a world wasn’t a good experience, brimming with the unimaginable and uncertainties of tomorrow now my little brain could not comprehend why we go through this entire quandary.

I wake each morning going through the same routine, sneaking out of the house to change my wet panties and I’d never forget how mom dealt with me mercilessly for bed wetting each night but that didn’t change anything rather I tried as much as I could to curb the act though it wasn’t easy because I didn’t just stop the act immediately but I mastered a sleeping position to avoid further accidental discharge within my crotch.

Change is never a threat to a learning heart but an opportunity. As I sprout into denarian, about eleven years old precisely in my first year in high school, I switch between characters of hustling and schooling simultaneously with the greatest of ease… trying to achieve leaps of being responsible by mending neighbors/passer-by shoes and sandals, a popular handiwork called “shoe-maker” just to feed and put up with friends due to the state of things… Mom wasn’t too comfortable with the idea but did accept and that didn’t make her insouciance or a weakling towards her offspring.

***

One day, while at school during break hour, I dabbled into this tall smart dude (a senior) accidentally. Somehow I believe our meeting wasn’t meant to be but did. I tried as much as I can to overcome this sensation of having a school mentor out of the blue but couldn’t. Although I must confess that I needn’t have to look over my shoulders anymore in the school since he crept into my sphere.

He became my closest friend, family friend, school father and confidant, in fact he is a hero before my immediate family and he was quite older than I am. Life slowly took another turn on me since his advent just like I expected though it wasn’t smooth all the way but I could still farewell.

Exuberance they say is a prerogative of a youth and just as gold is discovered in unlikely places so are evil acts. We both paddled our canoe through school’s ocean side by side without contempt or distrust. Apparently, our relationship went deep and I was into him and everything worked out under the shade of brotherhood. Soon, our hood days in school slowly ended as he passed out of high school into the higher institution. He disappeared into air for nearly six years and resurfaced again like the nightcrawler but little did I understand that my vegetable soup would soon become a village concoction.

Dad is long gone and probably watching us as we go through thick and thin, all for survival as the table of responsibility faces mother alone without anyone to extend a hand of help to us. Obviously, he (school-father) seems to be right on time for showing up at the odd hour of our minor lives.

I remember lucidly that I went visiting after he came in from London and we (both of us) tried fixing the elder sister’s apartment that day because it was so unkept and dirty since we would be spending the night there. Afterwards, thoughts of good food rolled in and we did just as we wanted it that night.

***

It was past 10 o’clock, I headed to the bathroom for a cold shower before hitting the bed and whilst I was scrubbing my body with sponge under the shower, the door flung open. Lo and behold, it was him!

What do you want? I inquired and he retorted saying “nothing“, yet advancing slowly at me. My head went blank not knowing what to ask again if he’s sleep walking or if he misplaced or forgot something since he showered before myself but surprisingly, it was the opposite. He got way closer and grabbed my balls (scrotum) whispering stupid things to my hearing!

“Hey”! I hit his hands away from my thing. What’s that for now? What do you want with me here? If you don’t leave this minute, I would leave the bathroom for you? And he echoed, “I love you”… “What! Do I look like I give a damn about that? Please don’t give me that crap and just gently take a walk the same way you intruded my privacy”, I said sternly.

He stupidly took a frantic walk looking and peeping at my thing (crotch)… Fool! What nonsense! Is this what going to London has turned you into? I chorused. The next morning, I woke up into an anger I never planned because I took to the floor when he refused to stop caressing me on the bed whilst asleep so I didn’t bother saying “good-morning” because it didn’t appear like one that is pleasant to me. He pretended to be sorry for all that transpired last night by apologizing like a sick chick dying of cold and longs for a warmth from the mother hen.

Apparently, he deduced I was a bit mild with him on his first attempt and invited me to Eko Hotel & Suites to meet him up. I didn’t want to go the villain who is a hero in my family simply because he is presumed to be this “Mr. nice guy” generous person but everyone in the house will always ask me to go and see him without them having an idea of what I just discovered about his true personality and who would believe the me at the time of my life when all they expect from me is to go see him so he could give me money after he must have touched and caressed me roughly to the point of getting into my pants. You all don’t just understand! I’d always say that because they all are blinded to my hidden emotions with their eyes wide open.

***

It was my first time in such a big place as that going by the great splendor of its environs from an aerial view and the serenity that surrounds the hotel as well as the uninterrupted wave that blew across the hotel from the Atlantic Ocean. I was undeniably enthralled & fascinated that I sang out; what a place of great comfort! I had sworn never to take my bath or sleep on the same bed with him again whenever I visited him.

A “fateful” day could be avoided if as human we have the capacity of knowing which day is going to turn out good or bad.

Whilst sleeping on the floor, I felt something moving back and forth all over me like where a mother carries the child on her lap and rubs her hand all over the child wanting him/her to sleep. But I can’t remember taking any rum or sleeping pills that I would want to let loose off my guard knowing well enough that it’s a fifty-fifty game of not sleeping too deep and moreover, I never ask for a lullaby so I jumped out of my sleep but then it was too late to scream or make any sound hence I felt this heavy dizziness… How come? He had slipped some portions of pancuronium bromide into my tea which paralyzed my joints from functioning as they ought to and I struggled to apprehend my sense of reality but all effort was abortive. He lay me flat like a sacrificial lamb that was about to be slaughtered unjustly.

I can take a journey through your mind as you peruse through my saga that you expect to hear the worst of all I pen down. That he had his way? That I was defiled? That he comfortably enjoyed the ride while it lasted? Hmmm! Well, let’s just say I am fortunate because I don’t think it was the words I uttered continuously nor my pleas that made him change his mind but I want to believe I am one of the luckiest teenager alive to tell such an ugly tale of wonderful experience..

Many a time we act like nobody has ever been through the path we traveled simply because most people has refuse letting it out for a third ear.  Some even take pills for their neighbors aches trying to paint a picture of holier than thou attitude unwittingly languishing in their own dungeons of ideology but like seriously, if you’ve never worn such shoes of agony or pain then you’d never know where it hurts the most.

My name remains undoubtedly unrevealed hence the most important thing is that this experience should be a blessing in form of knowledge acquisition to all eyes that scans through the lines in it meticulously.

Goodluck Heaven K. Kalu!

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