I want to picture this scenario in your mind

You are fresh from high school, getting ready for your time at the university

Finally, you get accepted into the university

All is good in the beginning

You are focused on your studies and life, as an individual

Things start to change along the way

As you well know life….it is never stuck in one place!

In your second year at the university, you get yourself into an intimate relationship with this older man

One that is working in foodstuffs

Selling on a small-trade basis

He is like this shining beacon of hope for a good future with him

And so, you fall so hard for him so fast!

In a blink of an eye, you are pregnant

And it is his!

Back at school, you got all these eyes on you and ears on the ground you walk on

From your close relatives who know what is going on

So, they report back home to your family and the warnings begin being passed on to you

About how you need to choose between your studies and your man

In the beginning, you deny anything unusual going on

But after a while, all cards are brought on the table….well now, since your belly has grown much bigger!

So then, you make way with your heart and follow your man

You start a life with him

No wahala in the start

….all is smooth as you get by

Waiting for your little one to step foot in the adults and men’s world

Voila….your child is born

It is a baby-girl

And the big part of your life begins now….as a young mother and a married woman

A few years down the road, your man’s true self is brought out to the world to see

He begins controlling you, wanting to know about x,y,z

Demanding for a,b,c,d

Until the final stroke when he attempts to steal away your rightfully earned monies and property

The case just never seems to end even in the courts of law and public order

Your people back home keep telling you to divorce the man for your own sake and that of your children but alas….you just won’t hear any of it

This one day, he draws up a plan to actually kill you in guise of a robbery gone wrong

Young men covered in black show up at your residence with the intent of killing you but your messiah seems to be on close look-out for you

You and your children raise an alarm louder than a bomb

It works this time….

You are saved

Perhaps, they don’t even know what is going on

Poor things….

 

On another occasion, your eldest child narrates to you how Daddy called her one day intimately and shared with details of how she is supposed to take care of her siblings since he is not sure he will be around to do so himself

He shares details and pictures of all her aunties and uncles

She didn’t take it seriously that time

It gets more serious now…

Your man gets home one day

With his grand plan of hacking you to your death

As you are sedated, lying in your matrimonial bed with him

With no ears and eyes on you

Isolated from the rest of the world

He laces your food and drinks and not before long, you feel like lying down for a bit

Only for you to wake up and be told that you are in a hospital bed

From surgery and getting into another real soon

Just so that they can save your face

You were savagely hacked by HIM!!!!

He practically left you for dead!

As if that is not enough, he goes ahead to pick up a rope from the grazing goats in your compound

And heads out to one unfinished housing structure

Where he hangs himself

Why he does that…I just can’t tell…

Shame, guilt, fear, remorse, pride, cowardice…I don’t know

Successfully, you make it out of surgery and death and the hospital

You return back home

Your memory is getting back to you slowly…in bits…

You are taking it one day at a time

The rest of your family and friends devise a plan on how to let you on what went down till this date

Doctors suggest that the environment has to be conducive for that, a happy one with quite a bunch of merry-making

It’s all set up

They gather up their courage and pull to the side and start talking

 

They let you know on how he made all this happen

The one person you still loved, trusted and hoped would come around for you

It breaks your heart….you stare in the open sky and space

So sad, right?

You gather yourself and choose to live your life as you raise your kids, as well.

You resolve not to leave your house, however haunted they say it is

 

How is that picture coming? Is it coming your way?