The first time she did it, she held me against a wall and shaved my hair off. She said it made me look more like my mother and like the monster we both were. She then locked me in the store for a week, with nothing but my shaved hair spiraled on the dirty floor. When I called out, she screamed at me, saying, “Your mother had nothing but her hair to eat for months and still survived. You will survive too.” Uncle Tunde returned a day after she let me out, his husky body pushing through the entrance door. He stopped immediately he saw me, “what happened to you?” he asked. “She stole,” she yelled, appearing out of thin air. “That’s what happened.” Then his face changed from slight pity to rage. They said it is something of the blood; the anger they show, their thirst for blood and violence, their ever-increasing ache to put me at death’s altar. So right at the entrance there, he unbuckled his belt and stretched it out for me to see. It was a shiny leather belt, probably some weeks old and strong enough to hold a raging bull in place. “Her father was like that too,” he said, moving towards me ferociously. “He always stole as a child.” So I laid on the table in the living room, my tender flesh biting into the dull ridges of the table as thunderous strikes landed on my back. It continued until his hand could no longer swing, and his slow body movements reminded him of the pangs of growing older. So he stopped where his body could no longer move on but not before he desecrated what was left of my lean body. I was a young girl, barely twelve years old, but the pain made it feel like I had lived longer. Like my parents hadn’t died some two years ago. My father was the first to die. He worked in faraway North and came back every three months with more gifts than my hands could hold and goodies than my mouth could swallow at once. He had this smile that could soothe every heart. Every once in a while, most especially after receiving a beating from my aunt, he would appear in my dream, waving and smiling like he did while alive. He had returned from one of his trips sick and unable to eat anything. Three days later, he was on the hospital bed, inches from death. The doctors couldn’t find what was wrong, and it was in the haste to give meaning to his ailment that he gave up the ghost. Then like ravenous scavengers, his siblings, uncles and those who had no eligible tie other than the fact they knew his first name and where his mother delivered him jumped into the scene. Their first point of attack was the doctor’s inability to give meaning to his ailment. They sobbed at his deathbed like they had borne the pain together. Some swept the floor with their rolling bodies, others merely shut the agony inside. Then they turned to my mother to give meaning to the inexplicability of my father’s ailment. And unrelenting were they in their pursuit. They pounced on her as though she held the solution to half the world’s problem. They locked her in, stripped her of everything but her depleted humanity and asked her to confess her sins. They kept her in the dark for forty days and joked about whether she ate her hair to stay alive. Every time we visited the house, they would keep me close “so that I do not grow up to kill my husband too.” When the door to the house opened on the fortieth day, a horrible smell blew out in the open and somewhere in the dark laid my mother’s frail body, crouched in the dark and clothed with nothing but her thin flesh. She died two days later, barely human in form and mind. The responsibility to keep me fell to my father’s immediate brother. He was everything different to who my father was. Where my father smiled, he frowned. Where he rubbed a child’s head after a misdeed, he cracked down heavy with horsewhips and curses. His wife was no better. They were a match ordained by the devil himself. And every act of wickedness they thought too much to be inflicted on their children, they caused to happen to me. The second time she did it, it happened very early in the morning. It was barely dawn, and one couldn’t see what laid some metres away. The moon hid itself behind layers of dark clouds, thus impeding any possibility of a lumination. She entered my room and dragged me out of my bed. Crazy-eyed and the hairs on her head standing on their ends, she looked straight at my soul and asked me to “free her destiny from my grip.” Her husband entered after her, naked to the loins and restless like a raging bull. She dropped me and gave me a cautionary stare that said only one thing, “There would be no next time.” I stayed in the room all day, unable to move from where they left me in the morning, crouched in the corner of the room with voiceless tears running down my face. We are created individually, my mother would say, for different purposes, for different journeys. That was her reply to everything; it was what she said when my father came back lean as a stick and when he took his last breathe. A day before she was forced inside the house and locked there to seek penance for causing my father’s death, she kept to it. “This is my journey,” she said, eyes heavy with tears “It is my purpose.” For every second I stayed in my Uncle’s house, those were the words that roamed my head. It was my journey to live life like a savage, spared nothing but waves of unending

10, Aanu street, Iyana-ogo, Ado-Ekiti. Ekiti State. P.O box 21556 11th February, 1995. 24, Ahmed road, Ikosi, Lagos State. P.O box 17880 Kate Akinlabi Dear Kate,   I hope this letter meets you well and at a good time. I wrote this in haste as I begin my journey back to my hometown. I can imagine your disappointment but my love, I believe it is for the best for you and I at the moment. How are you doing? How are my in-laws? I believe I would meet them soon by God’s grace. My love, I plead for your forgiveness for not meeting my appointment with your family again. I never planned to disappoint you and In fact, the postmark on this letter would show I am presently in a state called Ekiti where I spent two nights, an mortifying experience if I may say. My love for you has made made me stand unimaginable situation these past 2 days of which you would be scared to relate with me if I came to see your parents now. Hence, my return home for a better time. My Kate, you would not believe I had passed the night, no, two nights at the graveyard these past two days on my way to visit you. I can imagine you beautiful mouth wide open right now and your pale brown eyes staring in wonder at my words. The experience was terrifying for me also but at that moment, I had little or no choice. Strangely, I did not spend those two days alone, everyone in our bus did. It was a wonder we survived the still quietness and fear of the unknown those two nights. I could neither bring my eyes to close with a grave beside me and a young child crying herself to sleep at the other side. I heard before that young children see spirits and I could imagine what she saw those two nights. Other passengers hurdled together like packs of sardines in a can but I refused to join. Fear, they say, can be transmitted and even I could smell the fear of the pack. I must have been too tired the first night because I finally drifted off and woke up in the early hours of the morning. Sadly, we still had no clue what was wrong with our bus and the delegates sent to the nearest town were not back with a mechanic. My love, like you always told me when we were both studying at Lagos in the year 1994, our instincts are signs and should never be ignored. You were right because I felt a strong nudge not to board the first bus. In fact, I was the last passenger of the bus. The sight of the rickety bus had no assurance it would reach its destination and Kano to Lagos was quite a distance. The driver was lousy in speaking and looked like he was dragged in by a cat. How he managed to gain trust of other passengers was what I could not fathom or rather they were in a haste to see a precious one like me. I ignored my instincts and boarded eventually. Our journey was smooth till we arrived Ekiti state. You are indeed a well of wisdom as I can clearly recount the day my bicycle had a minor fault. I insisted on taking you home first and repairing it later but you never agreed. Can you remember? I sincerely wanted you to get home early but you told me that when I see a minor fault, I should repair it immediately to avoid the consequence of something worse due to my negligence. It saves time and money, you said. You explained that if I ignored it, we might be stuck in a place that it would take much more time to repair and you would eventually get home late. Our driver was negligent, I think. Our bus was giving signals but he pushed further claiming Lagos was close enough. Sadly, we never made it to Lagos. When our bus finally gave up and could go no further, women began hurling curses at him while we men got down and picked our brains on what could have been wrong with the engine all to no avail. By evening, we had to send delegates that would trek to the nearest town for assistance. Fortunately, I was not selected yet I wish I was when it was announced that we could not sleep in the bus due to thieves and would sleep in a cemetery. In fact, the driver said it with such confidence, I believe he had been doing so before. Protest began among the passengers yet we reluctantly followed the driver. The first night was uneventful but the second night was awful. We were hungry, tired and scared. One of the passengers had some foodstuff enough to go round in the afternoon but by night, strange sounds from bellies were enough to scare the living dead. For the first time, I was grateful women love talking. The silent whispers gave me hope we were all alive. One of the men slept off and soon began snoring scaring the little children. I did not know when I woke him up with much annoyance. We would not want to wake the dead with noise, would we? Trees moved like ghosts in shadows and I as a man was scared to my teeth. Mosquitoes did not spare us neither did little ants and I prayed fervently for the dawn. We all stayed awake and at the first light, we scrambled out of the graveyard with so much relief. We had a terrifying encounter and we thought we were going to die. One of us went to ease himself and was coming back to our little group. The first sight of him almost gave me an heart attack. He was wearing a white guniea which much looked like the attire of