A CURSED BLESSING
It started with early morning sickness, This nausea. Swollen feet and this spittle that never seems to stop. I eat like a maniac and sleep like a log. If all these signs are what I was told all pregnant women experience, then, what I am carrying is both a blessing and a curse.
'Open this door before I shoot it down', the rabid voice roared at our door. My husband has turned to a jelly and I too have my heart in my mouth. I was already peeing in my pant. The shuffling feet outside and the rabid voice at our door scared the living daylight out of us. The banging continued and so is the threat. We didn't know what to expect. The fact that these hordes of hell are at our door can only point to one thing: The doors of the other tenants must have been rounded up. Our room is behind the main building, sitting apart from it at the boy's quarter.
'Open this door, I say. I know you are in there! If I count one to three and you still don't open, I will kill you both.' To make certain his threat, there was a hail of bullets screaming into the silent night. We both collapsed on the floor, dead with fear.
'That is an appetizer', he said with mean laughter. 'The main meal will be served shortly and you know what will happen? The bullets will bore holes into your miserable bodies and you will be dead in no time!
I nudged my husband who is by now sweating in every pores in his body to summon courage and open the door. Manliness is not only when you climb on top of your wife and draw pleasure from her. I whispered his panegyric into his ear to rouse him. It seems to work. He walked listlessly like a dead man. When the door opened, I feared for his life and mine. They hauled him up like a bag of sack and punched him repeatedly till he fainted. Not even my screams could stop these men. They took water from the fridge and emptied it on my husband. He revived and begged, crying like a child. They finally got round to why they had come after a long speech from the ferocious looking leader. They wanted money which we hadn't. My husband lost his job six months ago and we have been surviving from my petty trading.
'I don't have money', my husband pleaded prostrating before the stone hearted men.
They slapped him and ransacked the whole room. We could only come up with a thousand five hundred naira which I was planning to use to stock more wares. The men were embittered that we wasted their time and could only give them that amount for their troubles. The leader swore we were going to pay for it.
I was on the bed naked and pleading. The leader on top of me. Two of the men held me down while two more held my husband to watch the proceeding. I am ashamed to admit that what the leader lacked in appearance, he made up for in bed. I fell in and out of waves of spasmodic pleasures. I cried as well as moaned. I didn't even know when I began calling my husband's name as currents of pleasure travelled all over my body.
'You will abort that evil pregnancy', my husband slammed, a terrible frown on his face and perspiration on his forehead. We have since become enemies in the house. We have been married for seven years without one pregnancy let alone a miscarriage. Now I am pregnant with the seed of a robber. Should I abort this blessing even though it came from a cursed vessel?
A blessing with a curse, you will agree with me. What would you advise? Should she abort the pregnancy or keep it? Thank you for joining me today. You are amazing! Till next time. I am Yours Truly,
Julius Topohozin.
