She walked along, bare-footed and the angry women that escorted her chanted a melancholic song.
She was not crying but tears that rolled down her cheeks dripped on her upper chest and were absorbed into the white wrapper tied around her body from chest to knee.
She admitted silently and blamed herself non-stop. But she knew it was all a mistake. She didn’t mean to send him to eternal life.
He was a very good husband and she loved him so much. She didn’t know what came over her. They were living happily before the terrible day.
It was a relatively dark day.
He had prepared for work as usual and was about leaving without giving her the normal allowance for the day’s meals.
She had a tender baby and was not prepared to starve until the evening when he would be back.
How was she going to feed herself and the baby the whole day?
He said he didn’t have any money on him but promised to come back to give her some money but she failed to understand.
They had a misunderstanding and she lost it when he shouted at her to behave herself that moment.
She hated it when he raised his voice at her especially when she was supposed to be apologised to.
She held him by his pant’s waist and they waited.
He warned her to leave him but she was adamant.
Then he did something he never ever wanted to do in his entire life. He laid a hand on her cheek and afterwards went on his knees to apologise. But the demon had already entered her and she turned into a ‘crazy’ lunatic.
She ran into the kitchen and he waited not knowing what she planned to do.
He saw her approaching very fast with a pestle and began to grin not knowing what she meant to do with it.
Then he realized it and ran.
But he couldn’t make it out before collapsing on the floor.
That was when the demon left and she laid herself on him and cried hell on earth.
Her scream alerted the neighbours and they all gathered to help him.
But nothing could be done to save him.
He was gone.
People asked questions they already knew answers to, what she did to him was there before them and the stained evidence lay by his side. She could not speak again. She went numb and distant, looked on but didn’t speak.
Her normal psychological state had been tampered with by her deed and when kinsmen summoned her for an answer to the question they already knew answers to, she couldn’t talk and throughout the funeral, she didn’t open her mouth to talk to anyone. No smiles, no cries, no expression, just there. Like someone very far away.
In those days culture demanded that if someone died by another’s hand, the culprit must be sent away to a faraway place never to return and that’s exactly her fate.
After the funeral, they led her out of her husbands compound, into the community for the pre-exile parade.
Sympathisers pleaded on her behalf and said the deed was out of mistake but the tradition could not be held back.
They paraded her along the community major roads with tender palm frond secured around her waist as a sign she had been exiled. She would never be allowed by anyone even family members to set foot upon the land again.
She didn’t care about what they were doing to her because she ceased to exist the moment she realized her love passed away by her hand.
All she wanted was to go back in time and undo her evil deed.
Fiezwrite 