Blog Feature:The Monster within

“…Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me, all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever and ever…. Am…”
Wham!!
The other half of her ‘Amen’ was yanked away as quickly as it was to pronounce the word. Eve’s face had risen to meet a slap that was as resounding as Adam’s deep-throathed voice saying “I Do”, on the altar.

A monster was definitely growing within him. He was no longer the sweet young man Eve used to know, he was lucifer, he was the serpent that didn’t curl up on the tree of good and evil because the tree grew in his heart. He had been bewitched by his circumstances and now, the world had to pay for his shortcomings!
Eve went sprawling to the floor as she held her left cheek in horror… The world tumbled before her eyes as her already scattered thoughts settled back on her mind, drop after drop.
“You little witch!!” he yelled, exposing angry veins. The veins had their own faces and different reasons for peeping through the mortal dress that surrounded his neck.
“You will not succeed in making me an object of ridicule!!” he yelled again, giving little or no information as to why the blow was struck. The veins scurried forward to see if she had been hit again, but retreated when they realised he was only yelling.
“What are you talking about? What did I do wrong darl…”
PAM!!
Yet another heavy blow on the poor lower mortal…
“Don’t you DARE darling me!” the words rolled out of his mouth like dice on a gambling floor. His eyes burned with deep anger and his whole body shook to the rhythmn of an unknown frenzy-influenced beat. Beads of sweat broke from his brows as he launched forward to give her the kick of her life.
Eve gritted under the pain of the kicks and blows; they landed everywhere. Her tightly shut eyes eased a pageantry of coloured shapes and figures that tried to define her physical pain.
She gathered her emotions up behind her lungs and painfully waited for it to build up. Adam didn’t stop throwing heavy punches that met with her succulent body and delicate bones.
“What did I do wrong???” she screamed with all the remaining strength left in her.
“What?!” she screamed, collapsing from a futile attempt to stand up.
“You prostitute! You whore! You miserable little witch!!” he retorted, with each phrase accompanied by a kick.
“How dare you?” Again, there was no information in his miniature phrases.
She tried to make sense of everything he said in her weariness but she failed.
‘Whore’ was the word that caught her attention. How could he have called her a whore? She had never slept with any other man apart from her husband, she was faithful and loyal. Why would he even think of her as a whore?!
“How many abortions have you had?” he asked
“Answer me! How many freaking abortions have you had?” this time he asked with a cruel blow.
She said nothing…
Tears molded a lump in her throat, threatening to fall. Eve had never known any other man except her husband, even though she was well aware of his many flings and the times he slept with his secretary. She stared hard at him, baffled by the noxious attitude of cruelty he blinked out through his crow’s foot.
“I have never had an abor…” she coughed in distress and pain, interjecting her own sentence.
“Don’t you dare lie to me!!” he barked
“Why then do you have a damaged womb? Did your fellow witches destroy it for you so that I can be laughed at?” he asked in the most inconsiderate manner
“Who says I have a dama…” she choked on her own tears. They were hard to swallow completely, so she swallowed them in batches. The tears stole out of her tired eyes and slid down her already red cheeks. They cried their own selves out, they lacked expression; they were caught up in their own middle passage- coming from nowhere and heading nowhere.
She needed a saviour immediately, someone who would sneak her out of her own existence and land her in a dream world full of marshmallows. She longed for utopia…
“I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t suggested we ran the tests on ourselves” he said… Not getting closer to revealing the reason she was plunged into the realm of physical pain soon after saying her prayers.
“Can you see the results?” he walked to his suitcase and flung it open. It yawned open quickly, with the attitude of someone who just dodged a blow. He brought out five pieces of paper and dumped them on her chest like a football player will do a ball in front of a free post. She made an attempt to pick it up but her hands were stiff from all the beating.
He picked them up and one after the other and showed them to her.
“You are an embarassment to womanhood!!” he declared, slapping her on the face with the papers.
That was it… She was finished without having started anything. She had a damaged womb without an abortion.
“Ah! My village people” she thought to herself.
She was sure those people had been on her case right since day 1; to her, they never allow young couples have peace of mind- it’s a totally different case when you are young and then, rich.
Eve blinked away the new tears and tried to wrap her spinning brain around the evidence of her doom. Adam paced up and down like an angered tiger; he was clearly infuriated by the whole situation and was warming up for the next bout with his helpless wife who had now slumped further into Amalek, where she was to be destroyed by Ahab.
The room bore a certain kind of emptiness, not the kind that lacked adults or children or even properties, but, the kind of emptiness that indicates the absence of joy…and peace. The windows were shut and the curtains were drawn against the grey walls to allow nothing in particular in. The settee sat round a part of the room as though tired of the scene; only gentle, deep and painful sobs were heard mixed with the pantings of a grown man.
The ground felt harder beneath Eve’s body, her breath eased out slowly; she had been beaten black and blue and lied against, she had been hurt both physically and emotionally.
She sucked in quick short breaths of air and sent forth tears in exchange. Her whole life played again before her face, her life of pain, pains and half-joy.
“Do you take Adam Oke as your lawfully wedded husb…” she thought
Those miserable words ‘I do’, those vain… those useless… awkward excuses!! She thought tightly shutting her eyes, not knowing if she was still on earth or in heaven…or perhaps hell, for aborting without knowing.
“Do you take Eve Popoola as your lawfully wedded wi…”
“Damn!” Adam exclaimed from where he stood, shaking off any appearance of sanity from his being.
He could have known that he was marrying someone who had No goddamn womb! Two of his friend got married after him and they both had two kids each…already!
There was a moment of silence… Eve stopped sobbing and started writhing in pain, Adam looked away, refusing to be moved, as the thoughts continued to dance around in their heads. The deceptive smiles of the wedding day- the mask that covered all the masquerades within, the false dance, the handcuffs…. and then the cutting of the deadliest poison.
The sound of Adam’s phone intercepted the already muscular thoughts as it deflated into nothingness.
“Yes?” he said, trying to sound as though all was well with him
“Ehen? Why” he said again. Eve tried to figure what the topic of the conversation was but she couldn’t.
“I don’t need any lecture, I will handle it in my own way” he said, this time, trying to give an illusion of maturity.
“ok-ok, i’ll be there in 5mins” he said as he hung up on the caller.
He walked towards the woman he once proudly called his wife, picked up the strewn pieces of paper and left the room with the expression of one who had just been forced to swallow a mouthful of strychnine
Minutes later, he was in the hospital, heads bowed, and a face that explored only the bitterness of mortality. The doctor patted his shoulder and tried to calm him down.
“Be a man and do what’s right Adam, it’s not the end of the world” the doctor consoled.
“No… No!! Eve, No!!” he said almost absent-mindedly
“I beg your par…” the doctor said as the rest of the sentence was suspended out of shock.
Adam left with the speed of light such that the only movement seen was that of the swinging door which displayed a happy dance after him. The journey towards home was a sad sober and regretful one.
He flung the door open and walked slowly towards his mess… She had stopped wriggling, she had stopped crying… In fact, she had stopped living! She lay there in her sweet repose, unaffected by the present miseries of life.
He let go of the papers in his hand and flung his arms around her as if to cover his guilt. He shook even more strength away from her body, shook away the existence of her dead body… Shook and shook away into nothingness. She was dead and gone, the deed had been done.
A garment of murder draped over his mental being and the garment was his perfect size. He had seized her breath and now he was the one guilty… She was perfect and he was the problem. She had died for another woman’s sins.
With a lighter in one hand a bin of burning papers on his side, Eve on the other side, and his rolled up test result in between his fingers, he lit the end of the paper and watched his impotence burn, letter after letter.

This piece is written by Moyosola. She is the owner of http://erranticjournal.wordpress.com
As a new blogger, I realize how much of a commitment blogging is, and it is always a pleasure to feature works of other bloggers