by Oyakhire Russel
She was pointing at the floor with a frown across her face. She looked so furious this time that I thought she would pour the bowl of hot water in her right hand on me but she didn’t. She put down the bowl and picked me up from the mess I had made by my ear ‘This child why? Why? Look at what you have done every time you cause trouble for me and your father…you are my only child but you cause us more trouble than 10 children put together.’ She pulls open the cupboard and I immediately knew what she was reaching for. I won’t allow her flog me this time I am a big boy now at age 15 I looked quite big for my age, which is why I could easily take Ore’s groundnut and Banana that his mother packs for him as lunch every Thursday for school and he dare not report me to Principal Ibekwe.
Not thinking, I held mama’s hands and forced my ear out of it, the surprise in her eyes was evident ‘Francis Ezeama, you dare raise your and against your mother!’ she retrieves the stick from the cupboard, adjusts her wrapper and faces me with a resolve in her face that I had seem many times before…she was determined to beat the devil out of me, at least that was her own point of view. I am a big boy now I wouldn’t take that and if she tries to tell daddy I will run away. She swings the stick in all directions at me At first I tried to block but suddenly the rage welled up within me like before and I swear I didn’t know when I seized the stick from my mother’s hand and retaliated by wiping her with it. Mid-way my wiping fiasco did I come to my senses. ‘I am finished when papa realises what I had done, this by far exceeds all the terrible things I had done.'
Mama is the corner of the room covering her face, she doesn’t fight back and for a minute I catch a glimpse of her eyes, she was afraid of me; afraid of her own son. That look cut me like a knife and I burst out of the house through the back door in the kitchen. I ran through the town, and ran right into the forest; I didn’t look up or care where I was going, all i wanted to do was to get away from the haunting look I saw in my mother’s eyes.
I didn’t see it coming, but in a flash I ran into something fury and big and we tumbled down into a burrow deep within the forest ground, it was dark and murky and suddenly all the tales of the terrible spirits and animals that lurked within the forest played in my mind. Standing to my feet I looked around, 'what had hit me like that?' Before me lay a large beast, it had hit the ground hard and passed out whilst I had been fortunate to have fallen on-top its fury body which cushioned my fall else I would have been dead. But looking at the creature it was nothing like I had ever seen, it had horns like a ram with the head of an Ox but wasn’t bent on all fours but stretched out like the form of a man. I looked at it closely as it breathed heavily, and a scream escaped my breath. Suddenly its eyes opened and it jumped and with a mighty growl it snarled at me, and fume burst out from its mouth and nostrils.
I nearly fainted and looking at it, it stood over me like a giant even though I am pretty tall for my age at 6.1 feet.
I screamed with all my strength and it reeled back in fear, it looked like it was confused/afraid but I wasn’t sure. I mean this is a beast, how could it be afraid of a mere human like me. But I was wrong as a dark shadow crept up behind me and I knew that I wasn’t alone, was there someone or something much more terrible?
TO BE CONTINUED
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