“WHOSE STONE IS THAT?’’ Adoyo asked, her hoarse, troubled voice conveying the frustration she was suffering in trying to cope with frenzied roommates. She wriggled in bitterness, complaining about perpetual damages caused to the roof of her late mother’s grass thatched kitchen, used by maidens from the entire Nyakonja village as their sleeping place, a safe haven for illicit deals with lovers.
Interfering with her peers’ private lives was none of Adoyo’s business, but their wishy-washy relationships were violating her right to peaceful sleep. She especially could not stomach the thought of modern boys, living in a civilized world, opting for the retrogressive habit of throwing stones at the roof as a way of communicating to their girlfriends. She spoke her mind out aloud.
“Look for yours!” Akelo, rising from the mattress to respond to the call said in reaction to Adoyo’s complaints. She got out of the kitchen, leaving the door ajar.
Apisy, the youngest of the bevy of beauties lying on the mattress, sprang up. She jumped over the others, almost stepping on Adoyo’s head, pushed the door shut and went to the window, craned her neck and peeped through a slit to take a glimpse of Akelo and her man who were now swapping courtesies and words of love in the banana grove behind the kitchen.
“Choke!’’ Apisy exclaimed. “It’s her luminous boyfriend from Alara!”
“Your agemates are asleep!” admonished Amami, Adoyo’s cousin, a great player in the love deals.
Apisy stopped it but remained there. Banana leaves rippled in the soft wind as the couple vanished in the inky darkness of the night, leaving an atmosphere of calm in the surrounding.
The village girls hustled around as the sun sank deeper, courtesy of irresponsible male partners offering short lived, withered romantic relationships. The young men, who were free of parental responsibilities and long-term engagements, hooked up with them, giving big empty promises and whispering sweet nothing to their ears. And the village bimbo is bound to succumb, to every such rabbit endowed with the ego of an elephant.
The high sound of baying dogs across the village was like a farewell message to Akelo and her hunter, wishing the rest a peaceful night.
Adoyo had become the village punching bag. She was on the receiving end of all critics. Hate speeches and threats were directed towards her. However, she stuck to her guns.
She maintained a high level of moral demeanour that placed her at the helm of regulating peoples’ behaviour. Her dad, Akondo, the right man to approach on issues pertaining to maintenance of family’s social fabric and property, was too engrossed in another new relationship to concentrate on family matters. After all, his children were grown-ups and didn’t need his support.
The sons had gone to the urban centers to work for a living, while his daughters were well settled with their hubbies in their respective matrimonial homes. Sadly though, Akondo had lost four of his children. Adoyo, his last-born daughter, now in her early twenties, remained the only biological child around him.
Akondo argued that when the suckers of a banana plant sprout and bear fruits, there is no problem if the main plant itself is cut away. These then provide enough resources to feed the community. He preached such arguments to defend his life choices. He highly cherished life with Akuom, a widow to his cousin. Adoyo abhorred her father’s way of reasoning. She regretted her mother’s death.
Apart from the frail couple, Akondo and Akuom that developed a romantic relationship in their sunset years, other couples although younger, shrank their life expectancy by engaging in irresponsible sexual behaviour backed by the culture of widow inheritance at a time when the deadly HIV infections intensified, converting the young blood into overnight octogenarians. Couples that defied the use of HIV drugs and other approved precautions, both old and young were equally involved in the sunset honeymoon, a romantic relationship enjoyed by the graveside, expecting the axe of death to cut them down any time sooner as a result of HIV related infections or age for grannies who re-married in their sunset years, relationships celebrated with burial gowns in the name of wedding gowns.
Read more; www.elishaotienobooks.wordpress.com
www.readinglist.click/African
Face book; Elisha Otieno
Twitter; @ElishaAriba
Buy; www.amazon.com
www.kindle.com
www.aribabp.com
Realistic Fiction
Likes
1034 Views
Share: