I remember that day; a day something like right now, dry, hot and dusty. It might have been February, I am not too sure, but it was February or March. Burning up, I won’t ever forget. A day that birthed my experiences of early morning sickness and insanity.

That very day, my uncle came into my room. I was not ready for the usual weekend fatherly advice. I smiled when I saw him put his hand into his pocket. I thought it was a cheque coming out. Alas! My nose was covered with a wet handkerchief. I felt dizzy by the sweet smell of the wet handkerchief. It smelled like chloroform.

Still in my semi-conscious state, he carried me in his arms through a thick bush path.

Then we were in a red room with many carved wooden objects on the walls and floor.

An elderly man walked in wearing a robe that made him look like a “Reverend fadaa” except that his was red and styled just like a babalawo in Yoruba movies. I was so wrong to have thought ears were better than eyes. What my ears heard were as bad as what my eyes saw, Or even worse. I heard words like sacrifice, riches, sex nympho, virgin…It became clearer when the priest said that the etutuwas complete and that my uncle could pound me whenever he wanted, and that I would even beg for more. It was then I realised I had already started touching my body sensually.

Rosco was so nice; he stopped to pick me up. How I got to the roadside, only my legs could tell, where I got the strength to escape I still don’t know. He carried me into his empty danfo. He told me he had a good hire to Badagry and was in good mood. I was about to narrate what had happened to me, when I started touching myself and his big thing.  He parked his bus and pounded me, hurrily. Right from that very moment, everyone saw me as a mad woman. He must have thought I pretended.

I have seen so many things, I have seen my uncle, who cast a spell on me with the dark powder he poured into my eyes and the chloroform he choked me with, drop from one of those moving charcoal houses. I have had to find shelter for myself in this same place I now call my house, after Rosco’s friends kicked my stomach when I slept in another danfo, one of the nights Rosco didn’t come here early. If only they knew they had destroyed what Rosco’s frequent poundings had put in my stomach.

The pain I felt was far worse than what I felt when Rosco broke my hymen, the other day.

Now I am worried about this thing growing in my stomach which reminds me of ,the past, betrayal and discrimination by people. Isn’t the society ill? Or am I really as insane..?