Akushika had screamed again, she always emitted a loud cry from a bad dream each night over the past six months. Droplets of sweat rained down from all over her face and hair. Her mother, Maa Vic, extended the far right tip of her cloth to mop up the sweat while consoling her frightened daughter. Maa Vic's breast were left nude and large enough to pillow Akushika' s head. The kerosene in the lantern was running out, so the glow of light was weak and dancing in its glass shield. It cast funny shadows on the blue painted inner walls. Akushika directed her mother's attention to a reflection of an image on the wall which looked like a gliding snake, it was closer the legs of Bentum, her younger brother who was fast asleep. Her mother mastered enough bravery and took a firm grip of whatever item it was. Bentum gained a precipitous awareness and was aghast to find his little penis arrested in the firm prisons of his mother's palms. "But Maa, why would you hold my penis this hard", "it was moving out of your shots slowly like a snake", Bentum had questioned her mum in annoyance and his mum had replied with half shame and half fun. Akushika couldn't help but laugh, her mother joined the laughter and Bentum retired to sleep, he too was heard giggling under cloth. The lantern eventually lost its energy and the room was thrown into total darkness. Maa Vic gently lowered Akushika on her side of the mat and rested her head on the layers of books which served as pillows. "When again the dream comes, say blood of Jesus", Maa Vic had advised her first child and only daughter. Akushika nodded in affirmation and closed her eyes to sleep again. Maa Vic also rolled down the mat where she had cushioned it up with some cleaned empty flour sacs.
She lied backward down and facing the ceiling. She didn't blink an eye, she thought deeply about how sadly her husband had died on the streets of Accra while selling car dusters in traffic jams. She also missed, the numerous lies her husband, Jojoe, told her about the big city; the beautiful girls who drove heavy cars, the flying of aeroplanes over high rising structures, the young girls who sold sex for ghc3 and the kinds of Akushika who wore suits and worked in air conditioned offices, all these she thought was her husband's clever ways to lure her into following him to Accra, while it remained very impossible for her to leave her aged mother in the village alone.
The aurora broke through the little window into the room and the rays of heaven were brightly shedding the influence of day on them. Bentum threw his right hand widely across the room and it safely landed on the plateau of his mother's breast, which prompted her to an awkward awakening. "Ah who was that, why that slap? ", Bentum fetched his hand back and while yawning and stretching, said "I heard your breast snoring and I slapped it ", Maa Vic got a little angry in her response "foolish boy, have you heard a snoring breast before", the boy was eleven years old without a father, he was getting wiser quicker than usual, so he retorted "when did snakes learn to glide by nodding their heads" Akushika who was all this while lying down and watching the exchanges, questioned her brother to explain what that had got to do with the heavy slap he had given their mother. Bentum pretended not to have heard her and headed for the door, his mother who was changing into her working gears behind the door, denied him exit until he had answered his sister. When he knew matters weren't looking any funny any more, he said "didn't you arrest my penis which was obviously hard and nodding in the name of a snake, which snake moved with the head or lived in shorts"?. The trio burst into laughter again and the morning broke.
Akushika had started her usual chores of sweeping the big yard, she wore a faded cream coloured night-robe. It was a birthday gift from her father when she turned seven, it was the last gift she received from her dad before his demise, she always reminded Bentum of a lovely father he never got to know. She told Bentum almost everyday about the one Christmas she spent in Accra with their Dad alone. "Dad always carried me on his neck in the oxford street and showed me beautiful young girls who wore suits, worked in airconditioned offices and drove smart cars", she always repeated this statement, so many times that Bentum sometimes would end it before she completed her story. While she swept past the door of Abrewa Drowaa, her grand mother, she heard the blind old woman call her name in her dying voice. "Aku,Aku..", she ran quickly into her room to respond to the call. "Abrewa am here, how are you today"?, Aku had inquired but the old lady's face was so full of smiles which spoke contrary to her condition. She was only getting Aku the more confused, she threw her hands to reach for Aku but it missed and Aku caught it half way before it fell apart. "Abrewa what is it, you are scaring me this morning with your fulminant smiles", the old woman gave her a pat on the shoulder and said "I smell blood on you, you have seen the sun, you are finally a woman", Aku took a quick excursion around herself and truly she saw that the back of her dress blood stained. She quickly ran to her mum in the kitchen, screaming and crying for help, "Maa am bleeding, am bleeding", she held the stained dress and showed it to her mother. She had expected her to commiserate with her but her mother, just like Abrewa Drowaa, smiled and embraced her, she placed her mouth closer to the ears of Aku and said "you are now a woman, you shall see blood every month flow from your kaka, it means when you meet a man in bed, you will get pregnant", the mention of pregnancy hoicked Aku from her mother. She opened her mouth wide and her eyes twice as wider. "Aaah Maa then Bentum won't sleep on my mat again oo", Maa Vic gave a quick laughter and called out her mother, "Abrewa Drowaa, come and listen to your grand daughter ooo ooo".Aku felt nescient, she queried herself about what she just said. She didn't find any amusement in that and wondered why her mother couldn't keep her laughs. The old woman had entered the yard by the guidance of her walking stick and was also laughing even when she had not heard the comment. She laughed herself down the clay floor when Maa Vic finally met her with Aku' s decision not to sleep with Bentum because she feared pregnancy.
Abrewa Drowaa took Aku to a long lecture on menstruation and the menstrual cycle.
Akushika then drew a bucket of water from the well beneath the mango tree at the south side of the compound. The yard consisted of four brick structures, the first, which shared boundary with the main gate was the room for Abrewa Drowaa, she had chosen that particular room for peculiar reasons. Opposite that of Abrewa, on the west, was the kitchen, on the north was the room for Maa Vic and her children. The small room, near the well on the south, was almost always close tyled against all except Abrewaa Drowaa, who entered but once in every quarter of the year. She said it was their sacred and safe repository of all the hidden mysteries and secrets of their ancestors. Her husband, while he lived, was the grand shriner for the village and that particular room was his shrine, he cautioned Abrewa against the attacks of the insidious and advised she kept that room for safe rescue if the future caught up with her. Abrewa entered her room and dug deep into her antediluvian bag of archaic artifacts. She could identify them by rubbing her hands over them. Before Aku had finished bathing, her grand mother had gathered some items in the middle of the yard for a short ritual.
Aku was clothed in white gown, she was seated on the flat surface of a mortar, with a palm frond in her mouth. Abrewa prepared some black concoction in a calabash, while Maa Vic cooked a white egg laid by a duck. Bentum had been sent away from home, to fetch some firewood from the bush.
Abrewa came closer Aku and sat directly opposite her such that they both could communicate in undertones. It was still morning and the sun was high in the sky, cocks were best at crowing and hens couldn't run around to avoid under one minute affairs with cocks on heat. When Maa Vic brought the egg, she placed it in the right hand of Abrewa. "Aku, close your eyes and open wide your mouth", Abrewa instructed and Aku obeyed, she placed the egg in Aku's mouth and ordered that she swallowed the egg wholly without biting into it, for if she did, she chewed her own future children. Aku did her best in swallowing the egg painfully and her mother couldn't hide her joy at the fullness of her daughter's womanhood. Abrewa dunked her two index fingers in the calabash, picked a sample of the semi liquid black content and painted the face of Aku with it. She empowered Aku with some traditional trance 'You have today joined the many women who die every month and ressurrect a week after, you have learned the intricate windings of the waist of a mortar, you can now eat banana and bring forth plantain,.....' and on and on it went.
Abrewa Drowaa got up abruptly and grabed firmly the right hand of Aku and said "my grand daughter, rise, for today, red means go, go go go and go, go to the world and live ideally, for when this transitory life shall have passed away, you shall descend into earth without regret". Aku got up and was fully empowered, she wore smiles and thoughts played hide and seeks in her head.
Aku after some weeks, decided to move to the city. She could remember her father's words clearly "when you become a woman, you can always wear suits, work in air conditioned offices and drive smart cars in Accra." Aku was a woman now and was going to the city to have her fair share of the city life. She had been shown the red card which by her grand mother meant go, and so she was going and nothing would stop her. Not even her mother's tears would take her from her fate, she thought.
Stay tuned for episode 2.
Kweku Atta Crayon
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