Chapter Three

THREE

Today I let myself remember. I let my thoughts wander overboard beyond cliffs where I have trained it not to wander. Today I think of my mother.

African she is. She still maintains the heritage and packs up her kinky hair or she braids it. Some days, she combs it and the fullness makes her face appear smaller, younger, Wilder. She also had beautiful dark skin and the body of one even younger than me.

Kent once described me as chocolate smeared with caramel pudding. If he meant that I am the complexion of none but both, then I accept that description.

My hair was formally straightened for a fluid flow with the comb but now it seems to have returned to its natural state. Just as I was once chubby but this past month or months has reshaped me. Yet my face is not wild like my mother's. Many times it has been called innocent with a touch of mischief and that's all.

I do not know if it is that little mischief that forced me to search the cartons in the room. My mouth hung open when I realized that there were weapons inside the stuffed dolls. Some of them, I did not understand but I know a gun when I see one - not a toy gun. A real gun. I also know a pen knife used to carve chickens in pieceful gatherings which is always used to carve higher animals when the need arises.

Yesterday and two days before, it was just water I had. I don't know if it is what my captor understands by change of meal or maybe she is punishing me for the sins she knows I will commit.

Without the strength to protest, I take the can of water each time it is passed and gulp it down while standing. Then I return to the door to aimlessly glare at her as she walks past.

These are all the reasons why I think of my mother. I know my time is near. These days I imagine it too often. I even dream about it. I am yet to determine if she deserves a goodbye.

With her, love was different. I loved her enough to hope no harm comes to her but if she's sick and needs me, I don't think I will go to her. That is one area we are alike; we don't think about others.

People think that slave trade is being in heavy chains in nudity but my mother wears no chain not even a ring and is fully clothed. Yet she's a slave.

I remember the first time I told her Uncle Joel, her boyfriend or whatever their relationship was - was touching me. She looked at me, pleading with her eyes for me not to utter the words so the walls do not hear the abomination. She did not believe it or she forced herself not to believe it. She said I was exhibiting 'infantile jealousy and anger'.

How could it be so? I did not know my father. Uncle Joel's roof was the only shelter I ever had. He was the father I should have had. How could I hate him without a cause?

When I showed her the welts at my back where Uncle Joel slapped his belt before dragging me by the throat back to the bed, she was silent. Later she treated the wounds, dabbing hot water around it.

"Imani, it will be hard for us to survive on our own. We need Joel." She had said.

It was like she was telling me to understand the pain inflicted on me because we were being fed by the man. But she lied. We did not need him. She did.

One of the days, while she lazily stitched Uncle Joel's torn work garment, my thirteen years old body crawled to her. "Tell me who my father is. Let me look for him."

She dropped the garment and stood. " He doesn't want you."

This is all I know about my father; he is the man that doesn't want me. How convenient.

I don't know if there's a life I want but this life that was assigned to me - is bitter. It feels like I have died before to live again with a curse.

I do not want to live. I don't prefer death either. To me, this place I am now is that space in between - not alive, not dead. Just like I am afloat, breathing, seeing everything and doing nothing. Just existing.

From my window I watch others live. A boy has stolen something and has been caught. They're searching him violently to reveal what he stole. I can not hear his screams but I can imagine how he sounds because he knows he will die today.

It is a purse. The boy stole a purse. Someone raises it up to show the crowd and then everyone turns to the boy who is now almost lost in the crowd. With the angry blows, kicks and slaps, soon he's truly lost. Probably coughing his last on the ground.

The woman selling fish and others around continue their business without paying attention to the scene. It must have happened too many times that it now seems to them like it was just a stray fowl being killed with the belief that instant justice was best for theft.

The crowd, having had their fill of violence begins to disperse. One last kick on the boy weakly moving on the ground. I would have advised him to be still if I were close. He was spurting out blood, his formerly blue shirt now repainted with dirt and blood. He stops moving and I also move away from the window.

I place my head on the wall as I relive the past few minutes. There is no chilly wind, no silence to respect a young death. People will walk over him, people will still kick him in death and before dawn tomorrow, his body would be removed and that would be the end.

It is easy to imagine the excitement the boy must have felt when he successfully stole a purse. I have felt that excitement before the times I stole from shops with Kent.

The door knob turns and my captor comes in as usual in a polo too big for her and combat shorts. I retrace my steps to the bed while looking at her. I sit and reach for what I kept under the pillow. Using the bedsheet as an advantage, I brought it close to me.

She slants her head to the side then moves to the window. She stands there for a while looking out. This time, she was not inspecting the bars, she must have been looking at the corpse.

She eyes me as I get to my feet sharply but she remains at the window. Her eyes travel to the cartons and I also follow. I know everything there is still in its place. So I turn my eyes back to her, searching her face.

My mind begins to reset as I stare at her. I am being overtaken by all the anger I have stored inside me and I lunge at her. But like a ricochet, I come back to the ground hard on my butt.

I glare at her, holding my knife tightly. Her stance was relaxed. She flaps her polo and reveals where I slit it then she folds her arms and looks at me like a mother would regard a stubborn child.

I get to my feet in a defensive stance. "Let me go or I will kill you."

She shifts her weight to another leg and I watch her lips also shift into a smirk. She begins to walk towards me regaining her neutral face. I still hold the knife in front of me. It was my defense. My own lifeline.

I lunge at her again but she holds my hand and bends me over wriggling my arm. It is like she wants to disassemble it. My eyes begin to water. I bite my lips refusing to scream, refusing to cry.

She pulls me up with my arms caged in her hands behind me. The pain travels around my body to my lips and they part in a scream. Then I feel my body hitting the wall. Like the defeated, I let my head hang low.

"That's enough for today."

The knife falls to the ground. There's little blood on it and I know it is not mine. I raise my head and watch her walk away leaving the knife behind. She leaves and shuts the door after. The sound of the locks follow.

My arms are in a different level of pain. It stills feels as though one arm has lost its holding to a joint. I try and fail to snap it back in its place. I try to raise it but the excruciating pain makes my teeth grind against my lips. I swallow the pain, I swallow the spit filled with the salty taste of blood.

Caged, alone and without redemption close by, I can say for sure that I can't say what goes on in that woman's head. What was her plan for leaving me in a room with dangerous weapons?

Everything chokes me and the tears are on the verge of spilling but I throw my head up and scream. I scream till my throat is sore then I retreat into my calm.

Being so close to the ground reminds me I am without a purpose, I'm so little, I am irrelevant. Maybe my purpose is to suffer.