Misfortunate (Completed)

Chapter Thirty Five: Labeebah (Bakura)

Hi guys,

How are you all? I'm writing this up here because I'm disappointed. I'll be honest. Over the past at least five chapters, no comment ☹️😭

I wake up, see votes but less than thirteen to twenty comments from less than five people. It's really disappointing I tell you. So please I beg you, comment on this chapter(don't say 'thank you for the chapter' alone). Please. Don't let my effort go to waste.

Thank you in advance, happy reading.

I lift my head to look at the wall around me, now filled with affirmative words and actions phrases. Words like 'You can do it!' 'You're enough!' 'You're going to win!' made me sigh and lean back in the wheel chair I was sitting in.

My therapist, Ms Williams, a beautiful mix of Nigerian and British sat right there in front of me clasping a bound notebook. I wanted to face the wall like I was used to but she had told Kaka, my grandmother, and Kaka asked that the wall be plastered with affirmative words to make me talk.

But today, I was willing to talk. I had seen a video on YouTube on Huda's phone and I could not stop thinking about it. I saw how beaten a woman was and it triggered the pain I felt when I woke. It reminded me of the time I could not even move my neck and how I had so many loved ones around me.

Ma, Kawu, Rabiah, Zainab, now Huda, Kaka, my many cousins, even the head maid, Iyamé. They reminded me everyday that my body fought the battle against death and won with plenty of strength to spare. It pushed me to think of my own life and what I had to with it.

Ms Williams hasn't spoken yet, like she ever speaks to me that much. After exchanging pleasantries, we usually sit there staring at one another till her phone chimes, telling us her time with me is over.

"Hi Labeebah."

The shock I feel doesn't let me tell her how to pronounce my name correctly. I blinked and bit my lower lip, wondering whether to speak or not. I clear my throat instead and find a place of strength and take from there to talk.

"You know, I wonder what could have happened if my aunt and her husband didn't love me so much, if my Ma wasn't there when I was pushed down there or if I'd left so early on when he first gave me a black eye. Maybe I'll not be in this wheel chair." She doesn't speak, she just notes something down in her book.

"Do you think you're at fault?" I think about her question deeply in the first few seconds that followed her question.

"I do not. I also do." She raises a brow at me and leans further into her seat. It's where I'm supposed to be sitting but I like being able to wheel myself away from the room when I don't feel like talking.

"Would you like to expatiate?" I sigh, my eyes going to a frame proclaiming me brave and I chuckle. I really haven't felt brave in such a long time, I've always felt like I lived everyday just walking one day after another, giving no regard for anything asides my dreams. Marriage was like a shackle, my supposed husband a devil, I don't even know what to think about Abdul-Mumin Goje or whatever his real name is.

"I'm at fault because I let myself sit down in pain, in distress and did nothing about it until it came and blew up in my face." She notes another thing down before looking me right in the eyes to ask.

"Why are you not at fault?" She asks. I suspect she knows what I'm about to say but will let me say it's anyways. I take my time, watching her and wondering what would happen if someone hit her beautiful face, her high cheekbones and curly hair, I shake my head to remove the picture from my head and plead for forgiveness.

"I'm not at fault because, wallah, I do not deserve any of the things that happened to me. I'm a victim of someone's inability to get the memo that my mother who was married to her husband is dead and I have no idea what I am." I feel tears running down my cheeks. I swipe at the tears and cover my face with my palms and sob into the comfort of my soft palms.

I finally raised my head and feel a headache coming on, but I haven't finished speaking. "I hate that all these has happened and I cannot be grateful for the fact that I'm alive. On some days when the pain in my back gets so bad, I want to end it all. But I cannot, I think of when I want to be able to walk again and stand again in front of the camera. But it's so hard. So hard."

She does not say a word, staying mute in all of my grief and I'm happy. I've let it all out.

*****

"What are you doing for your birthday?"

I stopped grating the coconut we'd plucked earlier that afternoon to make coconut flakes to put on Kaka's seventy eight year birthday. She said she wanted to go the holy city to sightsee and pray, but since I'm like this, she'd rather we do a small in house celebration at the main house.

"Nothing. I was thinking I'd be able to walk by then, but at the slow rate my physiotherapy is going, I might be in this wheel chair till February. This is November, so we still have months from now." Huda nods and sets the cake knife on the counter, she's done perfecting the butter icing in precise cylindrical covering the chocolate and vanilla cake.

I wheel myself to a cupboard around my sitting height and pull out a baking tray, wheel myself back to the table to line it with baking paper. We're going to toast the coconut gratings and use food glue to make it stick to the cake. Huda was the one who drew the design, I'm only helping out.

"What are you wearing to Kaka's birthday?" I ask her as she concentrates on sprinkling sugar unto the coconut flakes.

"One of my adire boubous. One of those my Malian tailors made a very good embroidery and I'm very excited to wear it." I smile at her enthusiasm. Huda is very enthusiastic about everything. Food, clothes, prayer, family, nearly everything makes her excited and I can only mirror the little experience.

"What are you wearing, Labeebah?" I pull my tongue back into my mouth and wheel to the oven, and put the tray in the oven. She follows me when I go to the tap, nearly getting into my face.

"Don't you dare say you're not going!" She shouts with an exasperated look on her face. I blink in a manner I hope is cute for her to let me be.

"Think of how she risked her life and health to get to you. Going to her birthday is the littlest thing you could do to make her happy." An anger I have no idea where it blossomed from bursts out and I say grumbling, "I didn't ask to be saved. I wish you all had left me for dead. I'm even worse than dead right now so what's the point?"

Her mouth drops open and she walks to my front, her hand coming in the direction of my face so I duck. I've never seen Huda angry.

"You fool!" She pushes her index finger into my shoulder. "You had better be thankful that you have someone who came to get hold of you when you're in trouble. Think of the millions of DV victims who cannot even leave and be grateful for once. You're always moping around, all forlorn and tired of life.

Labeebah Bakura! Be thankful for your goddamned existence, you idiot!"

I'm quiet, she's quiet but the ding of the oven timer breaks the silence and she turns to me again.

"I'm tired of seeing you like this. It's been almost four months, snap out of it. Be strong, be brave, you need to get on with your life. Why are you behaving as though you wish you were really dead and gone?"

****
Do you understand some things now? If anything clouds your mind, please DM me, I'll make a proper explanation.

How are you all by the way? I'm far too tired of FG and ASUU at the moment, I want to go back to school.

See y'all soon. Thank you all so much for twenty thousand reads. God bless you all.

TheOmoope 💙💛