They expected her to cry, to fill the room with her tears. She wanted to scream and dance in jubilation instead.
Cry! Cry! Cry! The words rang in her head. They were written on the faces of the small group that had gathered in her flat since last night.
Death.
They expected her to cry, to fill the room with her tears. She wanted to scream and dance in jubilation instead. Who would have thought that she would find life in that mystery called death. Staring blankly at the women, she recalled her first encounter with death.
That was 20 years ago when it struck her middle-aged father. It came in form of an ugly disease that paralysed one side of his body. Then it snatched her mother's sanity. She was 18 when she witnessed her mother's suicide. Her next encounter was when it made him push her down the stairs. She lost her small bump in that accident.
For years, she lived with a man whose love had waxed cold, who turned her beauty to ashes and made her pay for his inadequacies. There was a time he sang love songs to her. In retrospect, the songs were a trick to reap her innocence. Now he's resting in pieces.
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Wailing.
The women started singing a song and the loud wails began. But to her, they were beautiful songs of freedom. Songs to a new beginning. A love ballad to her caged soul. No more waiting for him to die. He is gone forever.
A stinging slap from her mother-in-law, Ifeoma jolted her out of her reverie.
"You have to snap out of this shock. I hope you didn't inherit your mother's mental illness."
Giving Ifeoma the sweetest smile she could bolster, she stood up.
"Where are you going?"
She didn't answer as she walked away, aware of the 24 pair of eyes watching her, asking questions that would never be answered for they found her lifeless body dangling from the ceiling in her bedroom thirty minutes later.
Written by Vay Sylver.
Vay is a journalist and a writer. Nothing excites her more than great stories that inspire and capture the heart. She believes that the art of storytelling is life itself. She is also a feisty lover of arts, culture and lifestyle.