It was a breezy Sunday afternoon.
Comfort has just finished spreading the clothes
she washed on the line in front of their compound
when her elder sister came out carrying her bags.
The weekend visit was over and she was set to
return to her husband's house. It was often that
she visited on weekends.
'Aunty, are you leaving?’ Comfort asked her elder
sister.
‘Yes, my dear,’ Aunty replied.
But today she didn't just give a little wave, say
bye-bye and then walk off as usual.
Today she asked comfort a question that excited
her.
'Do you want to follow me?’ Aunty asked her
younger sister.
Before she could blink, Comfort had run into the
house to change.
As if to be sure Aunty did not suddenly change her
mind because she was taking too long, she ran
out and finished tying her scarf outside.
Her precious blue scarf.
Done dressing, she lifted one of Aunty’s bags onto
her head and the two sisters left for Okwoyi that
afternoon, where Aunty lived with her husband.
When Mama and Papa returned and discovered
that Comfort had followed Aunty to Okwoyi again,
Mama cursed at her.
‘This girl doesn’t hear,’ she said to Papa. ‘She has
gone to Okwoyi again, hasn’t she?’
Papa said nothing and just walked inside.
At Okwoyi, Comfort finished eating the biscuits and
juice Aunty offered her.
She washed the dirty plates in the kitchen and
helped Aunty wash a few wrappers before
preparing to leave.
‘Must you go now?’ Aunty asked her.
Comfort indicated the sky. ‘Aunty, the rain is
coming. I have to go and pack the clothes I
washed.’
‘Leave them, Mama will pack them.’
‘What if they are not back yet?’
On this note, Aunty conceded with a nod. ‘You can
go and take one packet of biscuits from the fridge,’
she said.
Excitedly, Comfort ran back in and took one pack
of Short Bread from the fridge.
Aunty bade farewell to her.
The evening was cool with the sign of rain. Birds
chirped noisily from the bush bordering the narrow
path to Iyienyi.
Comfort was trekking back home. The path was as
lonely as always.
Unaware of the evil lurking in the bush, she sang a
known tune and walked on.
He jumped out on her from nowhere. He blocked
her.
She glared at him. She recognized him.
Nwogu.
She knew him from the times he made passes at
her, mostly playfully, calling her ‘my wife’ and
things of sort.
Comfort never took it serious. She was only 15
and he would be nothing less than 40.
He was only playing, she’d always thought.
‘Uncle Nwogu, what is it?’ she asked him. ‘You
scared me.’
He put one finger to his mouth. ‘Shhh! Don’t make
noise.’
Comfort did not understand. What she saw in his
eyes—a flaming sick desire—terrified her.
She stepped back, wanting to scream.
But he grabbed her the same instant, holding her
lips shut with one palm.
That was when his friends jumped out of the bush
too. Comfort did not know he hadn’t come alone.
Together, they carried her into the bush.
She struggled and struggled on them, but what
chance can a frail teen girl stand against three
able-bodied men?
It was raining now.
Deep in the bush, they dropped her in the mud and
one by one they had their way with her.
A 15-year-old girl with no prior knowledge of men
before.
After they'd revelled in the sinful pleasure and their
twisted desires had been quenched, they zipped
up and disappeared into the night.
Comfort was in the mud, writhing in pain, her laps
stained all over with her innocent blood.
Because she saw him, knew him, his name did not
leave her lips. She muttered it as she staggered
back to Aunty’s house.
In front of the house, she dropped to the soil.
Aunt was screaming, cursing and crying. 'Nwogu, it
shall never be well with you! Nwogu, for doing this
to my small sister, you will not die well. You will
rot in hell!
But Aunty’s husband was more a man of action.
He strode off into the dark in search of the animal
that had defiled his teenage sister-in-law.
But he knew. The animal knew many would come
for him so deeper and deeper into the dark he ran,
pursued by shrieking shadows of his iniquity.
Nobody knew his whereabouts. Nobody saw him.
When Mama heard, she was devastated. She was
furious.
She was heartbroken.
She was in pain.
But mama did something wrong.
Mama vented her anger in the wrong way. She
scolded a traumatized girl.
A 15-year-old girl still living the horror of a cold-
blooded encounter.
A shattered soul.
'What is wrong with you?’ Mama's voice was high.
‘Have I not told you to stop going to Okwoyi
before? Answer me, have I not?’
Comfort continued to cry.
‘Now that three men has raped you, if you get
pregnant, who will be the father? Answer me!’
Mama's rebuking did more harm than good.
The next morning, Comfort did not come out for
the usual morning devotion.
It was only after the prayers that they saw.
Comfort’s lifeless body was dangling from the
guava tree at the back of the compound.
She had used her precious blue scarf.
Source - DNBSTORIES
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