‘Where were you last night?’ he scowled. His voice trailed me down to the kitchen. ‘At the hospital’ I replied looking away from the pitiful sight of him that called himself my husband.
‘What do you mean?’ His vicious eyes found mine from the purple rays of dawn filtering into the kitchen that early morning. A second look at him confirmed my fears. Adamou had come home drunk yesterday and had slept on the couch again. Since he lost his job at N.N.P.C, he had turned a psychopath. He slouched across to where I was, his eyes bloodshot.
‘Where have you been?’ He asked again. ‘Adamou, where should a nurse be coming from at this hour? I looked him in the eyes angry. Night shift had been so hectic and I was tired. I did not see him coming till he dealt me a hot swipe and thunder kissed lightning.
I dropped to my knees in reflex and grabbed his feet. I brought him down in a sec drawing the anger from the pit of my stomach. I descended on him with all the barrage of vengeance. From my shoes to my nails, my teeth had a swell feast on his flesh. I did not leave him till he bled, groaning in pains on the floor.
Somehow posterity had been fair enough to pay Adamou, even in my life time. Thanks to the club of young women I joined recently who called themselves ‘Esan’ a Yoruba word for vengeance. They had not only helped me regain self confidence, they had also taught me basic defence techniques to defend myself in case a fight erupted.
Looking at Adamou on the floor and all I could do was spite him, even the more for all he had done to me. For all the times he had had me locked up in the room with no food or water. For all the nights, he raped me, poured water on me before he had me beaten up. The horrendous torture clutched my throat and almost suffocated me. I kicked him hard in the groin and watched him wince in pain with joy. Enough of your cry! I screamed. ‘You taught me ruthlessness’. My lips parted slightly, joy bursting my seams.
‘Joy! Joy!!’ His voice rang. I jolted out of my reverie on the floor to the seemingly unanswerable question, ‘where were you last night?’
Well done, but domestic violence is now quite stale.
Kaycee…domestic violence can never be stale. It happens everyday to our daughters, sisters and mothers and even to us as men. We allneed to come together and fight it to stand still,let’s go NAKED.
@Kaycee…domestic violence can never be stale. It happens everyday to our daughters, sisters and mothers and even to us as men. We allneed to come together and fight it to stand still,let’s go NAKED.
@pexxy
Lol
You want to talk to me about DV? No!
Hehehehehe…pele!
Well written.
@Electrika…pele is never enough,let’s stand up, the time is now to go NAKED.
Quiet the tori. And to think the woman was on the floor dreaming evils thoughts… well done ma’m really a cool write. :d
@Daireen..let us stand2gether gainst domestic abuse once and4all…NAKED is the answer.
What’s naked? I’m just seeing this :$
How short can a story get?
This read like a cadaver …..you know, when you look right into it, not finding the innards and the many different organs.
What happened to this story? You better confess!!!
Damn too short and with gaping holes in it for us to fill ourselves….
You do strike right to the point @pexxy , don’t you?
And “going NAKED”. Hmn… that’s something I’ll have to brood upon. Requires serious consideration.
Check out 4 the use of thought for taught in the penultimate paragraph.
Good Job.
@Kaycee,datz a joke rite?
@purple,@pexy. It is no joke. Isn’t there something else to write about? This is an exact example of the single story syndrome. Domestic violence, Biafra, poverty and corruption are not the only things happening in Africa. The theme has been over flogged.
And this story didn’t even bring a new angle to the matter. It would not interest most people.
I liked this, especially the fresh use of some verbs, like slouched across, but there was some overwriting and some punctuation was missing.
@Kaycee, DV can never be stale.
@Myne…tanx, I wuld look into it.@Kaycee, bros DV can never be stale…Idon’t know if there wuld ever be an avenue2talk2u.
What is all this talk about going NAKED? I really wont mind all the women around me going NAKED
@Kaycee…I need men like u NAKED. DV is a ravaging plague that has been completely swept under the carpet. Is she the only one her husband beats? Why must she always carry on a gloomy look like the world has come to an end? Was I there when she said I do?….But I’m sure u would be there when it’s over in silence forever more….Get NAKED.
Ha!
What is this NAKED of a thing you keep keeping on about?!
Some movement or what?
“I dropped to my knees in reflex and grabbed his feet. I brought him down in a sec drawing the anger from the pit of my stomach. I descended on him with all the barrage of vengeance. From my shoes to my nails, my teeth had a swell feast on his flesh. I did not leave him till he bled, groaning in pains on the floor.”
This paragraph was not well constructed, so the reading did not flow. For me anyways.
You use abbreviations like ‘sec’ in informal language. If its going to appear in literary work, it should be within characters’ dialogue or conversation, not within the narration. I think.
‘descended on him with all the barrage of vengeance’ I think ‘a’ would have served better than ‘all the’ qualifying ‘barrage’ in there.
‘From my teeth…’ that ‘From’ does not need to be there – and if it will, you should have tied your ‘teeth’ in with ‘and’ and not a comma – and then tie it all together with ‘all’.
And then, I think ‘I did not leave him till he was bleeding and groaning in pain on the floor’ would have served better than what you have there.
Nice.
I seem to recall someone wrote a short story with a similar title and a 200-400 limit word count. I guess this writer had to keep to the word count. Nice idea, she was only dreaming about getting even.
@ pexxy – DV has not gone away, I still have one or two friends who got beat up this year. It’s good we still flog the issue. Thank you.