CHAPTER ONE

Kaduna, Nigeria
August 7th, 2016
01:27am

It's rainy season again.

I frown at the gigantic tears falling from the heartbroken sky and it's grumbling companions; lightning and thunder, as they hit, shriek and drown the world like the steamy pages of a romance novel.

Not again.

It can't be happening again.

My eyes pool with tears; a hot string of thread birthed from the deepest depth of the remains of the caged wreckage dwelling on my chest, as I stood there; in front of the window in my room, watching and dying, as the world swallows, quite heartily, the bleeding sky accompanied by the wind's telltales, resonating like it was playing to a certain note—no doubt serenading the stormy sky with its gracious tunes.

And yet here it was, again, the rains, and like always the feelings of doom drums vividly in my ears.

It's rainy season

Shuddering, I hugged my high collar white colour cotton long sleeve nightgown a bit tighter, biting down, thickly, on my lips as I try to keep my emotions in check; not that it was working nor has it ever worked but still it was better than nothing. Anything is better than nothing—especially on days like today.

Days like this has always reduced me to a shuddering mess.There was no denying. There is something sinister about the disgorging skies which has nothing to do superstitions or clairvoyance. I can't deny the feelings of an impending danger clawing out of the sheets of anguished downpour, experience has taught me not to.

What am I losing now? I wonder helplessly, Do I have anything more to lose even? I have already lost a lot; my grandpa, and my dad, and Irrfan. What more does fate wants from me? It couldn't be cruel enough to take—

Mother?

Shaking my head vehemently, I shove down the evilness creeping its way into my consciousness, washing it away with a silent prayer of protection for my mother and myself. My mother has suffered enough. Her and me both.

Sighing dejectedly, I walked back to my desk and pulled the chair softly against the rug that carpeted my large room, sitting, and staring forlornly at the white sheet of paper sprawled in front of me.

My room is painted lemon green and orange and curtained in the same shade of green and some white. It is bare of any furniture save my reading desk, which is close to the floor-to-ceiling window and a master - size bed. There are no hangings, drawings or pictures either. There is no mirror either. Not in the bedroom. There is one though in the walk - in closet next to my bathroom. And as my eyes lingered on the white sheet of paper in front of me with the pen lying beside it, I couldn't help but think them more intimidating than the premonition of doom abode the bouts of lightning and the raucous thunder gracing my ears from the weather outside.

I fear they held no candle to my present predicament nor the wounds cutting me deep-nothing can.

My scars are seared too deeply.

'Poisonous and deadly, especially to herself. ' my therapist, Dr Ahmad Williams, had told my mother yesterday when he came over for dinner and she had asked about our sessions after I left for the kitchens to do the dishes.

They had been engrossed in their discussion about which part of me needed more fixing and failed to notice the dark figure looming the entrance to the living room where they were both sitting, comfortably, and sipping the hot tea I had served merely seconds ago.

Not that I blame him or anything; Hanna, my bestfriend, calls me a sadist, and from that, I think his description was quite mild, but there was something inherently wrong about listening to people you care about reduce you to a mere thing to be fixed.

Broken things are fixed.

Broken humans are well, I don't know, loved?

Not that I care. I really don't. Or maybe I do. I don't know anymore.

It's just that sometimes I feel my brokenness quite vividly; a million shattered pieces, fitting and unfitting like a piece on a chessboard, and that makes me scared-scared I was nothing but that; a broken thing.

But it couldn't be-

Not when nothing made sense.

Not when I am not broken.

I couldn't be.

I know there's nothing about my life that shows I wasn't broken and what more than visiting a therapist every Thursday could spell it rather plainly or the fact that seeing a therapist was as strange as strange could ever get in this part of the world. But I don't see it that way.

I can't see it that way.

In my head, Dr Ahmed is something resembling a diary that I spill my gut to like a personal venting machine only it came at a price.

No. I can't be broken.

Sighing at the absurdity of my wanton thoughts, I drag my wayward mind reluctantly back to the task at hand with my eyes lingering longer on the newspaper clipping lying next to the paper on the desk. It has an advertisement of a job opening at REHAN NEWS AGENGY for a reporter.

It is a medium sized table made beautifully with mahogany wood, decked with piles of books arranged vertically, a reading lamp and just above was a bookshelf lined precisely in a 4-3-4 arrangement, with each shelf crammed with books.

I let my fingers run over its smooth edges, inhaling a soft faint woodsy scent—I've always liked this combined smell of polish, wood and paint, as I mouth the word 'reporter' sluggishly, musing the words on my lips hoping to get some zinger or hopefully, a struck of lightning, alas zilch, nothing. It absolutely didn't sound like me.

RNA reporter, Reima Ahmad, I tried again. Reima Ahmad reporting for RNA news, I did again but this time using my pen as an imaginary mic, and yet nothing, still.

I guess I was just... tired. And frustrated. And deflated.

And depressed!

Not that I'll ever admit that to anyone; especially not Dr Ahmad. The man had a way of making me feel guilty; about everything and everyone. It's not the things he says, he is nothing but charms and gracefulness, but rather the way he says them. It was as if he knew things about me, things I didn't know and that scares me even more than being single and jobless at twenty-five which is a place I wouldn't wish for anyone to be, not even Raihana, my evil cousin, with her toxic tongue and arrogant airs.

I am from the Northern part of the giant of Africa, Nigeria. The part were Islam is the predominant religion and Hausa is the mother tongue. The part of the world where a girl becomes a woman only by marriage and an unmarried girl in her twenties, no matter how beautiful, intelligent or successful, is considered a failure.

Just like me.

An unmarried girl.

An unmarried girl at twenty-five

A girl at that age is a spinster and therefore an object of ridicule. There is no excuse. There is no reasoning. When a girl enters her twenties unmarried, whether she likes it or not, she passes through these three critical stages in the society.

The first is the ohh... sound at the age of 20-22, that is the 'she is ripe for marriage sound', the signal you should start thinking of settling down. I call this the green alert. Next came the hmm... sound which is at the age of 23-25, the yellow alert. It is the 'she feels too big to settle down' sound, the sound that reminds you that an alarm has been set in, and before it rings, you must do something, ASAP. And lastly is the ahh... sound, the red alert, which begins at the age of 26 and above, the pity sound which spells that 'there must be something wrong with you' and that is when you really become a society outcast and it becomes the mission of everyone around you to make sure you feel the wrath of this your so-called betrayal.

I have been ignoring the hmm... sound successfully for the past year now, but it was getting much harder with every rejected job application especially since it had suddenly became my mom's life's mission to suddenly get me married, more so this past few months.

I guess mothers would always be mothers.

I chunk it up to her being scared for me though sometimes I feel like she was hiding something from me. However I don't dwell on it, I don't dwell on anything I guess.

Personally, I have nothing against marriage. My parents had one of the best marriage I knew. It's just that I feel like a wrecked train with no brake like I am simply floating around with no substance at all; like it isn't just about marriage or finding a job, like it was something deeper but I can't seem to figure it out.

Truth was when I stare into the mirror, I feel like I am not the girl staring back, like I am a stranger in my own skin and I honestly didn't know how I was supposed to dedicate my entire life to someone when I don't even know what my life even means? This person that I am right now is a complete stranger to me, a mystery, and until I can figure it out, I was holding back on the marriage train.

Perhaps I am stupid. Perhaps I am an Idiot. And I know there's a thin line between stupidity and patience and perhaps was currently straddling between the lines, but for any hope of a happy future, I needed to find my purpose. I simply wish the people around me would just trust and wait for me, not that any of them matter anyway; just my mom and Hanna and perhaps Jabir, my ex.

I really don't know what is missing in my life right now but I do know marriage isn't it. However I think I need more time to figure it out and right now the only thing I think would be distracting enough was a job which I need to find urgently or I really might go crazy. The criticisms I could accept, but not the pity in their eyes. I didn't need their pity for God's sake, I needed a job.

And that was what I was going to find myself-

A job!

Bracing myself, I let my finger trace the boldly written words on the newspaper: REHAN NEWS AGENCY. It suddenly felt too big a place for me

RNA was a part of REHAN GROUP, a multi-billion enterprise, intimidating even. I was after all someone with no prior work experience or any special talents. Truth be told, I was more of a reader, more of a sit by the fire with a hot steaming cup of cocoa while I waste the night drenching in the colourful, dreamy world of books kind of girl.

Yes, that is me.

Personally, I don't think I'm even suited for the harsh and ruthless life of a reporter. Moreover, it was very unlikely they would even accept someone like me even if I had majored in English Literature graduating top of my class with a second class-higher division. Reality was, I had only 0.001% chance of getting the job.

Nevertheless, it was definitely a great opportunity with all the perks of working in a big company. Yet, I still couldn't make up my mind whether to apply or not.

"What the hell!" I thought as I picked up the pen and started scribbling my address on the paper. "At this point, there was nothing I could possibly lose by trying."

My acceptance or rejection wasn't in my hands anyway, it has never been. I'm going to leave everything in the hands of fate, like I've always have.

Let it decide!