She disappeared the next dawn...

She nodded like a programmed robot every time he barked his orders calling himself the man of the house. Her mind calmly overlooking the need to strangle him as words flew out of his mouth carelessly.

Women are property and you my dear...

She switched something she had learned to switch off in her mind and somehow, all she could see was his fat wet lips mumble around. His facial expressions were what guided her back to reality. She could tell when the insults were getting diluted.

Probably by how drank he was before the patriarchal speech started. Alcohol as much as he loved it, slowed his sharp tongue and violent fists at some point. Reason why she preferred him dead drunk. It was the only state he could be for her to feel safe just for a bit.

She allowed him to soil her reputation but never her womb. Secretly, she took herbs to avoid carrying his child but that also meant having to bear the pain of being branded as infertile.

Married at seventeen, straight from high school to please her old man...her dad was sure he would make a good husband because of his wealth but she figured out that his greed and loose mouth would earn him a place among the dead soon enough. The scary men who frequented their house at any particular time of the day or night and dropped serious threats while wearing smiles got her thinking.

This being nothing she could ever argue out with her then dying father, she chose to deal with things her way using what they handed her and every other woman in the around her, silence.

She got the news she had expected for the five and a half years they had been married on a Sunday evening. That day heavens seemed to have had finally heard her cry. The relief made her heart experience some micro-quakes that vibrated like confirmations all the way to her brain.

She blamed him for turning her into what many would've called a cold-hearted bitch but promised herself not to be sorry about it. As she wailed in her new found freedom, tears rolled down her scarred cheeks and present mourners confused them with those of sorrow of a young widow as they had already baptized her.

He met his death after flying over a cliff somewhere in Rift Valley. A bunch of corrupt government officials he had played on some deal earlier sent someone to tamper with his beloved Subaru's brakes.

After he was buried after the fifth day of mourning, she underwent cleansing rituals in silence then went ahead to wear black for three months as expected by the community.

Coming to the end of her mourning her husband's people had started making plans for her second marriage to whomever they deemed fit to inherit her and her childlessness.

A few days to the said day, her lawyer called saying he had finalized processing their greedy son's remaining assets after paying off his said loans. She had a few estates under her name and a good sum in her bank account.

She disappeared the next dawn.

♡♡♡

Thank you for coming.

_{Click the graphic to join in the fun!}

Posted using Partiko Android