GUEST POST- She Stands Aloof by Kendi Gloria

She Stands Aloof

by KENDI GLORIA

She stands aloof, the sun is adamant on making her feel its presence. It is well past evening, yet it is still intent on piercing through the clouds with its ray and its optimism. Perhaps symbolic that she needs a little more optimism. It refuses to neither set nor leave the moon to its domain. She sees the train from far. It looks like a stream of water from the taps. Nay, water flowing from a dam. It dangles playfully on the railway line, making sounds that seem like mourning, for the weight it carries. It clunks and clatters, “ching”.  When the train finally stops, she is thankful to her gods because she now has a valid excuse to walk away from the stranger insisting on a small chitchat while moving towards her. His mouth stinks anyway. Every time he opens his mouth, she tilts her head only slightly to avoid the warm, moist stench hitting her nose. She had rather be alone.

It is only when she has sat down that she realizes she is worn. She feels vulnerable at the very thought of her journey’s final destination. She inhales a plunge of fresh air, shuts her eyes and imagines she is suffocating herself with the air kept bay by her tightly shut lips. What if she doesn’t let it out? Her throat begs for mercy and she wills herself to let the air out though reluctantly. She opens her eyes. The world is still in existence; for one second of guilt she allows herself to think she is better off gone than at her Aunt’s house again. The world would spin around the moon anyway. Or was it the sun? She cares less. She snaps out of it and focuses on the journey ahead. She is terrified, and she is sure her voice will tremble if she lets out a sound. She makes a resolution to be quiet the whole journey. 

The train is crammed. She is seated put in the third class compartment. She likes it here. It somehow reminds her of where she is from, reminds her of the gutter. It makes her feel alive, the hustle, the bustle, and the mundane conversations. She is nostalgic. She observes people pushing and shoving, laying their humanity aside even for a while. It is all about who gets the seats, the rest stand and have to keep on moving for others to alight as if balancing themselves on a moving train is not hard enough. Some men have stood, awkwardly balancing their feeble bodies with their hands that hang on the rail. Arms held high up to reveal yellow patches of sweat stains on their underarms. They are workers at the quarry nearby and they are probably headed to even smaller homes. Theirs is a life characterized by children in tattered clothes, wives with layers and layers of body fat, for that is to them beauty and also sleepless nights on mattresses too thin.

She judged the women in the compartment a little too harshly. To her they were just women with no drive whatsoever. There was nothing she loathed more than a woman lacking ambition.  Judging from their conversations she wasn’t so far off from the truth. She heard one call out to another about the City women’s pride because their children went to school while theirs went fishing. Another one yet, “I can’t survive a day in the City that life is just not for me, imenikataa”.  She wondered how their lives fulfilled them. How comfortable they were in their skins that reeked solely of fish. Most of them were fish vendors, a few decent traders and a minority of them sex workers. She’d distinguish a sex worker patently. The way their movements were calculated, the bushing of eyes, the careful pout of lips when they talked, the slow walking and the timbre of their voices; teasing. After all she went through her tailoring school with a sex worker’s money, almost the only thing her aunt provided for her. She is aware too she is being condescending, but she lets it show anyway.

Instantly, she realizes how lucky she has been to be blessed with brains. She liked the fact that people found her beauty appealing but would feign modesty when complimented of having something between her ears.

Trees pass by fast, one after another. Then they give way to twigs, a semi arid area which she knows oh too well. Her insides overturn. She knows she is almost there. She wouldn’t have come if it were not for the distressed call from her niece, or rather she is consoling herself. When she was leaving, the future had promising prospects; she would marry Abu and live happily ever after. She thought. She would then rid herself of anything that reminded her of her dark days. This unfortunately comprised her family, most importantly her aunt and her uncle.

However she was not warned of the challenges that would follow. She therefore was not prepared for the fighting with Abu. Almost every day he would come home with a bone to pick with her. And when she heard speculations that Abu had a mistress, her heart was battered. When she confronted Abu, she loathed the way Abu admitted too easily to infidelity. She loathed, also, the way he had expected forgiveness too easily. She knew she wanted to leave. She had every reason to; she had been contemplating leaving for so long a time but she had never resolved to. Now however, she had resolved to leave, but where to? Abu was her salvation and without him, she’d probably lose the little she had. She hated that she had come to depend too much on someone for her own existence. She reminded herself she had gone through enough hells to consider this one. She stayed, he changed.

And with time she settled in to the rhythm of life in the City. Their first house was a shanty. And she’d sew one clothe after another, for the children of the neighbor, for the watchmen at night, for Abu even and for anyone who was willing to pay her right. She would stay up at night and match colors, red into black, green into blue until she was contented with how each complimented the other. Gradually time passed. They told her time would heal all her wounds. Time was relative she knew, but she permitted herself to hope. She would not dwell in despondency. Six years later she was still scratching off the scab to open, a fresh, each time, the wounds inflicted on her by her uncle and aunt. Bygones never really remained bygones.

To think she is on her way to see them….She lets out another sigh. She is not sure of herself. And six years later she has redeemed herself from the shame associated with living in a shanty, Six years later she is still with Abu, six years later she has conceived a being into the world and six years later she is better off than she has ever been.

 

However six years was still not enough to make faded the burns from the water her aunt poured on her for taking too long at the shop, six years would never be enough to erase memories of defilement, six years is certainly not time enough for the nightmares tormenting her at night to cease, six years was never known to be long enough to heal a crushed soul, one that died just as soon as it blossomed.

But six years meant something to her, she had matured and it was time she set some creases straight. She was off from the train with a new resolve. She had learnt, she is mature….She is swollen with hope.

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Author’s Bio:

My name is Gloria Kendi Nanua. I am a second year student at Strathmore University pursuing Bachelor of Business Science-Finance option. I have an overwhelming passion for literature; I enjoy both reading and writing. I am more drawn towards African Literature though mainly because I can relate with it in more ways than imaginable. My favorite writers are quite obviously Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Noviolet Bulawayo, Zukiswa Warner and Okwiri Oduor; all of them women. I really should start reading male authors. Suggestions? My best book this far is Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda. The link to my blog is flimsysoul.com. I hope you enjoy reading this piece.