The Writer

Published on January 10th, 2013 | by The Alchemist

761932http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenakedconvos.com%2Fcompetition-top-entries-4-peas-pod%2FTWO+Competition%3A+Top+Entries+%286%29+-+Two+Peas+in+a+Pod.2013-01-10+09%3A00%3A06The+Alchemisthttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenakedconvos.com%2F%3Fp%3D7619

TWO Competition: Top Entries (6) – Two Peas in a Pod.

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Okaima – Two Peas in a Pod.

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Now

Aigbe smiled callously as he watched Esosa tumble backwards onto the floor. He thought to himself that she quite looked like a fish out of water – flailing about, reaching for support that would not be forthcoming. His smile very quickly evolved into a cruel laugh as he watched the back of her head crash onto the cold, tiled floor with a sickening, wet sound. Leaping astride her semi-conscious body, he rained three solid blows onto her torso, working his way from her lower ribcage to her sternum. She yelped, shook and choked with each blow, unable to fight back.

“You are the one that will die, not me, Stupid Harlot!”

He spat into her face as the last blow landed and she choked violently, jerking with the impact of the blow and recoiling from the glob of projectile spittle that had hit her face.

“You!  Are! A! Mad! Dirty! Prostitute!”

Each word was punctuated by a slap that sent waves of pain coursing through Esosa’s head. She could barely speak or shout or scream in protest, much less move. She felt herself start to slip into a numb blackness but she tried to hold on.  Aigbe wrapped his hands around her neck and muttered.

“Witch! Harlot! Your plan has failed!”

Esosa closed her eyes and let the numbing darkness take her as her husband choked the remaining life from her, his wedding ring pressing against her carotid artery.

2 hours earlier.

Esosa smiled to herself as she poured the brown powder into the bottle of Merlot. She re-corked it and shook it violently until the powder began to dissolve. She knew Aigbe was already on his way home.

Dressed in a blue tank top and black shorts, she made herself comfortable on the sofa. He called her saying he had arrived at the airport about an hour ago. He was being brought home by a company car. She recognized the agitation in his voice. After twenty years of being married to Aigbe, she knew she should have at least one regret but there was none. Esosa came close to regretting when contraceptives failed to stop her from conceiving but she got past that. The baby made Aigbe so happy. Reminiscing only made her lips curve upwards in smiles that held stories.

The jingling of keys broke through Esosa’s thoughts. She got up, heart racing. When Aigbe walked through the door it would take her about two minutes to determine whether to make him have supper immediately or tell him to take a bath first.

“Welcome my love”Esosa said, maybe a tad too cheerfully.

Aigbe did not answer; he dropped his box and hurriedly closed the doors. Then he pulled the curtains down. Finally, Aigbe turned to Esosa.

“Why are you undressed? I knew it! There is another man. Oh! My village people have gotten to you too? I always knew it. You are wearing blue. You have joined them.”

“Baby, calm down. It’s me”

The words had barely come out from Esosa’s mouth when his left hand hit her face.

After planning so carefully, Esosa forgot to dress accordingly and that singular mistake was going to cost her everything.

2 days earlier

As Esosa tidied up Aigbe’s closet, arranging his clothes the way he liked them; white shirts on top, grey in the middle and black at the bottom as he wore no other colours, she remembered the first time she saw him two decades ago. He looked so handsome even in the drab off-white gowns worn by patients. His forehead was furrowed in thought and his round rimmed glasses rested at the tip of his pointed nose. His dark shiny skin so unlike that of a man contrasted sharply to the white walls of the mental facility in which Esosa was a psychiatrist. He answered all her questions with silence. He just turned the ring he always wore on the little finger of his left hand and stared at the floor. He did this for two years. Esosa was greatly frustrated. Two years of hitting her head against a brick wall that wouldn’t budge, she had tried all the tactics in the books. The textbooks were obviously not written for Aigbe.

One afternoon, when hope was all but lost, Esosa heard a knock on her office door. Soft and unsure.

“Come in” she answered quickly before whoever sought her had a change of heart.

Aigbe walked in, his eyes still glistening with tears. He sat down on the couch he had sat on from time to time for the past two years.

“I think I have a problem”, he muttered.

On hearing the words she had dreamed of hearing for years, Esosa put aside all professionalism, walked up to him and gave him a hug. He cried like a baby in her arms. That was the beginning and the end. The beginning of Aigbe’s recovery and also the beginning of a love affair that inadvertently cost Esosa her job. Slowly but surely she fell in love with a paranoid schizophrenic.

Esosa’s eyes settled on one of the pictures they had taken to mark their second annivasary. Even the coldest of hearts would be melted by the joy they radiated. Maybe it’s true what they say about psychiatrists. Crazy is contagious. Crazy is the only way to explain falling in love with a man that bought all the rolls of gala he came across every day and burnt them because he said the national snack was the government’s tool for mind control; a man who would not stand near windows or doors because his village people were watching; a man who would not eat anything he hadn’t cooked. Aigbe had a theory for why everything was the way it was. Crazy but they had eyes for only each other, trying to keep them apart would have been crazier. Although she had her license withdrawn, she had no worries. She had a lifelong patient.

2 months earlier

Esosa never knew the level of sleuth in her until she started seeing the signs. One day he woke up and called the cable technician to remove the dish from the roof because it was a monitoring device. A couple of days after that, Aigbe refused to make love to Esosa because she had blue panties on. When she asked why, he told her that blue is the colour of the sky where his village people fly across. Esosa could feel the impending doom and she had to act fast. She no longer had just herself to think about.

Although the drugs Aigbe needed were prescription meds, getting them was not difficult. Esosa still had tons of prescription paper from her years of practice; she just scribbled her name and former license number in barely discernable handwriting and whenever the salesperson said “Ah! Madam, this handwriting ehn”, she quickly cracked a joke about doctors and their handwriting. That was a joke everybody could relate with. Esosa made sure she never visited the same pharmacy in succession. With time, the guilt ebbed away. Be it Diazapam laced soup or clozapine sweetened tea, Aigbe got the medication he needed.

2years earlier

It should have been a blessing but Esosa knew deep down that it would be their undoing. Aigbe had improved in leaps and bounds and had gradually been weaned off his anti-psychotics. He had gotten a job as a computer analyst at his old firm. He gave motivational talks at psychiatric seminars every now and then. Aigbe was the poster boy for ‘I went through it and I survived’. They needed her husband to encourage other people with mental illnesses but God forbid that they restore Esosa’s license. Esosa advised Aigbe to turn down the promotion; she even resorted to emotional blackmail. Nothing worked. Aigbe said he had been healed and there was absolutely no chance of a reoccurrence. He failed to understand that the deviation from his normal routine, longer hours, increased stress, travelling and change in environment that came with the promotion could serve as a trigger. Esosa knew better. You never really slay your demons, you just put them to sleep and if you are lucky they never wake up.

Esosa needed this demon asleep.

2 hours later.

Esosa always told Esohe to hide under the bed if she and Aigbe ever fought. She promised to come and get her when it was over. After the shouting stopped, Esosa did not come. Esohe got tired of waiting for her mummy. Esohe first saw the empty bottle of wine of the dining table. The floor beneath her feet seemed ice cold. Esohe looked down and saw blood splatters. She heard her father’s voice. “I did this! God!!”. Following the trail of blood just with her eyes because her body would not move, she saw her mother.

Or what was her mother.

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The Alchemist

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