The Untold marriage(Zainab)

                Marriage killed me.

                The tale was told to me by grandmother who I met on the other side. Listen, as I narrate what she told me.

                She started like this: “Your father married you and you died.”

                The invincible birds gulped the introduction, the floating trees moved back and forth, and the air’s music metamorphosed to eerie whispers.

                My ears were opened to drink the remaining stories. Instead, my grandmother put her hands in the air and produced a white calabash filled with water.

                “Seeing is better than listening.” 

                She dropped the calabash gently and it floated. I looked inside.

                “Remember,” my grandmother said, “you can never change the past.”

                “Is this the past?”

                “The past is what you make it. Define your past.”

                “How can I achieve that?”

                “Watch the story with three eyes.”

                I looked inside. I saw a young girl with cornrows. She was hawking oranges around town.

                “Is this the beginning?” I asked.

                “There is no beginning and an end. There are only stories. How it is told doesn’t matter. Follow the journey.”

                “I am confused.”

                My grandmother was gone. She floated in the air. I peered into the calabash. The girl who was hawking oranges was in an office. Time shifted. Then I began to realize the similarities between me and the girl. She wore the same cornrows. I stirred the water in attempt to take the event to the past but it only moved forward.

                Two men talked under an almond tree. The tree shed tears of yellow leaves. They spoke in a voice that sounded like the buzzing of moths. One of the men looked healthy and the other looked poverty stricken. I was studying their faces curiously. My studies produced no result.

                From the air, a strange voice emanated: “Stories are journeys. Concentrate less and get results.”

                One of the men brought items from a brown moving iron. The other smiled and carried what the other man brought. Later, one of the men cried like a woman and another barked like a dog. One walked away looking sad and the other looked happy. The formerly happy one was sad and the formerly sad one was happy. One of the men brought the girl with the cornrow to the now happy-man-formerly-sad-man.

                Now, I saw the girl. She was in a new house. She cried. Everything went red. The water turned to red.

                “I can’t see anything.” I cried.

                “Patience,” my grandmother’s voice admonished, “is the secret to understanding stories.”

                The red cleared. The girl’s belly was big like she swallowed a big stone. She looked older than her age. The girl was sweating. An old woman cleaned her face.  A leg popped out in her vagina. It was red again.

                The now happy-man-formerly-sad-man ran around naked. He cried. He pulled out his hair with his hands. He tore his shirt. Some women walked out. They held their hands as they walked out of the house. This house.

                The cornrow-girl-like-me was travelling. And something came out of the calabash and entered me. A new story entered me. It scared me. I began to see the past. I cried.