DEATH PLEASE

She feels the big lump between her legs. Pain sears through her waist to every joint in her body then it ends as a heave in her belly and starts again in the same process. The pain is familiar. She moves from one side of the bed to another. She feels queasy as nausea hits her causing her to hiccup and clench her belly.
Her wrapper soaks the blood that runs down her legs. A sharp pain hits her waist as she tries to stand, and she slumps back on the mud bed, using her hand to rub the back of her waist. She blows air through her mouth and tries to breath through to reduce the pain. She feels pressure on her waist and rushes into the bush at the back of the hut. She squats and pushes it out of her. It falls wobbly on the green grass, accompanied by watery shit and hot urine; a greyish sac that holds her baby at 10weeks, with eyes, mouth and little feet. She examines it closely and uses her finger to poke it. Tears build in her eyes as the pain hits her again. She walks unsteadily to the hut and drinks the concoction 'Agbala Nwanyi' had mixed for her. The pain subsides and she falls into deep sleep.

'Kata Kata Kata' the sound of the rain on the basin outside wakes her. She had known it was going to rain, she had smelt it in the air earlier. It was what she could do best, smell things in the air; smell trouble, smell fear, smell death. When she woke up this morning, alongside the smell of rain was the smell of death. She had just had a miscarriage, and she expected the smell of death to have cleared, but it still hovered in the air, strong as ever. Agbala Nwanyi's concoction had worked just fine as usual. The pain in her waist had changed to a dull throb. She throws the blood stained wrapper into the basin as she sets off for the river to wash it.
'Mama Nnukwu, Big mother daalu' the children playing under the rain greet her, she replies with a weak smile. She takes sluggish steps towards the river. The rain is having its fun with the earth. One minute it pours hard, the next minute it drizzles.
Rain water dramatically rolls from her forehead through the center of her nose and ends like a kiss on her lips. It tastes like salt, like her sweat. Her eyes follow the snakelike shape of the flowing water in a little gully. Every step sends sharp pains to her waist. Her big well rounded buttocks which used to be a center of attraction and a charm to men is now a burden to her.
Trees hung out to form a canopy as she approaches the river. It is empty, the rain has stopped people from coming. She places the wrapper on a dwarf rock on the river bank and fetches some water. The feel of cold water sends chills down her spine. The river is quiet except for the chirping of birds, so she notices the excited splash of a little fish that seems to be thanking the fish god for the rain. Her waist hurts again as she bends to wash her wrapper. 'Ukwudiya' which means ' Husband's buttocks' is a nickname given to her because of her large back size. It is known that through out the seven villages of Ugbenu town no woman can compete with her in that aspect. The sight of the blood stained wrapper, brings tears to her eyes.
She remembers vividly the first time she had a miscarriage, that was in the third year of her marriage. It took three years for her to get pregnant . Which didn't surprise anybody. It was no news that Ukwudiya was an 'Ogbanje'. A curse sent to her family to frustrate and torture them by coming to life and leaving just as fast. When she lost her pregnancy the first time, she almost went bananas. She ran to 'Agadi Nwanyi' the only female dibia in the village. 'My baby is gone' she cried as she flung herself on the floor in Agadi Nwanyi's shrine. The woman stared at her for a while and asked her to hush her mouth in a loud voice. 'You are in the presence of Otokoro, the gods of our fathers, your cries are upsetting him'. She rebuked.
'Yes I want him to be upset' Ukwudiya said 'I want him to be very upset! I want to ask him why mine must be different. Why is my life filled with sickness, torture and frustration?'
'Shut up woman! Otokoro cannot be questioned by a woman. Shut up before I curse you with chicken pox'.
'I am sorry great one, please pardon me. I am...'
Agadi Nwanyi interrupts. 'I know why you are here, you don't have to explain.' She said. 'I told your mother when she came here looking for a child twenty years ago. I told her she shouldn't try to have a child, but she insisted. My child Otokoro can't help you.'
'Why Why' Ukwudiya cried.
'Stop questioning Otokoro, I won't tell you this again woman'
'I am not questioning Otokoro. I am questioning you. What happened to my mother? Was she an Ogbanje like me?'
'Your mother wasn't an Ogbanje but she was destined to birth an Ogbanje, not just an ordinary one but the Queen Mother. I advised her to stop trying to have children but she was strong headed like you. She wanted you and she died getting you'.
Agadi Nwanyi's words stung Ukwudiya. She knew her mother died giving birth to her but she hated being reminded about it.
 'So not only am I an Ogbanje, I am also the Queen Mother?'
'Yes my child and you are still alive because I dug up your 'Iyi Uwa' and cut your connection with the other world. It's your destiny never to have a child. Stop trying, your people in the other world would keep trying to force you to come to them by sending you children that won't stay.'
Ukwudiya stared in agony as Agadi Nwanyi continued, 'You were supposed to complete your mission and return on your thirteenth birthday, but I dug up your Iyi Uwa before that time, and so there was no connection, they couldn't take you'.

She had stormed out of the shrine cursing the gods, cursing her chi, cursing her mother for giving birth to her. Twenty years later, she wished she had not tried at all. They usually say what you don't know won't kill you, unfortunately she knows now what it feels like to be a mother. She had felt the warmth of her child's cheek close to hers. She had given birth to her own child and she named her 'Onwubiko'. She hoped the name would pacify death since it meant 'Death Please'.
 She prayed every day to her old god 'Otokoro' and her new God, the one they say, has a son who came to earth to die for her sins. It was the new God, that gave her Onwubiko. She had prayed and fasted for one week to Him and he answered her.
When she felt heaviness in her breast, she had rushed to her husband's hut, and knelt down by his side 'My love' she said 'I am with child' . He smiled at her and asked her to sit on his lap. He kissed her stomach and asked if the baby was a boy. 'No my love, she feels like a girl'. He laughed like a drunken man and drew her very close to him. They made love in the hot afternoon.
That was the first time after her four miscarriages that she had told her husband she was with child. She always tried to save herself the embarrassment of explaining to her husband that the baby in her womb was now a big lump of blood that lay somewhere between grasses at the bush in the back of her hut. The man that told her about Jesus had told her to have faith in Him. She asked if she needed to sacrifice a goat. 'This God doesn't need any sacrifice all he needs is for you to believe in him and have faith in him'. She was surprised. Such an easy sacrifice she thought. She did just that and it included telling her husband. Telling him was a confirmation that the baby was going to live.
When for the first time in her life she held a baby she could call her own, she cried. The joy she felt was indescribable. She never let her out of her sight. She guarded her like a mother hen guards its chick. Onwubiko was a very beautiful girl. The village stood in awe of her beauty. She had the loveliest eyes and when she smiled the sun was envious because her smile out shined it.
On her fifth birthday Onwubiko who by then was the only thing her mother loved more than her life came down with 'Iba'. Ukwudiya didn't sleep that night she sat close to Onwubiko who lay on the bed shivering and crying, and prayed all night. She touched her skin with the back of her palm at intervals to monitor her temperature. At a point she felt so tired, she closed her eyes for a few seconds and fell into a deep sleep. She had terrible nightmares. When she woke up, she was holding a corpse in her hands and screaming. Her daughter was dead. She screamed so hard that it almost vibrated the compound. People gathered in her hut. Her husband tried to pacify her but she was implacable. She cursed both her old and new gods. She shook her daughter vigorously, pleading with her to come back. But the corpse was stoic. That was the worst day of her life. Her husband had called 'Agadi Nwanyi' who suggested that her daughter's corpse be mutilated, so she doesn't come back into the family as another child. She had gone bananas on them, threatening thunder and brimstone if anybody does so much as touch her daughter. She cried the whole day without sleep nor food, refusing to let go of her dead daughter. When she finally slept off. Her husband collected the corpse and carried it to Agadi Nwanyi who mutilated the corpse and burnt it to ashes. She never forgave either of them.

She rinses her cloth in the river and places it back in the basin. She sticks her hands into the soil and fills it with mud, on impulse. Raising her hand to the sky. she calls out to her Chi;
'You have cursed me with a childless life, you have made me a frustrated woman. I have lived a life filled with sorrow and pain. In this river I have washed out the blood of my unborn children. Ten times I have been with child. Ten times I have cried for you to save them. Ten times I have been rejected and ten times I have come here with a basin of blood stained wrapper on my head to wash away the blood of my children. What is a woman without a child? People laugh at me wherever I go. My husband no longer wants to see me except to satisfy his sexual urges. He calls me furniture, a useless woman. I have been called a witch that eats her children and in all these I stand innocent. I have never hurt anyone yet all that happens to me are things that hurt me. They call me an 'Ogbanje'. They say I am from a world I know nothing of. Today, I accept my fate. I go with the hope that where I go, there is a better destiny for me'.
She unties her wrapper and steps into the water. Series of thoughts run through her mind. She walks gently, deeper and deeper into the river until her legs can no longer touch the ground, until water covers her head, until her forced breathing forms bubbles on the surface of River Kalawa.
Hundred years later, the River kalawa is renamed 'Mmiri nenyenwa' 'water that gives children'. It is a common belief that any barren woman who visits the river with tears in her eyes is thereafter blessed with a child.