That Red Thing

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I woke up very early in the morning, before the sun, with a sudden urge to I woke up very early in the morning, before the sun, with a sudden urge to puke. I quickly threw off my duvet, not minding that my room was incredibly cold with the air conditioner on full blast, dashed towards the toilet, my bare knees on the floor, holding unto my stomach tightly as I threw up violently into my toilet bowl. I rolled unto the white tiled floor of my cubicle,stared at the ceiling for what seemed like an eternity, wondering in my little mind, the cause of my sickness which I experienced almost on a daily basis. For the rest of the morning, I could not sleep, instead I crawled into my bed, curled up and ruminated on my thoughts.
      I thought of many things as I dressed up for school, my undone ‘yoruba’ homework (I’d always hated yoruba and wondered why it was included among the compulsory subjects even in senior secondary school). I thought of Tekena, my boyfriend (I thought of him every morning because it made me smile), my parents also sprung to mind. I rarely ever saw them; somehow, I think I was glad I never really saw them because all my agemates complained bitterly about how demanding and protective their parents were of them. As for me, I had the house to myself, including the maids and the driver but most importantly my freedom.
During school hours, time seemed to crawl by as usual, I constantly felt nauseous and worst of all, I hadn’t seen Tekena all day which was rare of him, he was the kind of boy who would always make an extra effort at every and anything involving school. He really wasn’t the typical boy, quite undeserving of a bad bird like me. Apart from Tekena’s absense, something happened which baffled me…I unwittily but unintentionally locked eyes with Mr Shola (my math tutor) he was a middle-aged man who bizzarely had traces of white hairs at the roots of his head that looked as though they were patchyly covered in black dye. Immediately after the awkward ‘eye-contact’ moment, I felt unexplanable pangs of guilt. The incidence strangely made me think of my morning sickness. Aha! ”Morning sickness”. The mere subconcious thought of that phrase brought worry and concern to the very extremities of my tingling body.
    I began to think about everything that could possibly come to mind about what I had done that could have caused this morning sickness that only pregnant women are supposed to have. I knew I wasn’t pregnant. Ofcourse I wasn’t, or at least I didn’t want to face the reality that I was. At home, that early evening, I thought of asking Dr Okorocha (a friend of my mother’s) for a pregnancy test. I laughed at myself that I would consider such; the baffled woman would probably tell my mother even If I had put a knife to her neck.
On a calm saturday evening in the month of July, my parents came home and gave me a speech on how and why they planned on spending more time at home and with me. I didn’t deem the new development necessary but I could not help the situation. By this time, my feelings of nausea had subsided and I was living my life as usual. Going for parties and ‘getting wasted’ as I liked to call it. One night, after one of such parties, as I took off my clothes, I stared at my image in the full length mirror that stood galantly in my room. I remembered my younger self, stuffing tissue down my school blouse to create the impression that I had breasts so that I could catch the fancy of any of the senior boys. I giggled at the thought and caught the reflection of the dimple in my left cheek. My mother told me she created it by dipping her fingers into my cheeks as a child. I planned on doing the same to my children…… CHILDREN! ….I shuddered. I sat down quietly and wondered for a little while; why I always got anxious at the mention or thought of anything to do with pregnancy or children.
Over the next couple of months, my body did look fuller and my stomach, more robust. People commented that I was putting on some significant weight but the topic was always laughed off. In december, christmas preparations at my house did get very heated my mother said she wanted it to be ”the best christmas ever” ….not that I was interested in her plans whatsoever. She did however make me participate rather heavily in her preparations. I usually felt discomfort in my lower abdomen during the activities but I never told her about it.
   One cold night after my parents had gone for a christmas dinner at a friend’s, I started feeling infrequent increasing intensities of tightness and pain in my lower abdomen, stomach and lower back. I thought I was dying. I rolled off my bed unto the floor, in great discomfort and ache. I closed my eyes for a few minutes and when I opened them, I saw water on the floor and found out the source to be me. For the first time, it really ‘hit me’ that I was truly pregnant, in fact, I wasn’t only pregnant, I was having the baby.
In between contractions, I looked out through my window out to the neighbouring house opposite my room and saw a little girl switch off her room light. I gathered she was going to sleep. I turned to the other side and watched the wind blow the wild and now bushy surroundings of a demarcated unbuilt piece of land.
My thoughts were soon removed from anything apart from the pain I feeling.
     I dragged myself to the bathroom, stuffed my mouth with cloth (to deaden any sounds I was going to make), pushed my arms against the wall and held unto the corners of my bathtub. In tears, for over three hours, I stood, bent, twisted and writhed in pain trying to force another being out of my body. It was the worst type of pain I had ever felt. Burning sensations ran through my entire lower body and I shook and trembled. I finally succeeded in my feat and as I felt the slimy little red thing slide down between my thighs, I quickly grabbed hold of it’s head and flung it far out of my window into the wild grasses without much thought, maybe I didn’t want to look at my creation in the face. I dropped unto the floor and sat, exhausted, in a small pool of my own blood. Sweat running down my chest, a trickle sliding past the brown mould I called my right breast. I was numb but my mind flashed images of Mr Shola (math tutor), his face over mine, another image saw him zipping the fly of his “favorite’ blue trousers. Why was he the only one coming to mind? Was he the owner of the red thing, alias baby, I’d removed from me?