Awele fidgeted round the compound.. what's happening? She thought. Were is everyone? She didn't realize she was already muttering to herself and to an outsider looking at her, may seem mad.
She completed her fourth round through the house. Oh my God.. she thought.. I'm forbidden from leaving this compound without my friends.
She gazed up at the sun again and saw the shadows it cast on the red sand. Her eyes followed it to the point where it hit the wall of the thatch fence and she groaned in despair.
Today, it seemed her regular entourage decided she would go alone, it wasn't the normal practise; they usually went in groups and troupes, never alone.
For some reason unknown, Awele had been left behind during the usual stream run. Ajiun was going to run to fetch her from the claws of her mother's compound, as the compound was forbidden for young men, no Mather what status.
Rich, poor,handsome, hunchback, crippled or even dead. No mater the son of whom you are, king, Chief, slave, pauper, warrior, demigod or even god. You were forbiden to enter Iya Awele's thatch fenced 30 by 60 foot wide compound.
Everyone knows this but nobody seemed to tell her why. She envied the freedom her peers took for granted and on days she's very lonely, she'd peep through the spaces in the thatch fence and see people walking freely.
"Why am I so relegated? Why is my life camped up?! " She ruminated. The sun was almost set now, and with it; her best part of the day.
Going to the river with her friends was the only thing she lived for. That was she time she felt the different breeze graze between the loin cloth wrapped around her.
She asked her mom why she was differently dressed from other girls, but she only gets a grunt in reply. Other girls get to wear folds of beautifully colored materials wrapped around their breasts and buttocks, leaving their bellies exposed for even more colorful strands and stacks of beads.
She always felt jealousy gazing at other girls looking so vibrant and alive, while she imagined she paled in comparison.
Until this day, Awele was forbiden to go farther than Ajiun and Kudaisi's hut, both of whom thier houses were nothing more than a mile from her own home.
A decree her mother had made from the time she could tell a snake from a twig or a rope, the only places she could ever be alone was her own home.
This is when her mother was out for reasons she could not take her only daughter with her.
Had kudaisi let her, Ajiun was going to run the whole One thousand, six hundred and nine meters, with all her ever jiggling mass of fat and flesh to notify Awele that it was stream time.
This was a unique time, it was when the girls had time away from home and ever consuming chores that just seemed to crawl out of their mother's desires.
Lots of secrets and promises, lies and libel, truths and denial came flying like Weaver birds into the air.
Occasionally, a horrendous lie would leap out of the belly of one of the girls, and this mostly happened when Ayantoyin had her tales to tell. She's a lady with the imagination of a dragon and seemed to say anything that caught her fancy.
Basically, this time is the bonding time for all the girls to have a measure of peace from home, mingle with each other, discuss whose husband they were fucking and plot on how to destroy a man.
Other girls tend to take this period for granted; but it was awele's life. It was her only crutch.. the only thing keeping her from going insane.
Stream time was once a day and all of the days of a week, once in a while, one or two of the girls would miss it, and then have to play catch up sometimes later in the week.
This wasn't unusual, or some of the seven girls would sometimes have to run an errand which would then eat into stream time. But never was it recorded or said that one of them went to Eerin stream alone, until this day.
She felt overwhelming panic fill her and she almost burst. "Why did they leave me behind?!" She screamed.. What usually happened whenever her emotions were skewed began to happen..
The winds picked up and the sky began to get cloudy and a sandstorm began to roil in the distance.. "Calm down awele.." she chanted. She tried to ease her breath and it began to work.
Nobody told her why this happened to! Nobody tells me anything! I'm not even in control of my life! As if rubbing salt to her wounds, she saw an image she'd always wished for through the thatch.
A man was wrapped around a lady who wasn't even as old as she! They looked so happy together and were oblivious to her gaze. She felt a pang strike her. "I'm not even allowed to have this" she lamented.
That broke the last of her reserve.. I'm heading to kudaisi's house.. after all, my mom is not at home. If only she knew..
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