Emerencia: Part I and II

by Ornguze Nashima Nathaniel
(Makurdi, Benue, Nigeria.)

Emerencia: Part I
Author Zigo
"Hello, my dear. Please hurry as a rainstorm is approaching, and it seems you are not concerned. Can you observe the lightning? Can you hear the thunder? I predict a heavy downpour and thunderstorm. So, let us depart quickly before it becomes too late," Emelda cautioned her friend Emerencia.

"Go ahead," Emerencia replied. "I don't mind getting wet. Please go now, hurry! I will contact you once I arrive home."

"I will never comprehend you," Emelda responded. "Nevertheless, I must go. It is necessary." She added and swiftly departed. Emerencia observed her friend until she vanished around the corner.
She turned around and gazed upwards. The rain clouds were rapidly gathering. Shortly after, a vigorous gust of wind blew in her direction, nearly knocking her down. Finding a large rock a few meters away, she leaned against it, sheltered from the wind. However, a torrential rain poured down, accompanied by lightning and storms, leaving her completely drenched.

Emerencia was a captivating young lady. Tall, curvaceous, with luscious lips and deep blue eyes. She was blossoming into the epitome of an African woman. Her warm smile, when shared, had the power to brighten anyone's day. Yet, she seldom smiled and frequently preferred solitary moments like this one. People often wondered if she harbored deep secrets or concealed inner pain. She excelled academically and had recently turned 17. In a few months, she would be attending university.

As the inclement weather persisted, her thoughts raced. For numerous years, she had battled an internal struggle. Now, she longed for liberation - freedom from those thoughts. She needed to decide whether to let go of the past and allow karma to take its rightful course. But what if it never happened? Perhaps she had to take matters into her own hands? One thing remained certain: regardless of karma, her abuser would never escape justice.

She was once a cheerful young girl until it all transpired. In 2018, long after the Anglophone crisis commenced in Cameroon, her father's younger brother sought refuge from the insecurity that plagued the rural areas of the Anglophone regions. With nowhere else to go, he stayed with them for months. Emerencia was merely 12 at the time. However, from that tender age, she was burdened with a dark and agonizing secret that haunted her every night. Her uncle had transformed her life into a living nightmare.

Night after night, for months on end, her uncle would sneak into her bed and subject her to unspeakable abuse. Filled with fear and despair, she mustered the courage to confide in her parents, hoping they would shield her from this monstrous relative.

Unfortunately, her pleas fell on deaf ears, as her parents refused to believe her, dismissing her words as mere fantasies.

Left with no one to turn to, her childhood innocence was shattered, replaced by an intense yearning for justice and revenge. As she matured into a young woman, her pain transformed into strength, fueling her determination to seek retribution against her tormentor.

"Something must be done to expose and punish him, to make him regret his actions!" she declared, her body drenched by the rain, while the wind, lightning, and thunder appeared to foretell an impending doom...


Part II
Ornguze Nashima Nathaniel

Her ankle-length gown stuck

to her body, and her curves were evident. The succulent balls on either side of her cleavage stood as if annoyed with the sky that wouldn’t rain without barking and blinking. She moved away from the rock, as lightning subsided. Then she felt a cramp. A sweet pain. Streaks of warm blood began to crawl down her inner thighs. It was the day of her flow. She just remembered. She picked a smudge of blood with her fingers and lifted it to the sky. The rain was now a drizzle. “This is my blood. The same blood I first saw when an evil man forcefully made a path through me. I ask for justice. He defiled me; I path he walked repeatedly. I curse him by the rain, the sky, the thunder, the lightning, and the mud under my feet.”

But why was she being angry at herself, she thought. It was not her fault to be a weak victim in a man’s world, where the truth of a girl her age was best described as fantasy. The sky flashed and she saw the memory of the assault in the lightning. Fresh and hurtful. The weight of the man on her had almost cracked her; the bed moderately creaked and squeaked sotto voce. No one was home and her demon of an uncle had taken his time to touch places and graze in her premature meadow. She could not shout to arouse neighbours because he gagged her with his callous left palm, and the right hand was free to guide his phallus into her. Just muffled moans was she able to make, as the man groaned at the peak of the forbidden ride. When he was through, he jumped down from bed and pulled his baggy trousers to his waist and fastened it with a rope. He looked as her and said, “You will tell no one. But even if you do, nobody will believe your words against a man of my reputation.” He laughed and drew up his zip. Then he left the room, leaving behind pain, blood, and sorrow. This was soon a routine.

As the past, which refused to be in the past, played in her nagging head, she told herself she had to hasten home. Maybe she could caught up with Amelda. A moment later, a thought in her head told her not to hurry or worry. Moreover, their plan to hunt for mushrooms that evening was already botched by the rain, and she was already drenched to the bone. Why the worry then?

To beat the pains that came with the cramps, she crouched, her right hand firmly on the ground, and her left hand clutching her belly. She stayed in this position for a considerable length of time. But a peal of thunder finally braced her up. She rose to her full height and collected another smudge of her blood, which had almost reached her ankles. She put her hand to her face and muttered a line of swear words; and a peal of thunder sounded as though to say it had heard our cry and demand for justice.

As she picked heavy steps homeward, the rain increased in strength.

The next morning, Amenrencia’s uncle was found dead in his room. Thunder had struck him.