Young and Soulful

My name is Demola Olabamise and I’m a murderer.

I’ve been a murderer right from birth and, until my death, I will remain one.

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My mother died while giving birth to me and my father never let me hear the end of it. I could never do anything right in his sight, and even when I tried, he would just look at me with such a blaze in his eyes that, I began to wonder if there wasn’t a problem on my end.

I remember him being so intense in his hate for me when I was seven years old. I was in my room when I heard him having a shouting bout with his siblings at the top of his voice.

It seemed the whole house was shaking as my father went, “I won’t do it o, 𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘢𝘪, if it will happen, then let it happen. All I know is that I will not waste my time and money on that creature.” 

My aunt tried soothing him, but I guess her tone wasn’t all that great even as she said, “𝘈𝘩𝘯 𝘢𝘩𝘯, Baba Demola! He is your son o…calm down 𝘯𝘢."

My father walked out of that room just as I was walking out of mine to go get some water from the kitchen. The look he gave me was more than enough to peel the skin off my face, and I do not doubt that if it could have, I’d have been long dead and forgotten.

I quickly learned to keep out of his way and to go about my daily activities with as little fuss as possible, all the time wondering why my father hated me so.

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“No way! My daughter, Yinka, will not marry Demola! Not while I’m alive!”

I knew Yinka while growing up, as her mother and mine had been close friends. It had been her mother who had filled the role of a mother figure in my life, so my dismay at her vehement disapproval of my wanting to marry her daughter could be understood. 

Everyone expected something to bloom between Yinka and me, but for some reason, things never worked out. After some time, I met Nike and we hit it off. Things went well and we got married. About a year into the marriage, we discovered the first lump and things never remained the same. We started chemotherapy to avoid metastasis and, just as we thought things would get better, she relapsed. The doctors were never able to explain how my wife died exactly eight months from the discovery of the first lump.

Two years on, I met Aduke who was like a breath of fresh air in a locked room. I could see us spending the rest of our lives together, right from the first day I met her at a charity event. We got married ten months after we started dating and, for a while, everything was perfect.

Aduke died in the fifteenth month of our marriage. I was driving us home from a party after she started complaining of a headache when, all of a sudden, she began to get frisky and all touchy-feely. It was while trying to respond to her affectations and trying to concentrate on driving that I put my foot down on the accelerator just as we approached a bend. The last thing I remember before the crash was the loud honking. Two years ago, Aduke died but I survived. 

At Aduke’s funeral, I reunited with Yinka and we got talking again. Slowly, our relationship progressed, and we fell in love with time, but for some reason, she wasn’t too keen on her mother finding out about us. One day, however, her mother walked into the house and met me there. I got bold enough to tell her how I felt about her daughter and that was when my whole world imploded.

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“Baba Demola, please tell your son to leave my daughter alone. I don’t want to weep for my child. Let him take his curse somewhere else.”

Iya Yinka’s declaration shattered my entire world into smithereens. Where was the sweet lady who had taken care of me all through my childhood and well into my adolescence?

She looked at me and said, “Stop looking at me like that! You are acting as if you don’t know what I’m talking about. See, Demola, even if it is the last thing I do, I will make sure that you do not marry my daughter. And, if you still need any more clarification, go ahead and ask your father why he refused to carry out the appeasement ritual for you after Iya Wale got careless enough with you on her back.”

My eyes widened in horror and I turned to look at my father. There was no need to ask any questions – the truth was evident in his defiant stare. I turned back to look at Iya Yinka and for the first time since Aduke’s death, tears welled up in my eyes. All I had to say was, “I understand, ma. Just help me tell Yinka that I have always loved her, and I wish things could have been different.”

Her reply floored me, “Sorry o! I am glad it happened like this. My daughter has never been unfortunate in her life, so please take yourself somewhere else. Two have gone down for you and you have five more to go. My daughter will never be a part of your story."

She hissed and walked out. 

I turned to my father again and just asked, “Two down? Five more to go? So, Nike and Aduke were just collateral damage? So, you would have kept quiet while five more ladies met their doom at my hands? Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

Suddenly, twenty-five years after, I remembered the shouting match between my father and his siblings, "I won’t do it o, 𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘢𝘪, if it will happen, then let it happen. All I know is that I will not waste my time and money on that creature."

My father maintained his stony silence as I walked to my car with tears in my eyes.

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You’re welcome to the news at 7. In our top stories for today, the drowned body of a young man was dragged out of the river this afternoon. He had no form of identification on him except for a note sealed in a waterproof bag in his pocket which read thus:

My name is Demola Olabamise and I am an innocent man.

About the Author

Pseudonym: L.E.O. Masters

Ezechimerem Ohaegbulam was born in Lagos and grew up with his head stuck in books.

He studied at the Delta State University (DELSU), Abraka, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree (B.Sc., Hons) in Microbiology.

His hobbies include writing, reading, designing, and performing poetry. He loves beans and plantain and has an addiction to Pepsi and Coca-Cola.

He has also written several other poems and short stories.  He currently resides in Lagos, Nigeria.

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