We are Able
Episode 29 and 30
On and on I lived a happy life with the children of Mrs Omotayo. If only I could live with them forever, I wouldn’t have anything to worry about.
I was obsessed with the love of Biodun to the extent that I learnt the Braille method of writing, since that was the only way I could communicate with him without asking for the help of Laide his sister.
If only Biodun had eyes, it had been better. He would have learnt the sign language too. I found the sign language the easiest means of communicating.
I acquired the material for writing in Braille, the paper, the pin, then I began to write:
Dear Biodun,
I have been wanting to tell you this all the while but I didn’t know
how to express myself because I am a female and you are the male.
However, I thought it doesn’t matter.
The simple truth is that I
want us to be lovers. It may be funny, a deaf mute girl dating a blind
guy. How would they communicate with each other? How would they protect
each other? I shall do all I could to protect you, Biodun, and no hurt
would come to you while I live. I love you as you are because Love Is
Blind. Infact, love is also deaf and dumb. In summary, I LOVE YOU. Pls
reply me.
Rose.
Bode was spying at me while I was writing it. I took the paper and began to make for the garden to give him. I didn’t want to give it to him myself, else he wouldn’t take me serious.
I pushed Laide’s wheelchair to him and Laide gave it to him after a brief conversation between them. Biodun didn’t read it at once. He just held it in his right palm.
I was disappointed.
The day after, I began to await Biodun’s response, but he didn’t say anything. I even asked Laide to ask him on my behalf if he had read it. Laide herself didn’t seem to understand the content of the letter I wrote in Braille.
Maybe I didn’t write it well, I thought. Perhaps my English was bad. However, Biodun’s disposition towards me didn’t change. He remained as he used to. I doubted if he read the letter at all. If he had read it, then he should either show more interest in me or show hatred for me; he shouldn’t be sitting on the floor.
During the second term holiday, Bode did something very annoying as he was wont doing. It was a shock when I saw Laide lying on the floor, her wheelchair lying upended on top of her body. She was weeping profusely.
I rushed with impulse to raise her up. When she was up, she began to point towards the back of the house. I rushed there and found Biodun tied to the mango tree. His mouth was gagged such that he couldn’t shout. I began to loose him. No one needed to tell me that it was Bode’s doing.
As I bent to loose his feet, an elbow landed straight on my spinal cord. I fell in excruciating pain. Bode laughed.
I began to rise with the little strength remaining in me. Bode opened his dry lips and slotted in a mango leaf to remind me of my situation. The chemical in my head mixed together. I groaned like a wounded Lion ready to attack.
Bode rushed forward to hit Biodun whose feet were still tied to the tree; only his hands were now free. His fist landed on Biodun’s face. His mouth went wide apart for a scream. I knew he was screaming when I saw the shape of his mouth. I couldn’t bear it.
I lurched forward immediately. Bode didn’t expect me to reply his attack on Biodun because I had been living like a dummy ever since my mother was imprisoned. He realised how serious I was only after my slap had rocked his cheek. I knew he felt it so much; the impact was immense, like an earthquake.
Bode rushed at me with full force and gored me down. I was angry. I lost my guard, else I should not have fallen down. However, I had Bode’s cloth in my grip. I pulled it until he was also on the floor beside me.
I turned Bode around and beat him black and blue. I sat on his back as I turned his neck to the sun and filled his mouth with sand. I believed Biodun was hearing Bode’s cry. It would do me proud before him; perhaps he would reconsider me and reply my letter. I untied Biodun at once and rushed back to deal with Bode who had just managed to get up his feet.
I grabbed Bode by the neck and put my fingers into his nostrils, wanting to tear them apart. Bode pleaded for mercy but I wouldn’t listen or I didn’t hear him speak. But his gestures carried it all.
Biodun even came between us to stop me. I listened for his sake and left Bode alone. The boy ran like thunder and rushed into the room, shutting the door against himself.
I held Biodun by the hand and put a hand around his neck as I led him to the front of the house. Biodun and Laide laughed. They were talking to each other. Laide saw Bode while he was running into the house, filled with tears.
I led them inside their house and sat on a chair.
Laide tore a piece of paper and wrote something in it; something she had just discussed with Biodun and felt I should ‘hear’ it too. I read.
Now I believe we are able indeed. If three disabled people could conquer Bode, an ablebodied young boy, then it means that Bode is the disabled and WE ARE ABLE
Laide said it wasn’t all yet. She said she had a gift for me:
What’s that? I wrote back.
Laide asked me to wheel her towards the reading table. I did. Laide reached for a big notebook on the table and poured down its content. A thick paper fell. Laide pointed at the thick paper and I picked it up. It was a reply of Biodun’s letter a month ago.
I was shocked when I saw the date he addressed it to me; same day I gave him mine, but Laide kept it so long from me purposely.
I read the Braille writing style and my eyes flashed like torchlight.
When Toyosi returned, she had to knock and knock before Bode opened the door. I knew I was done for it and my heart lurched. I had her bags on my left shoulder.
Toyosi met Bode in tears. She asked him what happened and Bode pointed to me as he spoke. Toyosi turned to me with a wrinkled face. I consoled myself, knowing what exactly would follow. I wouldn’t mind since I was only doing it for love, I thought.
Episode 30
Toyosi was extremely annoyed with me. She beat me with everything she could lay her hands upon.
I screamed, perhaps Mrs Omotayo would hear my voice and come to my rescue. John returned from work too and began to beat me. He locked me up in a room after kicking me severely.
When John released me, somebody bumped into our parlour. It was around 9pm. I was shocked to see that she was Mrs Omotayo.
She came close to Toyosi and they pointed fingers at each other. I could see her mouth moving as if she was pronouncing ‘Bode’. Applying my commonsense, I interpreted what was going on. Mrs Omotayo was angry with Bode for treating her children badly.
If John hadn’t come in between the two of them, they would have fought physically. Toyosi even threw a blow and it caught my father on the face. She then relaxed to tend the swelling on his forehead.
I shook where I stood. I knew that they would eventually come back to me to deal with me. They would pay back everything she did to them on me.
As envisaged, John treated me badly. He made me to sit down in space, without a chair. It was a form of punishment. My legs and my waist pained me so much. Each time my hip was going down, he would whip me with a wire.
I wept bitterly as I served the punishment. If only I could have my way, I would run away from home, I thought.
Nobody needed to tell me that I had lost the privilege of schooling once more. Over and above all, I had lost the love of my heart. However, I wouldn’t regret that I fought Bode back since I was doing it for my future husband, I thought.
My room was relocated once again, this time it was the store room. The kitchen was filled up with foodstuff and other things, therefore I would be in the store room. The room was stuffy. It had a little opening high up. Our farm equipments were in there; rakes, watering cans, cutlasses, brooms, hoes and more.
I picked up a broom and swept the dusty room. I had catarrh as the dust rose and got into my head through the orifices of my nostrils.
I had resigned to fate long ago. Whatever came my way I would just accept it that way. I knew I would overcome someday. I took my note and began to write my poems once more:
I remembered the letter Biodun wrote in Braille. I smiled as I produced it and set it before my face. Seeing it was making my heart glad. I closed my eyes and began to feel around it with my fingers. Reading in Braille was fun to me.
Rose, I have never imagined that the blind could hear the deaf speak. I have never thought that the deaf could communicate with the blind, but it was such a huge shock to me that you crossed the bridge, or let me say you bridged the gap. Even when I couldn’t learn your own language, you learned mine. You were not self-centred. You have travelled miles in my heart already and my heart is already for you. Rose, I LOVE YOU even if you can’t defend me and nothing shall separate us henceforth. Biodun.
I halted around the L-O-V-E and felt them over and over again with my fingers. With that letter close to my heart, I slept off.
Biodun was riding a bicycle. I sat behind him on the bicycle. We rode on and on, yet he was blind, having a dark goggle set over his face. I wondered how he was able to manoeuvre his way through the bumpy road. Laide was running on foot beside our bicycle, lame, yet we couldn’t leave her behind. Although deaf I was, I began to scream on the top of my voice:
WE ARE ABLE! WE ARE ABLE!!
I woke up from sleep. It was all a dream! I wanted to empty my bladder, so I rushed to the door, but it was shut from the outside. I was confused. I needed to pass out the urine. I wondered who locked me in.
I turned my head around and noticed a watering can. I would use it. In a flash I had eased myself.
Early the next morning, it was Saturday, environmental sanitation time. Around 7am, Toyosi had ordered me out of the store room.
“Go to the garden now!” she signed to me. Bode was still asleep. I began to hurry down there. She followed me.
“Rose, I haven’t called you out here to be playing with those handicapped children, okay.”
“Yes ma,” I replied. “If I see you together, then you are doomed, okay?”
“Yes ma,” I replied. Toyosi began to take her leave.
I stooped to begin work. I knew what I should do, so I didn’t hesitate. I was to uproot the weed with my bare hands. That had always been my undeserved punishment every last Saturday of the month.
We had hoes and cutlasses but I was not allowed to use any. John soon joined me in the garden, carrying two watering cans. He was going to wet the vegetables.
John dropped the watering cans and went further into the garden. He plucked some garden eggs and came back to where I was weeding. He ordered me to take the watering cans to the tap to fetch water there. I picked them up but he ordered me to wait a little while. He wanted to wash one of the garden eggs to eat.
John picked up one of the watering cans and shook it. Seemed there was a little water in that. He would use the water to wash his hands and the garden eggs. John hastily poured the liquid on his right hand and rinsed the garden eggs. I perceived the odour of urine and remembered what I did last night.
I watched John as he squeezed the garden eggs into his mouth. I turned my head around and smiled. John was stingy, he wouldn’t share them with me. Even if he wanted to do that this time around, I wouldn’t receive them.
I picked the watering can and went to the tap to fetch water. When I returned, John was holding his stomach in pain. I never knew what evil my urine could cause until now.
John spent the rest of the week in a hospital, explaining to the doctors that he ate a salty garden egg. Nobody on earth was able to understand the mystery of the salty garden eggs except myself. I AM ABLE, I thought.
*******TO BE CONTINUED*******
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