Imagine you are Catherine, a landmine victim from war-torn Angola. Having lost both legs, loneliness has become your daily bread, and disgrace has stuck on you like a badge. While other kids of your age are ripping their throats hoarse sharing cakes of happiness within your compound, you are parked in a wheelchair sleeping like a dead body in a coffin. You quit playing with them because of the new names they gave you –cross-eyed invalid, stump- legged twit; the list was endless. You failed to stand that.

You recently stopped going to school as well because the mockery from both teachers and fellow pupils was unbearable. “She is the only one looking weird in a class of beautifully endowed children,” some diva summed up everything about you. “Leo’s legs are pointers to a beautiful life, Jumbo’s stumps are harbingers of misfortune,” another teacher started a new song to highlight the danger you posed to the innocent kids, dashing your hopes of joining her class. In a class of ebullient kids, you are the only one who hobbles in a wheelchair like a limping baboon whose backbone was reduced to jelly. And worse still your horror story shows up everywhere making teachers grumble about your figure messing the class photos. The sitting posture gives you away because the stumps stick out like horns of a rhino.

“What contribution can this wreck make in my class?” a diva swirls a pool of Brazilian hair as she ejects you from her class. “I can’t win any athletics games with such runners, can I?”The Head Teacher is forced to toss you from one teacher to another like a football. The pain on each teacher’s face is unmistakable when they are forced to take you in. This pain is short-lived because in no time they regurgitate you off like spittle with faces beaming with relief. With all the psychology they teach at college, teachers still fail dismally to hide their displeasure and do a simple thing of coating a refusal in some sweet phrases like ‘Oh sorry just maintaining pupil: teacher ratio’. You are a burdensome inconvenience; an unwanted baggage one teacher ripped your heart to pieces while turning her nose disdainfully. Maybe she missed the psychology class herself. It was clear they didn’t want you at that school. You quit.

The love from your parents had some toughness grafted on it like rotten cream on a cake. The spontaneous care you enjoyed at first has given way to its detached semblance, the one a housemaid reserves for a pile of feaces on the floor she has just finished sweeping. Tears fed from a relentless well of desolation almost choked you when you heard them grumble about your legless condition as if you made a cool decision to step on that landmine. Mom especially, feels you are interfering with her dreams of climbing the social strata in a ‘Divas own the world’. “Every diva out there has a sparkling child, look at what I got? An abortion mistake” she complains. You don’t even know what she means by an abortion mistake.

The shock on your face one day is phenomenal. Dad is in a hurry taking you to the beach. He used to but it has been so long ago even the almanac has forgotten when. That was before the landmine reengineered the details of your relationship. His face worries you; it looks grimmer than that of Adolf Hitler outlining the final solution to his propaganda chief Goebbels. It lacks the mischief of those days when you could jump on his back playfully, share his mug of coffee, and even fart next to him without incurring his wrath. The reason for this trip is equally hard to decipher, he never discussed it with you beforehand. But lacking alternatives you cling to the big man’s hand pushing the wheelchair out of your home. Your smile is a wasted effort.

Leaving the wheelchair at the stores, he picks you in his hands and walks to the beach. It is clear the grin on his face is fake, a forced one. There among the teeming picnickers, he places you on a mat gently, imitating a loving father. You chat for ten seconds and then an excuse tumbles out of his mouth as if by design. “I will be back,” his dark mustache twists to one side like a General planning the next campaign.

He is gone for close to four hours, abandoning you for four hours without anyone to give care. You have been rolling in the hot sand for four hours without drinking let alone visiting the toilet. The cool breeze massages your skin from a sea you can’t swim in. The heat is scorching your skin but without legs you can’t escape to a shade. You start crying tears fed from a well of grinding sorrow. “If only I had legs ……if only my dad didn’t bring me here….if only I could die now…” you start touching the rat poison capsule he gave you a minute before he left. You wonder ‘could this be the solution to such misery? The right-hand massages it before bringing it closer to your lips, yes the dry lips. “Just swallow it you have suffered too much,” a dark sinister voice seems to be saying.  You feel it makes sense, but without water swallowing may be a problem.

“Use saliva, it works, “the same voice comes back. Killing all hesitations you open your mouth and look up as the right-hand drops the capsule on your tongue. You have not even tasted the bitter thing when….a tall shadow looms over you.

Hurriedly you spit the capsule and prepare to shout at dad for leaving you alone that long. Your heart boils ruing the lack of care from dad. But as your head turns with pupils blazing with anger and a mouth ready to welcome him with ‘what a shameless thing to do’, a soft voice scatters your nerves and quickly washes away the rage, replacing it with shock.

“Hi! I am Princess Diana,” your face turns up sharply and for sure it is not dad, but a white woman talking. She is looking at you with the soft eyes of an angel and the caressing lips of a beauty queen. Scratching your scalp in disappointment, you convince yourself on a number of things; ‘she is too good to be talking to wrecks; she is too rich to mingle with second rate black kids.’ Instantly your heart searches for a tunnel to escape her intrusion. You rudely tear a gaze away to focus it on a brave man fighting to catch a giant wave. It is better than this mirage attempting to fool you. No one in your condition needs to be fooled in daylight with such a nightmarish phantasy.

“She can’t be speaking to me, never,” you continue telling yourself as your hand stays down, refusing to accept a bottle of water she is offering. Though, your throat is drier than a stone in the Sahara desert.

You look around; there is no one she may be addressing, except you. Again you look at her, yes her sea-blue eyes are fixed on you, still as friendly as at first. Her hand is still stretching to give you the cold water. And as if to put the issue beyond doubt, she scoops her slim figure and drops into space next to yours. All horrors have strange twists. The tall graceful lady grabs your hand and forces you to take the water. When you have done, she stretches long legs to squat next to your stumps.

“Hello, what is your name?” she persists, this time her white teeth are glittering; she is smiling at you as she offers you a packed lunch of ham and chicken.

“I am Christine,” you say the words while dropping your head like a withered flower. It is a vain attempt at hiding the dry lips and revolting eyewash, a result of hunger and weeping.

She leans to your side and hugs you. You cringe but your shuddering doesn’t affect her. The war flush on her cheeks means she has sensed your discomfort but the eyes are determined to crush that out of you. Replace it with a roaring zest for life, yes the one driving the stone-hearted men of action on Wall Street.

“Can’t she smell my body odor?” you are crying internally. As if to answer that question she scoops you in her arms and sprints into a mobile bathroom where she scrubs your smelly body, her face puckered in deadly concentration. She stops when you are sparkling clean. The mirror gladly confirms that. And most people around reluctantly confirm the shocking change too as she pushes you in the wheelchair.

“Melu, I saw that cripple two hours ago shitting on herself, but check her now…” a tall boy called Graham was saying. It is true you saw the hunk spitting convulsively in disgust as he looked at your filth.

“But the white Princess,” another voice comes in, “maybe you are mistaken, Graham, that is Princess Diana.”

Smelling yourself, you realize she has used a very expensive soap. The bath is followed by a uniformed man throwing an assortment of swimming clothes into your wheelchair. “Choose what is fit for you,” she commands when the guy has retreated with a bow.

 Than patiently, your Princess helps you into the shallow water for a swim before going into the deeper side for a dive. She is patient with all your faults. Your mind wrestles to come to grips with what is happening, but it slowly becomes clear that she wants to spend quality time making you gallop back from the darkest dumps of human existence. It works.

Your heart spins through a hundred and eighty degrees to get into her rhythm. Bubbling with joy, it springs out of the darkest night of despair into the glorious daylight of joy. It swerves you away from the rat poison capsule highway.

 After the swim and the expensive perfumes oiling your body to unknown perfection, someone hands you a parcel. It contains plastic legs. As if the lady is short on time, she immediately starts teaching you how to walk with the artificial legs. At first it is painful but with more practice you start enjoying using the new limbs. The day is wound up with you driving in an expensive Mercedes Benz. She is taking you home. To dad and mom.

Seeing you drop from the Mercedes Benz with parcels of priceless food, Dad almost breaks a leg fleeing away into the bedroom. Mom hangs on but her shocked eyes parallel those of an owl staring at a rat daring it to a fight. But eventually, they both recover from their shocks and quickly regain the roles of loving parents.

“Thanks for bringing our doll home,” that is your mom yapping like a sick cow. She is an expert liar or a consummate actress fit for Hollywood, you didn’t know. It rankles like someone spitting phlegm into your make-up.

“I searched and searched for Christine at the beach but never realized she could be with you. Thanks for bringing my pet back to us,” that is dad trying his antiquated self- cleansing gimmick. It stinks like sewage slime.

“It is my pleasure, I will pick her again at six sharp if you don’t mind,” she bows to your parents as she enters the Benz. It roars off taking her away into the Lobito Bay darkness.

Alone at home, your parents suddenly start tripping on one another’s toes trying to show you what a lovely treasure you are. A piece of diamond lost but found. They are in a hurry to show you, real love. Their faces are eloquent with concern. It is the first-day mom has smiled at you in ages. It is the first-day dad has wished you good night with twinkling eyes. Bending his stone shaped head in mischief, he is even hinting at taking you back to school the next day. Inside you rage at the duplicity. What if that angel didn’t drop from the blue, would they have done?

The next day she picks you up at six sharp. “Do you go to school?” the tender voice has suddenly become sharp and commanding probably to show the importance she attaches to school. The demand in the clear blue eyes is unmistakable.

“I dropped out,” your answer comes with shame. Your head drops like a maiden taking a proposal from a man she knows she must accept. However; a nagging worry shakes a nest of butterflies in your stomach, what if she asks why?

“Which school could allow a thirteen year- old girl to drop out?”Her oval face is crushed in true sorrow. The first time you have seen her face pained-breaking into a rain of tears. She knows my story because it is the story of thousands of crippled girls.

The Head was truly amazed to see you back, especially seeing you in the company of the ‘queen of hearts’ as you started calling her. He is shaking like a reed as his hands clasp the tender hands of your new friend. He knows her and the power she commands, it shows in his eyes widened with awe.

“Christine is coming back into school,” she says as her lacquered fingers flip a card into the Head teacher’s hand. “My number is there; contact me if she skips school again.”

The Head looks at you with eyes that seem to say, ‘I pray you didn’t say anything ugly about us to her, did you?’ You wow at the big man’s discomfort, almost spitting a ‘damn you!’ into his treacherous face fungus. All the kids poke their heads out of classroom windows to look at your new friend; obviously bouts of envy are already corroding their guts like fuming sulphuric acid.

 “Who is her class teacher?” the Princess asks the fox-faced Head, everyone has heard the question. Suddenly, the place is a roaring cyclone; all the ten teachers are stampeding forward like a herd of cattle fleeing a lion in panic. Each one is now fighting to be your class teacher. These are the same teachers who were screaming in hate as they chased you away from there classes. The Brazilian hair diva is leading them like a female opera singer. She swung Kim Kadarshian hips and undulated unforgettable curves forward to shamelessly extend a hand to receive you.

“Come, Christine, my darling!” she grabs your hand fractionally before the ‘baggage’ lady could reach it. “Hey, she is in my class, have you forgotten?”Now she is willing to fight over you.

You wonder why humans are like this: some make you feel like dying instantly while others make you feel like living another hundred years. And the later, like Princess Diana, are as rare as diamonds while the other type is disgustingly abundant like sand on the seashore.

“Why have you chosen me?” you ask her even if the fear grips your heart. Fear that she may leave you in anger because you have asked her such a question.

“Chosen you for what?” her eyes are wide in shock but the lips are soft like a real angel. There is no effort on her part to force you to talk. She is brutally tolerant.

“I mean there are better girls that deserve this attention,” you stammer wishing that tongue of yours had behaved itself in the first place. But your heart keeps on pushing. It wants to know.

“To me there is no better girl or worse girl,” she is so cool when saying it, gesturing with open hands for emphasis. You know it is the truth coming from a pure heart. “You are all the same, I love everyone equally.”

That makes you jealousy because there was this thought nagging at you about something special having drawn her your way.

“I mean look at my legs,” you stammer an explanation. “Rosa has beautiful l….”

“Legs are just part of who we are, “she says with closed eyes, maybe hiding her disgust at your implied insult that she had a sinister motive picking on you. “We don’t become less human because we have lost legs. Why should I avoid a beauty like you just because she lost legs?”

You fail to answer because no one has ever called you a beauty. No one, especially after the brush up with that horrible landmine.

The next day she throws you into a busy schedule both at school and out of it. The Mercedes Benz is now your second home, it is always taking you to meet different officers; from both government and numerous NGOs. Your new friend is making sure you enter the cycle of influential people. The sharpest termite of fear eating you up is that you may crumble under her tyrannical demand for clockwork precision on what she wants. It shakes the foundations of a prayer in your heart that cries to let this new life just go on and on.

A month later. “Christine, I am going back to England for a birthday party..,” she cuts into a description of your progress at school.

Your heart bleeds out some desperate hope-maybe she will take me with her after all now she is my only parent….her next words clear out such cobwebs of doubt from your mind.

“Be a good girl and work hard at school until I come back.”

“But I can’t live without you…,” you try a desperate shot, as a flood of tears rolls down your cheeks, but she cuts your cry short.

“Goodbye Christine Fulani,” she says. “I will be back in a week.”

But before the week, her promised week, the BBC announces that she has died. The news is a horrible blow that has the perverse effect of making you drop the nylon airways carry-all and crushing you to the ground, yelling in reckless abandon; “ Nooooo! Nooooo! This can’t be happening. Why did I let her go alone?”