Our obliviousness

Staying alone at home was my special forte. As the sun was to vampyre, that was how leaving the house was to me.

Incessantly, about every two years I switched schools and homes. The only place that was always constant growing up was my grandmother's.

My grandmother loved me and for all it was worth I loved her. I knew her and she knew me. I was never anyone's favorite not even her, however we were tethered to one and the other. My grandmother was not without her flaws, however she attended to everyone in my family with a different kind of flourish. She was truly special.

My life is far from interesting however at least a few times I have some astounding experiences , one of the many instances was when I lived with my aunt and her husband. I am pretty sure I was not wearing anything quite provocative, I mean how provocative could a flat board eleven year old girl pretend that she was. I don't even remember who that was but the asshole was leering ,at a basic child. Another of the many instances took place a few months after the first said instance, although I cannot remember what it was that I was wearing, I got catcalled. I might have grown a few centimeters to my bust, but not enough to be mistaken for a woman. Dressing nice became kind of a taboo because I kept garnering unwanted attention from grown men.

Over recent years I was the kid who barely drew attention to herself and tried her best to melt into the background but still managed to garner attention for herself. Sometimes I see myself going over wild fantasies from yesteryears when I was still a child, back when life was so uncomplicated and unproductive

I remember when my primary one grace class teacher approached and decided she wanted me to present a little speech during this upcoming graduation. Looking back at that time now I don't distinctly remember being scared of going onto the stage. She gave me about four paragraphs of material and those lines basically became prayers on my lips up until the scheduled graduation day. When the day finally arrived I dressed in my lemon green ólèkù and my gélè olofí with my ìpélè and my brown Scholl's dupe. I strutted down to my classroom and waited for my teacher to come get, I sat as still as I could so my gélè will not loosen. An hour went by and then thirty minutes and another hour and another and she still wasn't here. I was starting to get a bit parched. After sitting and doing basically nothing for the last three hours my teacher finally arrived only to tell me that my speech had been cancelled and that I return to my family but she did not even apologize.

I walked slowly back to my family members and the sense of defeat had the hunger pangs in overdrive. As soon as I caught sight of my family I burst into large blubbering tears, however as I move to be comforted I miss a step and one of my shoes give way. I wondered what it was with me and graduations about two years ago I was also preparing for my Nursery graduation, so I went to get my hair done. Everybody and their mother were now curling the end of their extensions with scalding water, I mainly used beads but the hairdresser went on to say I was her best customer and she do what was best for me. She placed a sun beaten towel and went to get the water, the steam crept up to the nape of my neck and I jerked violently as hot water found home on my neck, I shrieked in so much pain that my mother came running and put some honey and turned on the fan in the direction of my neck. Subconsciously after that I actively detached from any stuff, a few old good insects from here and there. It made my blood boil however worse bigger things each day.

Moving had never had upsides for me, I was always the alienated kid as the kids... , but school was generally nice. The most scary instance occurred to me a few weeks. I was at home as per usual and alone as per usual. I hadn't eaten so I stood up to heat something to eat, while my food was in the microwave there was movement at the door and that was to be expected as I didn't live alone. I waited patiently for my food to complete it's cycle, before I heard drunk mumblings SHIT! It was that bastard I held my breath, he was drunk as hell and there was no where to run.

He stuck his head into the kitchen

"How are you? "he asked

"I'm good thanks " I replied

He moved as if to retire to his and muttered some more gibberish and sauntered up to me, GOD! my heart was basically staggering, I was screaming in my head. He always said that I was like a sister to me, God please help me, fuck! fuck!!! He stood behind me, my muscles bunched and tightened, he breathed down my neck and asked how old I was like he didn't know. I was fifteen for God's sake. My food came to a stop and I muttered some faux courage from deep within my heart to my room, thank God he didn't follow.

My mom got back from work this morning and I was going to tell, however her impatience cut me off.

"Mum something happened"

"What was it?"

"Well.... I ..."

" Speak up"

"Don't worry about it mum"

"Fine, forget it then."

Whenever I saw him in the house he looked away, whether he remembered or not was not even the point, the point was I was never going to have an audience with him ever again. Against my mom's better judgement he offended her and she sent him packing, he never apologized, I never confronted him but the hatchet was not buried. It was barely buried something that I would always remember as a particular scent from him seem to trail after me, seemingly highlighting that what had happened could never be forgotten.