Pen of God

Pen of God 

“Henry! You slapped me?”

“Alice , you see Akim and suddenly you are a good kisser. I hate pretenders. You think I would not know that you are infatuated, that you have a liking for him. That you love him .” Henry states as he drives his car out of the parking lot of an event center after his best friend’s party. 

This was the normal scenario for the Ayomipo family. They started dating before they could recite their multiplication time tables. They met in Corona Elementary School in Lagos. What Alice did not know was that the man she married only wanted her for her goddess like features (pleasing to the eyes). She had a pointed nose; ivory skin and cat eyes. This obsession was well deserved . And she was with him, because her home was not a happy one her mother was chased out of her father’s house by her sister, who he had gotten pregnant for him. But God knows if this kind of situation will replicate itself again. Can it? Or can’t it?

Henry’s father was a retired General and was the former Minister of Defense. His mother was an ex-beauty Queen. As the first son of the family he got everything he wanted. Whilst Alice was just lucky to get into his school through some scholarships. But not university as he had chosen to leave for the United States. There in Harvard he dated Alice’s cousin and got her pregnant. But he wanted to marry Alice as she was prettier. He paid someone to kidnap both him and Slyvia to put her under stress so that she can miscarry the pregnancy . After which he then paid a police officer to behave or rather act like their saving grace, Slyvia (Alice’s cousin cried.) To make her not to be depressed he proposed to her, that week he left for Nigeria. Slyvia went mad. The secret of Slyvia and Henry remained therefore closed forever. Henry just wanted someone to pass time with Slyvia; since Alice wanted to keep her virginity for marriage and Henry could not wait for this gift. He had never had that kind of adventure with any woman. He was ready to wait for his beautiful girl friend to give him, the fruit of her waiting. 

Two weeks after the argument in the car between Alice and her husband,after Henry friend’s birthday party. 

“Mom, I have to leave. I can’t write. I can’t think. I am stressed. He violates and beats me.” Alice said as she looks at the mirror in one of the rooms in her family house it was a small bungalow and Alice was going to move out of Henry’s house permanently. 

“You can’t, move out we do not have enough money to...” Her mother claps her hands like a sold out defeated lioness. 

The fact that Alice and her family depended on nothing else but Henry’s lucre. In fact Henry had gotten them in the jugular. They were trapped. Now even, if she left the marriage, she would have to return the one million naira he gave to the family for her bride price and the car, not to mention that he gave his mother in law a monthly bursary. So she was “bought.”

“Alice I will take you to one place. The head witch doctor of my town. He will give you a charm, a talisman and you be able to make sure that your husband stops beating you.” Alice’s mother says as she cuts a tuber of yam, which the family was to eat for lunch. 

“Mom! If God will not help me. Then too good or too bad.”

“Alice, you are so daft. Money that you have never seen before in your life is looking you in the face and that fact most be realized.”

Alice holds her tears, “Mom! Am I piece of wood, that has been sold out?”

“Okay you know you are two weeks pregnant. You have written seven books what makes you think you will be able to survive. I have told you that we should go to the bar beach to meet the other witch doctor so you can be like Chidie Amanda or like the man who wrote “Things Fall Apart”. You want to be a Nobel prize winner! But you are so stupid.”

“Mama, God will make me a best seller.”

“Yes! That is after you die of poverty and purgatory.”

“Mommy, God will give me an idea.”

“Yes. After you starve. Now you will have to leave. Henry will soon be here.” 

There is nothing as bad as a bad marriage. Alice was an amateur writer. She had won a scholarship because of her writing and never really finished school. 

There was a knock on the door. Alice’s seventeen year old brother opens the door and Henry walks in. 

A WEEK AFTER 

“Honey, we are going to have a boy. Alice!” Holds his wife’s hands erotically, like a man who is really in love. 

“Henry, why do you beat me?”

Henry gets up, trying to kiss her she turns her face. “I am sorry.”

Henry had reconciled with his wife and know a child was coming, but the Ayomipos were to expect a hard blow. A blow that will change things for both.

Henry’s phone rings he picks it up and moves to another room. 

“Hello, this is Slyvia and I need to be with you or see you today.”

“Hope you know I am married to your cousin. And when did you come in from the States.”

“Look don’t come and I will tell on you. Cause I didn’t loose the baby actually.”

“Slyvia, Alice’s pastor came over and he warned that if I cheat on Alice, I will die.”

Seven hours after. 

Slyvia , (Alice’s cousin ) takes out a clay calabash, and breaks it. “Henry, you shall die as long as you proposed to me and then left me with...” looks at the witch doctor crying, “with an imbecilic child.” She then allowed the native priest who is the second in voodoo power in her village to bathe her. 

At the home of Ayomipos. 

“Do not go out; Henry I had a dream and the Pastor said...”

Henry looks at her hisses and leaves. 

That night Henry slept with Alice’s cousin. After telling his wife that he was going for a meeting. He spent two weeks with Slyvia. Then Alice who had a writer’s block came up with an idea to write a story based on true life about a husband who cheats and beats his wife. She made a vow to God that if she can finish the book before her husband came back from his rendezvous ;and if He can make it a best seller she would build an orphanage and also if she became a Nobel laureate. That night she preceded and in two weeks she was done. 

Alice husband never came back home, he had an accident , until Alice had sold enough to be a best selling author. Then she got her pastors, they prayed for him and he was made whole. He too became a Christian and never ever hit her again as he was warned in his coma by an angel. Today they have twins ,a boy and a girl. 

Alice called her book “The Pen of God”. Sometimes one has to understand that we are all pens in the hand of the creator. 

My name is Alice and that is how I got my “moment” and was given inspiration from God. Vows are powerful, but God is more than powerful. Keeping his covenant to a thousand of generations with those who love Him. I am Alice and understand this to well. 

by Daniella Idogho