Face Me I Face you

Chapter six

"Johnny!" You can't be mistaken, you were sure that was your mother's voice, Jara woke up from sleep so fast you would have thought she had a nightmare, her eyes wide and alert.

"I hear your Mama's voice, maybe na my imagination," You watched her, amused at the sudden turn at her behaviour, she was in a state of denial, she would come around.

You threw a shirt on your boxer's brief, and walked to the door opening it, you saw your lovely Mother, she had two polythene bags on her head, one settled above the slightly bigger one, on her free hand she had another polythene bag smaller than the rest.

"Mama, welcome." you greeted.

"Johnny, my son." She hugged you but it was brief, her normal dried fish scent reaching your nostrils and subtle scents of the stuffed clothes probably laying in her old luggage.

Moving backwards she observed you for a while, a frown forming in her face, "See how you lean finish, you wife dey feed you so? Or na to suck your blood dry with her winchy winchy."

You heard some shuffling on the bed, and you knew Jara was coming, her footstep announcing her presence, she stopped just in front of you staring daggers with her Mother-in-law.
"Who be winch? Who be winch?!" she questioned a bit rudely for your liking, again you are stuck in between. You dare not take the side of any woman if not you would resemble the lean roasted chicken those Aboki's sell at night.

"Erm... Mama make we enter house," you tried to prevent the third world war that might happen with you being the only casualty.

"Johny wait, make your Mama show this woman say her juju no dey work. E no dey work." She spat the words at Jara's face, with her nose flared and the tips of her lips raised to the corner.
They both eyed each other, she bent down reaching out for a bottle sitting in her bag. It was an old plastic bottle the content was filled with milky water, it looks highly unhygienic.

"Dis here na correct water, my pastor bless am, he took say any witch wey dey for your life and anything wey dey hinder your progress go die." Jara let out a long hiss, you knew it was directed to both you and your mother.

"Mama boi, dats why you neva grow. Be a man you no gree."

Your mother frowns harder, giving you a hard glare, you knew the meaning behind it. It was simply means had it been you listened to her you won't have a woman who disrespects her Mother-in-law as a wife.

"Mama, enter house na, make I help you carry this load," you offered, she slaps your hand away.

"My pastor tok say, everything wey he say make I do, I go do am before I enter house."
You sighed inwardly already exasperated. She brought out her bible, a small stool that surprisingly fit in her bag and the milky liquid closer to her leg.

She gestured for you to kneel and you did without protesting what her intentions are already lost the mouth for complaints.
The next thing you heard was her tired vocal cords trying to stretch out a song, always a Christian song.
You sighed inwardly as she continued non-stop her voice shutting up the morning cock that clucks all morning, probably replacing the natural alarm too as neighbours trudged out trying to find out who their new alarm clock is.

After her singing session ended she muttered some verses in the Bible repeatedly and splash the milky water on your face your head exactly.
You felt like Jesus when he went to Jordan river to be baptized by John the Baptist.
It should wash your sins away, well the sins of you fantasizing about your Landlord daughter, thank God Jara cannot read minds, you were sure if she can, a sekembe slap would have reached the surface area of your ears and partial face.
The next thing Mama did send you to hellfire of Diarrhea and probably stomach destruction, she forced the water into your mouth like you were still the seven-year-old Johny who refused to eat because his father isn't back from the Football watching centre, isn't still back till now after these years.
You wondered how a grown man like you would let your mother feed you such water. Who knew if the semen of the pastor was involved, or his saliva or he bathe in the water as some rumours of a Ghanian pastor who did the same.
If the breast milk of his wife was this you wouldn't mind, you would lap it like you only hungered for it.

But what you did mind was the sudden pain searing below your abdomen and your thirty-minute visit to the public toilet.

According to Mama, the powerful milky liquid worked as it chased out the winchy winchy your wife has put on you all these years.