Jonathan and Other Weird Stories

That Sunday (eight)

Mama always fed the chickens every evening—no matter how weak she was. It was the one thing she found solace in as her body slowly deteriorated. She would sit on a stool and the chickens would surround her, clucking and chirping, as they gobbled the food she sprinkled around her. And when the food was over, Mama would lead the birds to their cage. They always followed her, maybe because they thought she still had more food to give them—but they always followed her to the cage every evening, and then she would lock them in.

When Mama did not leave her room to feed the birds, I went in to call her and found her in the same position I left her. Her head was tilted towards the door, and lines of worry and disappointment still wrinkled her face. I stepped closer and touched her—her skin was somewhat cold. When I called her and shook her and she did not answer, the fear that she was dead seeped into my mind, but I shook it off, although I could not stop my heart from thumping in my chest. I checked for her pulse, but there was none, and then I jerked back like something had stung me.

Mama was dead.

I stared at her corpse, waiting for it—the grief that usually came when a parent died. The grief I thought would kill me when Papa died. I stayed still, waiting on my knees for that grief, so I could throw myself on her body, crying my eyes out, feeling an unquenchable ache in my heart. Like my heart was split into several pieces with jagged edges that would never fit again.

But the grief did not come.

Only fear: Fear that I had just been stripped off my purpose in life and might not find a reason or to keep living anymore; Fear that I would not survive a week without Mama, because I never even learnt how to cook yam or slit a chicken's throat to cook it; Fear that Mama had died because of me.

If I had come back early enough, Mama wouldn't have been forced to beat me and exhaust all her energy. It was this realization that sent tears crawling down my face and had me bawling, with my face buried in my hands, struggling to muffle my blaring cry.