Truest

CHAPTER ONE

A beautiful lady was walking down the dirt road. Her gait was in such a way that one concludes that she hasn’t decided if she wanted to walk or run.

She wore a blouse and a long flowing floral skirt. Her head was covered with a shawl that also covered the upper part of her shawl. Her head was bowed that one wonders if she is on a mission to count the number of pebbles on the dirt road along her part.

She carried a wicker basket with such strength that her knuckles were white. Mind you, the basket doesn’t need such strength exerted on it cos it's almost empty.

People along the road that saw her started whispering, pointing fingers and laughing at her.

Oh what a life!, thought the young lady. I cant even walk the markets again. I should have prepared myself for this cos this place is the meeting place for most people and by people i mean the bad wishers and rumour mongers. The sad twist there is that this time they had real news to talk about and not rumour.

'The prince's betrothed is pregnant', said a fish seller to a fat woman who immediately lightened up at the news and promptly forgot about the fish she had been bargaining over.

'You don’t say. Who is responsible, the prince?'

'As if', scoffed the fish seller.

The lone lady tuned this silly chatter out cos it had brought to her mind what happened just five days ago in the evening.

He had come to visit her as she had requested of him in the missive she had written to him. She had been secretly praying that he would be occupied and wouldn’t have been able to see her that early but when it comes to things like this, luck doesn’t tend to be on one's side. Well, the earlier the better, she had thought to herself. I had better tell him now and she thought while she mentally prepared for his possible reaction.

'What is it you said is urgent that you wanted to talk to me about?' he wanted to know.

'The important issue is also delicate'.

'How delicate?'

'Very delicate'.

'In what way?'

'I want you to promise me that you won’t get angry when I tell you'.

'I can’t do that when I don’t know what you want to talk about', he said with a squinting of his eyes.

'I still want you to promise me'.

'Ok, I promise'.

'A monumental occurrence has happened in the sense that my monthly discharges has stopped coming for the last two months and this had had me worried. This necessitated my visit to the doctor praying that my suspicion isn’t confirmed...'

'What is that your suspicion?' he cuts in but she ignored him as if he hasn’t spoken.

'But I think my prayers haven’t gotten to the heavens yet', she went on reciting from memory the speech she had prepared for this moment, 'cos my suspicion were confirmed and this had brought me to a cross road and am at a lost for what to do'.

'Woman, would you please get on with it and stop beating around the bush', he said in a bored voice, 'you've only succeeded in increasing the height of tension'.

'What I've been trying to say is that the normal occurrence which usually brings forth the case of stopped monthly flow is what had happened to me and for the life of me....'

'What?!' he interrupted incredulously.

'I don’t know how it happened', she concluded her speech looking perplexed.

'Does this mean that you are with child?' he asked in a quiet voice which made her straighten up cos this is what usually precedes his anger. I guessed my speech still didn’t distract from the magnitude of the news.

She only could nod her head already resigned to whatever would ensue.

'But how? I've never touched you before!'

'Now you know why am at a crossroad', she replied in a small voice.

'You are at a crossroad? Don’t you know who is responsible?'

'No'.

'You don’t even know cos you can’t remember?' he sputtered. 'Do you even know their number?' he asked and continued without waiting for her reply. 'So you just open your legs to every dick and harry that comes your way and you allow me to waste my precious time on you! This is unbelievable, what is this world turning to? I pray u remember who it is that knocked you up cos I don’t even want to see your face!' he ranted and turned to leave her house with a disgusted look. 'Don’t let me lay my eyes on your filthy body you filthy whore', this was followed by a loud slam of the door closing which signified the end.

'Oh God', she sobbed as she remembered the look she saw on his face. As the look of loving concern changed to disgust and she can bet that it had changed to hatred as she could feel the hatred in his last statement.

She was brought back to the present as a loud hiss was let out near her ear by a severe looking old matron. This type of people does not cringe from making their feelings known even if the recipient is not interested.

'Whore', said another from the severe woman's group.

'Virgin Mary', scoffed another, 'who does she think she can fool with that talk of hers?'

'Miraculous conception my foot', added the severe woman.

With this, Mary fled to the sanctuary of her house with tears pouring down her eyes and her shopping a long way from been finished.

I should have been prepared for this, thought Mary as she changed her position on the bed. News of this nature tends to pass around quicker than a brush fire. It seems as if people derive joy from the misfortune of others. Since that unfortunate day, she hasn’t laid eyes on the Prince although she hadn’t made quite an effort to see him so as not to incur his wrath.

Truth be told, she hadn’t known how she got pregnant because she is still a virgin even if all others think otherwise. She had never heard of this occurrence and is baffled at this predicament she had found herself. If someone had told her that this would befall her, she would have scoffed at the person.

Immediately she thought this, a nagging thought came to her mind and the thought wasn’t only nagging but also disturbing. A peculiar feeling just like the one she experienced some weeks back came back to her.

She hadn’t thought about this feeling since then because she couldn’t for the life of her think of what could be responsible for this feeling. She then remembered the event associated with the feelings.

She remembered that on that day, she just got back from the family’s orchard and was about entering into her room when this strange thing happened. She hadn’t known what to call it then and now the situation still hadn’t changed.

She had thought that she was in a trance but on second reflection she had also assumed it to be a dream. The strangest thing was that it felt more real than all these, as if it quite happened to her.

She dreamt that she was in her room just after she had the noon’s prayer that the angel of the Lord came unto her and said, ‘Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed are though among women’.

And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind that what manner of salutation this should be.