↪Winner Of Ankara Community Awards.
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❝pray tell, young lass,
what do you know about hell?❞
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For Aala AbdulMalik, her hom...
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The story goes.
He never smiled again, his eyes dulled, and his resolve weakened. No one could do anything to breathe life back into his lifeless self. He buried himself in work and ignored the world.
The story goes,
The children warmed up to the dark gold girl, and watched, fascinated by her forest eyes and the foreign tongue she'd often lapse into when words in Hausa, English and Kanuri were not enough to express what she wanted.
"you're our flower," they'd said, giving her an armful of marigolds, and she giggled in response, holding out one of the flowers for the girl who sat in the corner alone, but the girl glared at her, and her stare burnt the girl who ran away.
They comforted her and chastised the older girl in the corner, "don't worry," they'd said, "no harm will befall you."
The story goes,
Their mothers poisoned their minds against the dark gold girl, and made sure to put a gap between them, leaving her alone with the shadows, and voices that never spoke back. She recoiled and withdrew into her shell, shutting herself away from the world that never wanted her, and so she withered.
Once, she'd gathered the courage and asked their mothers, "why don't you love me?"
They stared at her, and replied, "your siblings love you, and that's enough for you. A single person is more than what you deserve, child. You do not need the world to love you, besides, you're an epitome of our failure, pain laced with too many memories that haunt us."
And the girl never asked anything again, choosing to instead lose herself in the swirls of toxic paints, dirtying up a plain canvas whenever she could, because there was everything satisfying about losing herself in the colours, her imagination taking over, and on the really bad days, words would seize control instead, poetry spilling from her tongue.
The story goes,
A few of the children, kind-hearted and brave, kept the memory of the dark gold girl alive. Once they saw how little of who she was remained in her, they threw caution to the wind and bridged the gap. Slowly, but surely, she blossomed once more.
