Visible Essence

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I opened my eye to the dull daylight. The bed sheets on Ada’s side were tossed back, but the sheet felt cold under my hand. Groaning, I flopped back.

Maybe Ada has being up for hours! I told myself, trying to leave the warmth of the bed, but my body felt weak and my stomach strange. I rolled over and fell asleep again.

When I woke the second time, mama was standing by the bed side with my perfectly ironed uniform hanged over her arm.

Aren’t you going to school? She asked me, with a surprised look on her face.
I woke her up, but she wouldn’t get up. Ada said as she dresses up.

Are you well? Mama asked as she leaned over to drop my uniform on the bed.

"Oh! No, what’s the time?".

7:30 a.m:

I came in to drop your uniform when you didn’t come for it and breakfast is ready. She sat down and stroked my face.
‘You OK?’.

Flustered, I jumped up from the bed, while murmuring.

‘sure, guess I just over sleep.’

I knew I wasn’t ok, I had felt a little sick the previous night but I can’t tell for sure. I hurried to the bathroom to shower.

Although my tummy still hurts a little, I poured myself a bucket of water, pulled my cloth and as I was pulling my panty, I saw something strange in my pant; it had a dark brown discharge with a faint red tinge.

Could this be blood? Was the one rhetorical question that protruded from my lip.

My heart skipped and raced continually for like five minutes. I tied my towel loosely around my body and ran out of the bathroom shocked and scared, towards mama with my pant in my hand.

What is the problem? Mama asked, with a shocked tone.

I stood confused and on my face was a great and stark fear; it made me look stripped down to nothing, like a skull with gasping holes, as I showed her my panties.

Mama smiled as she held me on the shoulder.

it’s ok, she said,

I just stood wondering how blood in my pant seems ok to mama. She told me it was normal menstrual flow every woman who has reached maturity experience. I have heard a lot about menstruation but this came as a shock to me.

She talked to me about it and what to expect, while Ada and Obinna left for school. I spent the rest of the day with mama receiving advises and instructions.

As weeks passed, I couldn’t stop thinking about the advises and instructions mama gave me, as it echoes in my mind; if a guy touches you in your fertile period, you would get pregnant or STDs and that you should hide your body from others, Those where her exact words.

She went further to say that a period is the part of the menstrual cycle when a woman bleeds from her vagina for a few days, in most women, this happens every 28days or so.

Girls have their first period start when they start puberty. This can be between the age of 16 to 18, although most girls start at 12. At fertile time you can get pregnant and that time can be difficult to pinpoint but around the time you ovulate. So it’s better to abstain from it to avoid unwanted pregnancy and probably STDs.

She also went on saying, that keeping myself clean to avoid body odour was extremely important; that most boys and girls start to have body odour which is produced by germs that grows in particular moist area of the skin such as armpit during puberty.

With that I went on imagining if most people in my class are in puberty or probably menstruating because of the awful smell that I perceive in my class, like a spoilt fish was placed in the class. And I would wonder if those people do not perceive such odour like I do.

Maybe what biology teacher taught in class? “About diffusion which is the movement of molecule from region of higher concentration to region of lower concentration” would be the reason, maybe they do not known about it because they actually generate it.