Goldfish Bowl

Chapter 1

When Alisha stepped out in public, the whole world tended to stop and stare.

They didn't stare because she was stunning (she really was) or because she was half naked or missing an arm or a leg, those were the major reason why Nigerians stared at people. No, they stared at Alisha because she was albino and while it was not a disability or a phenomenon particularly rare, they still liked to look. And when they did stare, they looked at her with pity as if she as an albino suffered from the mutation, they looked at her as if she was a disease, sometimes, little children ran at the sight of her, sometimes in busses, people she sat close to usually shrunk at the thought of rubbing skin with her fair one.

She was used to all this, and some days she found that it didn't bother her at all. But today, when she stepped out of her family's duplex and into the street of the estate they lived in, they weren't staring at her because of how she looked like, they were staring at her because of her association with Pastor Festus Boye.

Alisha's father was a well known pastor in Lagos state, and general overseer of one of the biggest churches in the state with well over fifteen branches alone in the state and some branching out to the boundaries of Ogun state and a few weeks ago, a scandal had rocked his church, a video trending on the internet had revealed her mother in an affair with a branch pastor and that hadn't been the worst part.

It had also been discovered after a paternity test insisted upon by the church that of all the five children she had bore for her husband, only Alisha was not his. Alisha was a result of her mother's promiscuity.

Now as she walked, head bowed as she tapped away on her phone, they pointed fingers and whispered in tones they thought was hushed but was in fact as loud as a blown horn.

"Poor girl."

"Maybe that is why she is an albino."

"That poor pastor."

She chuckled at the last part, her father was definitely not innocent, perhaps not as evil as her mother but not quite innocent either. If only they knew what he had dipped his hands into for the sake of making his church bloom, then their jaws would drop wider. Either way, it was no concern to her, she didn't care what they said, she didn't care that her father seemed to avoid being in the same room with her, she didn't care that her siblings were suddenly treating her like an outcast.

All she cared about was surviving the summer and heading off to the university where an all expense paid scholarship awaited her, even if her father decided to cut her off, she would find a way to survive without him.

Just as she had learnt to since she was twelve.

And the only thing that kept her sane and that would make this summer bearable for her was ignoring the stares, no matter how much they'd like to say the words to her face, they couldn't and that alone gave her a small measure of power.

Her phone buzzed and one look at it made her smile slightly, maybe the only other thing that would make the summer bearable was already waiting for her at a cafe.

Alisha quickened her pace on the sidewalk, the stares already forgotten. Her favourite place in the estate was a quaint cafe just a few minutes walk from her house, while it was a cafe, the beverages were not limited to coffee, they sold ice cream too and sugary buns.

She crossed over to the other side of the street and Coffee & Chill came into sight. She nodded a greeting to the snoozing security guard who waved her on with a toothy grin, he was an old man who once served in the army and when Alisha had asked him why he worked in as security in a cafe that probably paid meagerly, he had simply given a smile and shook his head.