SURVIVORS

CHAPTER TWO

   I tossed the bundles of groundnuts and sorghums gingerly towards Zahra, who arranged them almost perfectly on the wheelbarrow.

It was that time of the year again when the rainy season gave hints of its coming. The period we harvested, cleared, and planted new seeds. The dark clouds looked fat, like they were ready to burst open at any moment if annoyed. I wanted this downpour, mainly because it would give me an opportunity to wash myself properly. Infact, each one of us. The stench that followed some captives was becoming intolerable. Most captives didn't even realise that was how bad they stank, maybe I stank also.

That thought led to my next action. I brushed my nostrils over my armpits but there was no stench.

Zahra laughed as I threw the next bundle towards her.

"What's so funny?" I asked, hoping she couldn't read my thoughts.

"Your facial expressions while you work ehn" she replied laughing again.

She's always so bubbly. Finding humour in anything. Her sanguine nature was a great asset to my unbearable recessive melancholy. I knew nothing was funny about the expressions on my face.

At times, I would get so vexed at how she laughed at everything and nothing, especially when I was totally serious. My mum would have termed her a 'talkative'. She believed children were supposed to be raised to learn to speak and act when necessary. When her belief was countered, she would settle down to list proverbs and idioms relating to her answer, of which 'an empty vessel make the loudest noise' was her favourite. I tossed her another bundle, this time with force.

"C'mon Shafa, I was only playing". She managed to catch it before it fell. I pretended like I didn't hear her and went on with what I was doing. Falsifying anger was a simple trick to get her to keep quiet. It always worked. If I let her continue, we would spend the whole day on a task we could have completed within an hour.

Zahra's extroversy had gotten her in trouble countless times. She would laugh at a guard and when caught, would become sober. That was just a glimpse of her chameleon–like attitude.

When she was forgiven, she would come back to tell us how she was able to deceive them, laughing that immediately she escaped from here, she would sign up as an actress.
"Don't you think Nollywood would make a lot of money from me?" She always asked.

Then we would laugh in return, we laughed because we didn't have an answer to that question. It was clear we would never be able to leave the quarters. Though we all had dreams of what we would love to become in future. Dreams that were turning to mere imaginations each day.

I had only began senior year when I was kidnapped, with ambitions of being a Surgeon. I remember vividly the fake stethoscope dad had bought for me.

Mom made me wear it on my neck and took a picture of me, she made an enlargement and framed the picture. It was hung along with the stethoscope on the wall of my bedroom.
   
Once, I carried out a fake incision with a rat I caught at home. I ended up staining the walls with blood, totally messing up the whole house, though my childish mindset was fascinated by my findings.

Mom beat the hell out of me when she found out what I did and the whole house was repainted.

Dad got scared I might have contracted diseases, I was rushed to the hospital for a thorough medical examination. Presently, they were only memories.

   Zahra shrugged her shoulders and said "You should really try to cheer up most times, frowning will only make you age earlier. Imagine looking like grumpy master and behaving cantankerously before you even get to his age".