TAMMY SMITH

First, she stopped sleeping.

How could she sleep when all she saw in her dreams was blood? It was always everywhere. It would start as a trickle, seeping through the cracks in the tiled floor, and then it would spread moving quickly to stain the white of the floor. And in every dream, she heard crying. Plaintive and sad, it would echo through the house, as if calling on others to witness its suffering.

And then she stopped eating and so, began to lose weight. Her clothes began to need belts and tucks and adjustments. She explained it as a detox, a juice fast, and then a new diet, and soon called it her new lifestyle. She was going to lose weight and get herself a new man. Everyone approved of it and sent her pamphlets and flyers and salads via Uber. And as she threw each plate in the trash she wondered if he would have loved carrots or would preferred doughnuts and pizza.

She began to give her friends reasons why she couldn’t go out. She just couldn’t deal with the noise and people, she said. It was far from responsible for thirty-something-year-olds to spend the night at the clubs, she said. And when her best friend coerced her into throwing a luncheon at her home, nobody thought it strange that she had said very little. She wasn’t given to much talking anyways, they knew. And so, while they danced and gossiped and opened bottle after bottle of wine, she had sat in the corner, rubbing her arms and staring into space.

Then one day at work, her boss mentioned something about little boys and she snapped. She didn’t throw things, no. She had instead folded into herself and laid on the floor, crying and muttering to herself, over and over again, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry”. And soon she burst into hysterical laughter. 

The doctor said she was depressed and asked if anyone knew what could have caused it. Nobody didn’t, not even her best friend. Her colleagues knew her to be quiet but possessing a wry sense of humor, and nobody knew if she had any family. Her best friend said they were dead. But it was a lie. She had family, in another state, alive and well. She had brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts and cousins. 

And she had parents, a father who raped her every Saturday since she turned sixteen, and a mother who saw the signs and refused to believe. 

Nobody believed her even when her stomach had been big and round, they had called her a prostitute and given the child to a childless couple in their church. And her father made sure to catch each one before they became noticeable, four successive terminations until her final year in the university. She had refused and held a knife to his stomach in the hotel room. And then he called her used goods, a soiled dove, he said, no man would want a demon-possessed person, a murderer, he said and spat at her as he left. And three years after her youth service, she met another man and thought him unlike her father. 

But she was wary. He won her heart, put a baby in her belly, and made her his wife. The baby died, but he promised they’d make another, and on the day she was going to tell him that he had succeeded, he died. And she was left alone. She couldn’t face her baby after his birth and asked the nurses to do whatever they wanted with him. 

She left and became a new woman, Tammy Smith, schooled in the most genteel of ways, the epitome of culture and style.

Truth was, it was all a lie. And as she lay there on the hospital bed, she knew she had to end it. 

The End.

Guys, I wrote this months ago for a magazine that was celebrating mental health. Needless to say, it wasn't published. And so, I'm publishing it meself. 

It may read cliche, but I hope it isn't.

P.S. imma publish all my rejected stories on this blog from here on out!

Photo by Ayodeji Fatunla on Pexels. 

I couldn't resist the photo, 'twas oozing boss woman vibes.