WHAT HAPPENED TO NANA

 

WHAT HAPPENED TO NANA 

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Unknown Writer

Pablo's text messages came through at midnight. Nana was still awake, chatting and chatting on her phone, smiling at the beam of light radiating from the screen of the phone. 

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She seemed to have been having a really good time so she did not quite concern herself much with viewing the text messages. For all she cared, it could be one of those internet fraudsters looking for whom to prey on. She slimmed her eyelids as though to resist the ray of light beaming from the screen of her phone, and clicked one notification after another. 

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She had logged off at about 1:24 AM, and was ready to rest her overly blurred myopic eyes which had had enough influx of bright light throughout the night; she had not worn her glasses throughout the night. She had only noticed so when she slimmed her eyelids once again to discover that the text messages were from Pablo, her one and only lover. 

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She giggled, she felt a chunk of Pablo's lovey-dovey aura slide down her throat, and smiled in such an irresistible but funny way, that her way of smiling that made Pablo seem to love her endlessly. So she was smiling at Pablo even though he was'nt there present - or she was smiling at Pablo's text messages. Then she threw her small head towards her left shoulder in her usual manner, as if to say her head yearned for support, reached for her eyeglasses, and tore the message open. "Such a long one, sweet Pabby," she had whispered. 

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Pablo started by reminding her of all the sweet things she had been to him. He continued by showering her with loads and loads of sweet and romantic names. That he has always done, so Nana suspected nothing atmost. But the bombshell materialized like the atomic nuclear calamitous destruction of 'Hiroshima' at the tail end of the messages that seemed endless. 

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The tail end of those messages seemed to have been the stone upon which the devil himself was engraved. Pablo enumerated how that his relationship with Nana was never supposed to be in the first place, how that they were both too young for what they were doing, how that immorality is a sin. He gave her a little bit more than a million and one reasons to not be discouraged, that she would find true love again. 

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Nana couldn't believe her eyes. Pablo could not have written her such a heartbreaking letter. One of his friends could have used his phone to send her those messages intended for someone else. But on a second thought, the sweet names, the sweet things, the appraisals are all very much peculiar to her and her alone. Those messages couldn't have been by mistake, she reconciled. But she would put a call through to be sure Pablo wasn't playing pranks on her. 

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She called and called, texted and texted, hoped and hoped that he called back or replied her texts, but none came through. Then she tried to place a call one last time, it didn't connect. She tried again, no connection. Just then, she felt another pang; Pablo had blacklisted her number. What in Love's name had she done, what had happened to her Pablo?

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She cried throughout the night. Her heart hurt so badly that she felt it would explode. She recoiled at the thought of every single word that came at the tail end of those text messages, feeling a horrible pang in her heart each time. She thought about the sacrifices she had made, the things she had done for him, the spotless love he had showered on her, where they'd dreamt to be together, the train of promises he had made to her. 

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She had thousands of questions to ask, millions of valid arguments to wield, untold stories she wanted to tell, and she wanted to let them all out so badly. But she was chided by her own voice. In the nidar of her heart she knew whom Pablo was, that he never went back on his decisions, yet she wanted to try, she wanted to be heard. 

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Before dawn, she had lost strength. She had cried all night. Her head ached heavily, her body boiled of outrageous temperature, there was this bitterness she felt in her mouth that seemed to have been the residue of Pablo's heartlessness. She felt a rumble in her stomach and immediately made for the toilet. After throwing up, she refreshed herself and prepared to call in at Pablo's place. 

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Pablo's room was looked when she arrived at the compound where he lived. The padlock was a giant security type, and from all indications she reckoned he must have travelled to a far away place. She wanted to feel emotional about it but eventually decided ask around to clear her doubts. 

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"He had travelled back to Togo, where he came from," the tenant who lived next door had told Nana. 

"Travelled back, when?" 

"Yesterday, Madam. I hope all is well?"

"Oh, nothing really. Just had a message for him. But since he had travelled I'll try calling him. But wait, did I hear you say he's from Togo?"

"Yes, Madam. He's a Togolese but had lived here for quite some years now. But Madam, your face reminds me of..." 

"Uhm, thanks for...thanks a bunch."

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As Nana walked out of the compound it dawned on her that she was in for a big deal. She had been tricked. Whatever had blindfolded her eyes from such an impending danger she couldn't tell. Or was it because she was myopic already? Pablo had told her how that he was Igbo, that he grew in the city, that he couldn't quite learn to speak the Igbo language, that his maiden name was "UKANDU." She had believed him, everything he said, hook, line and sinker. 

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Frustrated, disappointed, her heart filled with tears to the brim, she cursed the day she met Pablo, she cursed every thing that had happened between them, she cursed the night she gave her body to him. She really didn't care anymore, Pablo himself could go to hell and rot there. He was the devil's incarnate. Even the devil could not lie like Pablo, she had thought. 

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Just then, she remembered whom she was, her real name, her Igbo name - UGONMA - given to her by her parents. Then she remembered the day Pablo gave her the name 'NANA'. She cursed that name too, and cursed every other sweet thing that Pablo ever called her. The curses seemed to be flowing endlessly like the river of Jordan. 

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Even though she was trying so hard to forget Pablo she still had a place in her heart where he still occupied. Night after night she would console herself and feel the comfort of her pillows. Those pillows made her feel the presence of Pablo sometimes, the same Pablo she didn't want to see nor hear about. Yet she couldn't help but think about him. 

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One morning, after about a month since Pablo's travel, she suddenly felt feverish and helplessly weak. She had had to visit the hospital for medical checkup. When the test result materialized it was discovered that she was six weeks pregnant. That was the beginning of a new world entirely different from the one she lived in. 

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She felt clouds of heavy rain rupturing over her head and ready to rain cats and dogs, even though there were no dark clouds in real sense for the sun was sliding through the face of morning. She began to see in pairs. Her myopic eyes began to see beyond figures of human beings walking along the road, she began to see beyond the walls of buildings that lined both sides of the road. 

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She pictured herself in the tone of a year having a bulging stomach that could protrude, that could dangle like a tilted bulb of a mango fruit. She imagined a wrapper wound about her slim waist, that waist of hers could have been a punishment from her fore-parents for it was nothing fatter than a milk jar. She imagined a baby milking litres and litres of liquid out of her cup-like breasts. She had thought so much that she didn't notice when she got to her house. 

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She couldn't tell her parents; they would kill her. She couldn't tell her friends; they would mock her. She had nobody to run to, nobody to share the burden with, absolutely nobody to caress her aching back. How would she tell her parents she was pregnant barely few month into her second year in University? What will her schoolmates say about the development? She kept it to herself, got depressed along the line, and decided to end the game by committing suicide. 

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She bought a bottle of sniper for her wicked decision to be exercised. When she was ready to do the real thing she felt some heaviness in her hand, like something was pulling her hand away from reaching her mouth, like a force greater than her was keeping her company in the room. She tried and tried, same thing kept reoccurring. Suddenly she heard something whisper in her ears "BECAUSE OF WHAT YOU LOST, YOU WANT TO SPOIL WHAT YOU HAVE." 

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She took a look around the room, closely, carefully, thoroughly, but nobody was there with her. That couldn't have been mistaken. She knew what she heard; she wasn't hallucinating. Then she reckoned that the baby was now communicating with her, or that there was truly some ghost keeping her company in that room, or was it coming from outside? In her musing the bottle of sniper fell off her hand and spilled over. After crying for several hours and pouring streams of regrets upon herself, she decided to keep the baby. 

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Her parents eventually learnt about her pregnancy, and so did her schoolmates and her friends. She had no other choice than to tell them. She knew she could not hide the bulging belly for too long. She kept regretting, kept crying, kept wishing for death to take her. 

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She tried and tried to call Pablo but his numbers wouldn't just go through. She felt so bad, lonely, forsaken. She had not revealed to anyone that Pablo was responsible, not even her mother. But she kept trying to let him know that he had planted a seed that had germinated, and was growing in her. He of course was responsible. It couldn't have been anyone else. 

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She eventually put to bed. It was a baby boy. But she left the baby few hours after its birth. She died of excessive bleeding. The doctors t