Ireti laid on the cold tiles, tears rolling down her cheeks. She closed her eyes, wishing for death. Her phone rang for the umpteenth time. She switched off the phone and walked to the sitting room. Her head pounded and she dropped to her knees. She screamed till she lost her voice.
Her father’s car conked from the compound. Ireti washed her face and stood in front of the mirror. She touched her face and stifled a cry...If only her eyes were as pretty as Mariah’s. She squared her shoulders and smiled. The door clicked open and Ireti’s father walked in with his wife and daughter.
“Ireti, why was your phone switched off? Your mother called so that you could meet her at SBS? It was difficult to set up an appointment with the pastor. Why can’t you be more like your sister? If you were like her, we would not have to be running up and down like this? Olorun nikan lo mo nnkan ti o se ni school ti o fi di bayii…Only God knows what you did in school to turn to this,” Ireti’s father stormed into his room.
Her mother sighed, “Ireti, omo mi…my child, today must have been exhausting. Go and rest. When it’s seven, we will go to the SBS branch that’s nearer.”
Ireti tensed, thoughts racing in her mind. She didn’t want to go. The last time she went, she had been subjected to three days without eating and flogged to purge her of ‘demons’. She ran to her room. Her lips trembled. She dialed her boyfriend’s number.
Her boyfriend, Dapo did not answer the call. She massaged her throbbing head. Her alarm rang, alerting her about her meds. She sat at her vanity table and reached for her black satchel. She pressed her lips together and glanced around the room. She glanced into the bottle. Her nose crunched in disgust and she coughed. She gingerly picked two pills and threw them into her mouth. She gulped two cups of water and rubbed her chest in a circular motion.
Her phone dinged with a text. Her face tightened. Titilayo, one of the SBS sisters had sent another text. Ireti’s pulse quickened. She cringed at the thought of seeing her at the programme.
It was thirty minutes past six. Her mother would soon barge into her room to haul her to church. Ireti repacked her afro and neatly tucked it under her turban. She stared at her plain face in the mirror. Her face was void of any makeup or jewellery. Her mother had made sure of that. SBS church believed that makeup and jewelleries attracted demons and were fast tickets to hell. Ireti wore a dull long and shapeless gown. It was safer that way.
Five minutes later, she was in her mother’s car on her way to the church. She had heard the pastor’s coarse voice from miles away. He had condemned those who wore wedding bands. Ireti closed her eyes and begged God to take away her misery.
Eight months ago, Ireti had a decent life. Her boyfriend was not perfect but he loved her…or not. He listened to her rant even if he was crappy at empathizing. She lived in a decent apartment at Orogun.
Her life spiraled into chaos when ASUU embarked on an indefinite strike. She had dreaded going home to her parents and their perfect daughter, Mariah. After days of incessant nagging and threats, Ireti went home.
One week into her stay, she had a terrible nightmare. A purple masquerade had chased her from the compound to her parents’ sitting room. She woke up, drenched in sweat. Five months later, closing her eyes after eight in the night brought chills down her spine.
She broke down and was taken to the hospital. Her doctor glanced at her swollen eyes. Her father took the lead and answered the questions directed to Ireti. She shrunk herself into the chair. Five minutes in, she clenched her fists. She was tired of being overlooked.
“I need something strong that would knock me off. I need to sleep. There’s something I also want to say. I have been running in circles for as long as I can remember…literally. I spin in circles. I get ideas for projects when I do that,” Ireti spoke.
“Aah!” her father cut in. Ireti ignored him and continued, “I make, act and direct scenes in my head. I perfect these scenes and pen them down. I’ve always thought it was a gift but I did some research. I kept seeing schizo…schizophrenic or schizoaffective disorder. I…”
“God forbid!” the doctor interrupted. He turned to her father, “Were ma niyen…that’s madness.” Her father gasped. The doctor shook his head, “That’s disappointing. You’re a child of God. Don’t confess negatives. When you go home, read…” Ireti gnashed her teeth and tuned him out.
Her father had snapped at her. She was a disgrace. She ruined his reputation in the presence of the doctor. How could she hide such a thing from him? He looked like an unreasonable father. Ireti sat in silence as her father rained venom on her.
Ireti’s father called her into their room that night. “We would go spiritual,” her mother had crooned. Like a zombie, she merely nodded. She dropped on her bed and hoped that nightmare would be easy on her that night.
After that night, her parents never spoke about it. Her mother had asked once, “Does that thing still happens? Do we need to go to the pastor?” She had nodded in the negative. She increased the frequency of her spinning after that day.
Ireti scrolled through facebook. Her crazy friend had posted a snippet of a video. Ireti scoffed…that chick is trying so hard to look zen. She clicked on it. It was a white woman with pink hair and a tiny voice. There was something captivating about the way she spoke. Ireti sat on the floor. She bit her lips and made some jottings. She subscribed to the woman’s channel on Youtube - WOMEN OF IMPACT.
Hours went by and Ireti laid on the cold floor, her forehead crunched with a pen in her hands. She followed all the guest speakers of the show on Facebook. Ireti had found a favourite pasttime. She began to write poems again. She posted a few on tell.africa and naira.pen. She started to glow and stopped texting Dapo.
One day, her phone dinged from an email notification. Adhiya, one of her role models had been tagged in one of her recent poems, soothing spring.
“A tiny ant struggling to be seen, I look up to the skies
Lord, why does everything look bleak?
Not good enough! Useless! Sick! Hopeless!
I just want love!
A downpour of affection that soothens my soul
And heals my wounds
Am I so terrible that everyone leaves me?
I love so hard yet I get crumbs in returns!
Lord, I want my soothing spring…mine…
A place to call a home…someone to call my home
One who understands, loves and cares for me
A soothing spring… I may never have”
“This is amazing. Keep it up, hon. FYI, YOU could be YOUR soothing spring,” Adhiya had commented. Ireti’s mouth fell open. She covered it with her hand and stifled her squeal. She jumped up and swung her hands in the air. She spun in excitement when she saw a message from Adhiya. She slept that night with a smile on her face and for the first time in months, she did not feel the sting of nightmare.
Adhiya was the best sister-friend Ireti could have ever wished for. She was attentive and caring. Out of the blues, she had pleaded for Ireti to talk to a friend of hers - Lala. Lala was a psychologist. Ireti had been scared at the thought of being psychoanalyzed. Lala, however, was kind. Ireti’s tongue loosened and she talked. She hadn’t realized that there were a lot that she had bottled up. She had been overcompensating in her relationships - platonic and romantic because she was scared of abandonment. She wasn’t terrible. She just had a low bar for letting people in her life.
“How has your relationship with your family been?” she had been asked. She took a deep breath, “I love my parents to death but they slowly kill me. I resent them. I hate how mom takes me to SBS. That church makes me feel worse. It makes me want to slit my wrists...”
Lala let her vent before she continued, “Journal ten things you hate about yourself and ten things you love about yourself.”
The zoom session ended and Ireti began to journal. Her hands shook vigorously as she wrote. She wrote, “I hate that I cannot stand up to my parents. I hate when I smile even when Dapo says demeaning things about my body…”
When she got to the second part, she started, “I love…” Her body racked with sobs and she continued to write, tears staining her journal. She had tried this exercise before and she had been unable to write anything.
“I love the way I write. I love my beautiful curvaceous body and brown skin. I love my smile and my beautiful large eyes…”
She was writing when her phone dinged.
The strike had been called off. Her cries turned into laughter as she tipped her head back. Her boisterous laughter resonated throughout the room. She played Happy by Adekunle Gold and Pharell . She jumped off her bed and spun.
Adhiya had been right. While having someone else as one’s soothing spring was cool, nothing could beat loving, nurturing and caring one’s self. She would resume school into a new era of peace, self love and contentment. She had found her soothing spring.
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