In the beginning
554 Words
I tried standing upright in an attempt to go see and mourn on the cadavers of my academic turmoil when she came at me a third time clutching this time at my legs. I kicked myself free, picked her up, anger burning like flint through me. I flung her off like a ball. I had aimed for the three seater settee just opposite but somehow what took over me was more discerning. I overshot. She went off straight onto a small rod poking off the wall where her father hung his tennis racket. Boom! Silence!
Her eyes shone like emerald. She stared right back at me, through me. In seconds, on the bright yellow wall, trickles of red formed a shower shape. Blood! What had I done? In that moment it felt as if I had been doused with a tanker load of freezing water. I realize I had nothing more to live for. It all seemed right.
She hung effortlessly there like a trophy in the cabinet of a celebrated and illustrious athlete. A smile or a smirk laced her face. I could not tell which. Perhaps she was smirking at the realization that she was finally sending me to prison; her ‘it is finished’ or ‘mission accomplished’ of sorts. The events of the evening seemed pre-empted now.
I was trembling, angst and fear wrapped me.
- “Uncle, you have killed Hailie!” came a voice behind in a terrifying shrill.
I turned slowly and right there I caught a form. There was a witness. The maid was standing at the doorway leading to the inner chambers of the house. Wild weird thoughts dragged for space in my head. Should I beef my murder CV by adding her on my work experience? What was I to lose? I was already a killer and would probably go for the officer next although I had her immolated in my head. I could frame it all up to look like a robbery gone wrong or a serial killer chronicle.
I could also escape into the night headed for Bauchi, locate Sokoto unto Niamey and get lost for good, forever, all under the cover of night. I could go to an unmapped 5th world African country. Crazy ideas flashed but I finally succumbed to humanity and it’s cravings, at least this one time. I was no killer, not yet, it was all a mistake, I was possessed, mental even. I could say this all in court with tenable fool-proof evidence, trickster attorneys could be counted on for that. My innocent record could hand me a lenient sentence or worse still I could end it all, end me. There was always an option, I was not short of any and I was not boxed up. This was only the beginning of deaths to come.
I needed a clear head now more than ever. I shut my eyes hard, hands on my face, palms nudging them tighter.
- “Call the police” I mumbled. “I killed Hailie.”
She hesitated, stunned perhaps.
- “Call the police!” I bellowed as tears trickled freely. “See Hailie’s blood.”
I repeated these like a maniac as the sirens’ wailing came closer.
- “I killed Hailie.”
- Writer
