TELL NO ONE

High atop the steps of film house cinema in ShopRite Surulere Lagos, a younger girl laughed and called down to her. "Ese, hurry up!" She said excitedly, climbing two steps further. "I knew you could not keep up; you are so old’ she continued smiling broadly; her smile was magic. ‘Hey I’m only 32years old’, Ese replied; matching the little girl’s smile. ‘My point exactly’, the girl laughed and that moment was the happiest Ese had been in a very long time. So she struggled to keep up but her legs felt like stone. “Wait”, she begged, “please…” But the little girl’s energy was so pumped, she kept running while laughing at Ese. "Okay you win" Ese said, raising her hands in a show of defeat. " Will you wait for me now?" The younger girl chuckled. "Only if you can catch me." She said, running up another row of stair. As Ese climbed the stairs one at a time, her vision began to blur. There was a thundering in her ears and all of a sudden her heart was weary. She must reach her but when she looked up again, the little girl had disappeared. Ese was trapped in the nightmare again. She stood in the middle of the vast room imprisoned by walls so distant they might have been million miles away. There was nothing but the pounding of her weary heart. She was not quite sure how she got there… she was at the film house cinema trying to keep up with the little girl and the next minute she was in her father’s house; in her old bedroom. Suddenly she knew what she had to do. With great effort she turned, her legs felt so weighted, her pulse hammered as she listened for a sound… a whisper… a stirring somewhere, anywhere. Unexpectedly, a dim, pulsating light appeared in the opposite corner of the house, she saw her then. The girl’s little body, clad only in a night dress, was flung across the bed like a broken doll, discarded and forgotten. Kiddo” Ese lunged forward but found herself frozen in place, like an ice statue. Again she tried, straining towards the girl’s lifeless body but she was paralyzed, unable to move. Time seem to be on a stand still… Finally, she was able to break free. Stumbling towards the body, crying and screaming the little girl’s name over and over again, in a desperate litany. She moved with maddening slowness, felt the floor grasping, sucking at her feet, threatening to pull her down. Her every move was so labored. She strained, her heart thundering, her chest burning with the effort but the horror only deepened, seizing her mind, threatening her very sanity, as she saw the girl’s body suddenly jerk. Stunned, she watched the little girl lift herself up with agonizing effort, then turn around and at that instant, their eyes locked. The little girl opened her mouth and began to scream, a terrible echoing that pierced the last vestige of Ese’s sanity “God… help me, help me”. The little girl screamed but the a***e to her innocence, pride, girlhood was total, brutal and devastating. As always, Ese’s own screams awakened her. She bolted straight up, her body shaking. For a long time, she sat upright hugging her arms to herself to try and ease the trembling. “Oh God”, she groaned into the darkness as she snakes her hands into her hair. “Will I never know any peace again? Then she remembered she had no faith what so ever in God and all things religion and as such she had no business talking to God.