SLEEP WITH ME OR YOU LEAVE MY HOUSE
My name is Fiya. I am 19 yrs old.
My parents died when I was 8 yrs old. It was a trailer accident on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway. One rainy night like this one, the driver lost control. I was in the back seat, sleeping. When I opened my eyes, fire was everywhere. I could hear my mother screaming my name one last time: "Fiya! My daughter!" Then everything went dark. When I woke up in hospital, the doctor said I was the only one who survived. Fire took my parents, but they said my name means fire. The irony has been burning me since that day.
After they died, my aunty and uncle took me in as a teen. But it was not love. It was threat every day. "You eat our food," my aunty would say. "You sleep under our roof. Be grateful, or we will send you to the street." My uncle would add, "Your parents are dead. No one will ask for you if you disappear."
Then one day when I was still a teen, they did it. My aunty packed all my things in a nylon bag and threw them outside. My uncle stood at the door with his belt. "Get out!" he shouted. "Go and suffer like your dead parents." The rain was falling that day too. I begged on my knees, "Aunty, uncle, please." But they slammed the door. That was when I became homeless.
But God is good CEO! Some good people helped me. *Emmanuel was one of them. He was just a young boy then too, but he liked me. He would share his own food with me and told his mother, "Mama, help Fiya, she has nobody." His mother joined the good people who paid my rent for one year. Emmanuel himself gave me money for akara and pap. That was how I started selling. I sell akara and pap for people every morning, saving every kobo for my university fees and landlord rent. If I eat the akara and pap I’m supposed to sell, I will lose money. And I cannot afford to lose money.
Now I am 19 yrs old. That one year rent don finish. My new landlord told me to sleep with him or he would throw me out of the house. I had no choice but to leave the house. He threw my stuff out too. I was on my knees begging him under the rain to let me stay but he refused. He said, "Go away." I packed my stuff and I started moving. I didn't know where to go.
Then I remembered Iya Nike’s shop. She sells the hottest akara and pap in our area. She was one of the people who helped me when I was a teen. She would smile and say, "Fiya, my daughter, you will be great." But tonight I have no coins. Only hunger and shame.
When I was walking, I looked at my umbrella shop where I used to sell my pap and akara. I was so sad. Then I saw a car with flashing lights. It was too bright for me to look. I had to cover my eyes with my hands. Then the car stopped.
What do you think will happen to me?
