Things happen

EPISODE 1: The eggs are laid

Nakuli village provided the best setting for witnessing the arrival of a Divinely appointed and chosen one of God. Everything looked gloomy and bleak for the young expectant mother and the life she was carrying in her womb or rather, the little of it left. She tried to focus all her concentration and attention to, if at all, a safe delivery of her baby.

Of course her husband was an animal, evil, wicked and selfish mommy's boy, stingy, lustful, adulterous, jealous, envious, an extremely lonesome and hypocritical gossip monger, as well as a violent and seasoned wife basher! Of course he had pounced on her frail body all the preceding seven to eight months before her maternal uncle intervened and relocated her to her parents' homestead in the village for refuge lest her husband butchered both mother and child. Of course he bashed her despite of her experiencing incessant excruciating pains derived from a long time heart problem. Of course his character was too much to fathom. It was even painful to forgive all his cruelty and hatred to both the baby and herself, but she was Christian. She had to let go all the anger and resentment for her baby. She had been reduced to a punch-bag alright, with her baby absorbing some of the punches within the confines of the womb where pure Divine power ruled.

She had this resolve and conviction, that the Lord her God would not let her prayers go to the dogs just like that. Each time her husband would bash her, she would shield her baby away from the quasi beastly onslaughts through a series of hearty prayers to God that He would not let the brutality rob her of her last baby. Indeed, so she had vowed to herself and to Eternity that she would, for nothing in the world, never ever again carry child in her womb for this seemingly devil bankrolled species of mankind! He loathed her, he loathed the very bump and promise of life she paraded in his world where she was now a very unwelcome nonentity who he had long evicted from his life but she clung on to him for her children's sake thus the slow paced or gradual murder of her camouflaged as disciplinary action! She so wished the baby would live for her and gave her all to make sure it was her and not the baby receiving those punches. She sacrificed herself for it. She was sure God Almighty would not let her lose her baby...

Yes, Nakuli village was home and warm. Home was peace. Home was love, at least in every sense of the word. Home was worth missing. Nakuli Primary School was equally home. Being a teacher by profession she had been a product of the same school. Then, having chosen, despite the constant pain and anguish the very mention of his name caused her, to forgive her husband, the inevitable happened then, the incredible. Away from all medical facilities or attention, in a room by the school, God brought life to life! A bubbly and cute baby boy announced his arrival to the world of adversity with a shrill, a warning to the world that one to get things done had come. God's eagle had been strategically placed to monitor situations and circumstances. Here was one on a mission...

The woman forced a painful smile through her ailing face's lips as she weakly tried to cuddle the baby, but long accumulated pain stopped her and she had to concentrate on her body for a while, at least her baby was out of danger. She could hardly suckle him, she was in so much pain. She was thankful to God, her baby had lived. To acknowledge the awesomeness and Power of God, she named me Emmanuel...God had indeed been with both of us.

My father had his name for me, Chamunorwa, in my dialect translated to something like, "why do you fight?" which was an indirect attack on his in-laws and my maternal grandparents and their kin who he was nominally lambasting for having relocated my mother to a safe haven when he was bent on crushing her and I to mortality. Yes, he indeed had the vein for that. Was he not protected by the occult in case of any eventualities?

Lisa, my mother, had long become a nothing to him. She had expired, according to what he thought was love in him. He needed fresh teenage girls all the time, innocent, naive, unsuspecting, to pounce and prey on with his wild, diabolical and egotistical purely physiotherapeutic kind of love or its un mistaken absence there of. It was a matter of how far his lust would drive him, nothing emotional, his heart in his eyes and his mind in his hands. Such was love to him, sensual, touchy feely, otherwise, in his mental dictionary the word actually confounded him if at all it existed. Love was better hate or vice versa to him, typically after taking advantage of a girl or woman he would catch off guard. Hatred of her propelled and compelled him to ransack the neighbourhood for a next victim. He would hold his head high and beat his chest for such awesome achievement and walk about with an air of self satisfaction a sense of accomplishment. He was the man.

This was a case of a first love, that first cut and the deepest for my mother. She neither sensed nor imagined the red flags. To her, jealousy was the confirmation of love for her and his beatings a way of aligning her character with his. Was it not they were one flesh? At least from her Christian point of view it was normal to go through hell on earth for having the divine guarantee of Eternity because that was what she ever lived for. There was every need to suffer for eternal glory. Therefore, suffer she did, swallowing every lump of pain to engender requisite forgiveness and thus buy herself a ticket to heaven. He enjoyed that placidity. He was the man! It was love.