Life's Journey

Julia

Julia was a beautiful girl from a happy family. Her father, Zulu, was a trader who sold foodstuffs in their neighbourhood while her mother, Lila, had no job and remained a full housewife. They weren't the richest of families as they were living under rent and in a damaged house but they were still the happiest of families. Julia was the only child of her parents, apart from them she knew nobody else as she was an introvert. Julia was fifteen years old and would be turning sixteen on May twelve, which was just two days away. Her parents prepared really well for her birthday, buying gifts and party decorations, they even planned a trip to an amusement park wanting to make their only child happy as much as she makes them happy. It was a rainy day on her birthday which was unfortunate because water was leaking through their ceiling causing them to put buckets under it. In the morning, before she woke up, her father went to go get a cake for her. He bought the most expensive cake at the store just to celebrate his daughter's birthday. He took a bike and on his way home he got into an accident as the bike was speeding as he kept on warning the bike man, suddenly they crashed into a car. Zulu fell down from the bike as there was an oncoming trailer. The trailer drove on his head as a crowd rushed to the scene. They checked his ID card and identified him, they also took his phone and checked for who to contact. They called Lila, who was in the kitchen busy preparing the birthday goodies."Your husband was involved in an accident, come here quickly" said a man from the crowd as he described their location. Lila rushed to get out of the house and on her way out, she tripped on one of the buckets as water poured on the floor. She slipped and fell, hitting her head on the floor, she foamed as blood rushed from her head and later she died. Julia, who was still asleep didn't know about the death of her parents. She woke up, had a shower and prepared for her birthday. She went to look for her parents but couldn't find them. She noticed that the house was awkwardly silent. She look around the house and went to the kitchen where she saw her mom's lifeless body on the floor.

She couldn't understand what was going on so she went to wake her mom up but she wasn't answering. She decided to look for her dad but he was no where to be found so she went back to her mom who was still lying lifeless on the floor. She wondered why everything was so strange so she tried waking her mom again but this time she noticed that her body had gone cold so she went to get her a blanket. She waited for so long that it was already night time with her mom's body already decomposing, even with this Julia remained clueless. She tucked her mom in bed and went to wait for her dad, she waited for so long that she fell asleep. The next morning, she woke up to see her mom still asleep with her body decomposed which polluted the whole house. The smell got to the neighbours as they all came to complain about the odour. "I don't understand what's going on" Julia said, as the neighbours told her that her mom was dead. Upon hearing this, Julia fainted, quickly the neighbours brought a big bucket of water and poured it all on her. She woke up immediately and started crying about the death of her mom and the disappearance of her dad. They had a burial for her mom and her neighbours took care of her but that was only for a short time since they had children of their own to watch over. Julia needed to take care of herself so she decided to work in her father's shop, having no business experience she could easily get tricked by customers causing her to run into debt. She completely ran down the business and to add to her plight, the government was going to be demolishing some shops in construction of a new road and her father's shop was part of the shops. They were given just one week to leave their shops with their belongings so Julia had no choice but to leave. She had no food to eat, she could neither pay their house rent nor her school fees causing her to drop out. She started selling their house furnitures and even some of her clothes for money and soon enough the house came close to being empty. She kept on managing herself like that until one faithful afternoon, Julia was resting at the porch when her landlord Mr Brown came with a serious look saying "Julia!!!, your rent is due. I have given you grace and allowed you to stay in my house for an addition of one month because you have no mom and your dad is considered dead but enough is enough. I want you to leave my house before the end of this week." Julia pleaded with him but he showed no mercy. At the end of the week, Mr Brown came again but this time with some thugs who helped him kick her out of the house. They locked up the house and Julia became homeless.

She cursed her birthday and vowed to never celebrate it ever again. She started living under a bridge and begging for food. She had to suffer the consequences of being an introvert having no relatives, no friends and no one to count on. She started hawking plucked mangoes since not everyone was willing to give what they had. She would allow customers especially men to touch her body just sell her mangoes. She did it for a long time but still had no income. One morning, as she was preparing to go hawk, she heard one of her bridge mates talking to her friend about a place where they could get a job. Julia quickly went to meet her and asked her about the place. The girl took her there along with her friend and the place was called "MRS KOTU'S GIRLS ESTABLISHMENT". Julia wondered what was done there but still went into the building. The girl went to meet the owner, Mrs Kotu and came back happily saying, "good news girls, we got the job!" Julia was confused and asked "aren't we having an interview?" but the girl told her not to worry. They were each given rooms, good food and better clothes which were exposing but better than the one she was wearing. They rested and all this made Julia recall her old memories of how she used to enjoy like this with her parents. She went back in time, remembering her old memories and slowly fell asleep.