CONFESSION

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At the end of every story I hear, especially when people's actions caused dire consequences i always sit and ponder who really is to blame.

This story happened a long time ago when chauvinism was normal and what was good for the goose was bad for the gander. The main character in this real story was a young girl of fourteen but I will tell it from her best friend's angle. We will call her best friend Laura. 


Laura was a quiet petty trader. She had no permanent shop so she hawked. Laura was the hot tempered type,had little patience and no friends. The best you could get from Laura was polite civility to her customers but she was a good girl with a kind heart, and when a little beautiful girl of her own age grade offered friendship she quickly accepted.

Her new friend was timid, did not talk much,and was also a trader that hawked her wares from street to street. She would say very little through out the day as they hawked together,laura didn't mind because she was not much of a talker herself, but as time went by their friendship became stronger and they loved each other like sisters. Any of the girls that got ready first in the morning would go to the other's house and wait till she was ready and they would head out to hawk together.So Laura was very surprised when she didn't see her best friend one day.

Laura went to her best friend's house but met no one, same thing happened the next day and the next, their neighbors said perhaps they travelled. Although laura was pained that her friend could leave without telling her she hoped she was fine and wished her well. Weeks passed and months passed then she ran into her friend one very bright and sunny afternoon. She was glad,very happy and was ready to ask a thousand questions after the initial pleasantries but she paused. She looked at her friend intently. She was still fair and beautiful, smiling quietly but she was wearing a bigger dress. And her was waist bigger with a bulge on her belly. in confusion she asked a silly question
"what is this?". Her friend should sarcastically have replied  "watermelon" but instead she said "I will tell you".
"Tell me what?" Laura asked. And her friend suggested they find a good tree with full branches for shade against the sun and they did. They sat under the tree and her friend told her story.

Her friend called it confession, because according to her the dibia said that is the only way she would be delivered of the baby she was carrying. She had committed an abormination. She said her father was the father of her child.

Besides hawking she also took turns with her siblings to help sell in her father's shop. Whoever was not selling would sleep in the shop at night, because in those days they thought it would help protect against thieves. So any day she slept in the shop at night her father would visit and sexually abuse her. It started graudally, first it was little touches in sensitive parts,then oral sex,till it became a full fledged rape. He showered her with gifts and threatened her to silence. It would have continued like that,unnoticed by anyone but for the pregnancy.

Even when it was discovered she was pregnant,she admitted to being raped but still didn't release her rapist's Identity.As was the custom then,she was married off to old man so he could father her bastard. When her pregnancy past the due date,a dibia was consulted and she was instructed to confess her abomination to everyone and anyone,she should move round the village and repeat the tale of how her father raped her and she concealed it. She should tell anyone she met, whether she knew the person or not. That was the only solution.

Laura was stunned. Was the girl really to blame or her fathered. Who should be really punished for this, how did the gods work and how did men make verdicts. Laura and her friend though had power and control over nothing, could and would only do as they were told. Her friend had her baby soon after that, stillborn, and Laura broke her friendship with her on her parents insistent command.

Read the story "Mysterious" here

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