My Romance With Fear

 Time seemed to stand still, as though even it was in shock at the monster I must be. I watched the blood flow towards me; maybe it knew who summoned its motion outside its host. The knife lay some centimetres away from his lifeless body. His once six-foot, macho build was going six feet beneath the ground.

I couldn’t tell what I felt, except for the horn I was sure I had developed. I really had to be a monster to have slit a man’s throat like a loaf of bread. I watched the blood drop onto his shirt, spreading in a circle. I watched my scary Goliath—a man I once called husband—collapse before me like a bag of rice, lifeless. But unlike David, I wasn’t a victor still. I was still a captive, because I could already hear the sirens blaring in the background, the thump of police boots on concrete.

It was only then I let out the scream that had lain in my throat like an Adam’s apple.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaarhhhhhhhhhh!

My story actually started five years earlier.

I stepped out of the SUV with Mum close at my heels, as usual, telling me how Mercy’s mum thinks she is a better mother because her child was getting married before me. It was always about marriage. I was only 24 then, but Mum wouldn’t let me be. I couldn’t even tell how she found my house here in Abuja. I assumed it was through Ruth, my best friend.

I got into the house, and the real lecture began.

“Listen, Sharon. I know you think you are young and successful, but by December you will be 25. If you don’t get into a relationship now, you will now start one by 26. Which man will still want to marry somebody at 26? All this ‘I am successful’ you are carrying up and down will now add to the problem. Abi you don’t know that a man doesn’t want a woman who cannot submit? See, they will start assuming you are proud—that that’s why you are not married at 26. Ah God. Sharon, just listen to me. Shay me self am educated. Did I not go to the same university you think you went to? Listen to elders o!”

She said this while drawing her ears slightly for emphasis.

I said nothing, but something entered my heart after that conversation, and it became my closest companion. I began a romance with fear.

I would sit before my mirror and imagine myself old and grey-headed, without a husband or children. Without knowing it, I began pushing myself on every guy at church. I cooked and bought gifts for random men who only said hi. I wanted a Christian man, so unconsciously I never crossed the boundary of church—but the more I pushed, the farther they went.

Then Ruth sent me her engagement video. That was when I lost it.

I left the church brothers and faced the men at my office. That was when I met John. He was well-built and handsome. He gave me some attention, and I jumped at it. He was a colleague transferred from another branch, and he seemed to really like me. He wanted to be married by the end of that year, and of course I was fine with it.

By the end of 2020, I was Mrs Lamb. I felt like God had taken away my shame—because even Ruth was still unmarried.

By the third month, pressure started building from my mother-in-law as she began demanding children. I jokingly told John one day that his mother asked for kids like I could just walk into a store and find them on sale.

He slapped light into my brain.

In that instant, a switch was turned on. I could see, like Paul on the road to Damascus. Except for me, that was the beginning of five surgeries from beatings, the loss of my job as regional manager of a top IT firm in the country, three miscarriages, two stepchildren, and finally, becoming a murderer.

I know you’ll ask why I didn’t leave.

I can’t tell.

Maybe it was still my companion—fear. Who would marry a broken, battered, divorced woman? How would I fend for myself?

Fear brought John, and fear took him today.

We had an argument that morning—or rather, he shouted and cursed at me for not cooking the food he never communicated that he wanted. He slammed the door and stormed to his car. I stood quietly at the window watching as he started the engine, then looked up.

Our eyes locked.

I saw something I had never seen before. I couldn’t tell what it was, but it felt like darkness. My heart thudded violently in my chest, like it would burst out.

I ran to the kitchen.

The new knife—that was the only thing in my head.

He barged back into the house and chased me. I felt his hand clamp around my neck as he lifted me off the ground. My feet left the floor. I pleaded in whispers as death danced before my eyes.

With every ounce of strength in me, I kicked—no direction, no plan. He jerked back in pain and dropped me to the ground. I couldn’t afford to think. I pulled the knife from the rack and swung around just in time to stop his charge.

The sharp silver blade slid through his throat.

I watched the blood drip onto his shirt, spreading in a circle. It fell like a bloody rain. The knife slipped from my hand and hit the floor with a clang. I knew the neighbours heard it because soon enough, the sirens followed—the stamping of boots, the rush of feet.

It was then my throat finally released the scream.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaarhhhhhhhhhh!

To be continued…