5 A Corpses Picture (1/2)

'Do you have a mother?'

We were playing Mummy-and-Daddy, she was not supposed to be asking about my mother; she was supposed to be a mother, mother to the pretty dolls strewn all over the floor around us.

We were lying underneath the steps of the uncompleted building that was our 'house'. It was dank, and stank of abandonment. 'No,' I answered, angry.

'Why?' she demanded.

Why did she want to know why! I was angrier. I did not answer.

She rose up on her small elbows and nudged my cold shoulder, 'I said why . . . why don't you have a mother?'

She would start crying if I didn't tell her why. I don't know

why girls are like that.

'Because she died,' I told her.

'How?'

'Like this –' I closed my eyes and lay still to show her.

'Like how? . . . How?' She shook my corpse. I couldn't answer – I was dead. 'I said How? How did she die?'

'Like this!'

'How do you know? Have you died before?'

'No.'

'So she's not dead.'

'She is!' I took offence to this suggestion of my mother undead.

'Not!'

'Is!'

'NOT!'

'Is!'

'Not, not, not! . . .' She punctuated with punches.

'Ow, ow, ow!'

'My dad says she is not dead!'

'How does your dad know she is not dead? Is he dead?' Punch.

'Ow!'

'My dad knows many things that many people don't know.' 'Like G.o.d?'

'Like when my mum said she was going to London with her boss for conference and my dad knew that she was not.'

'Your mum went to London!'

'No she did not! And your mum did not die too.'

'How do you know?' I wanted my mum to still be dead. 'My dad knows.'

'How does he know?'

'I don't know but –'

'My grandma says your dad says a lot of rubbish when he's drunk.'

Punch! 'No he doesn't!'

'My grandma says he does.'

'My dad says your grandma is a witch . . . and that your dad threw your mum out of his house because she was a asewo and –'

'My mum is not a asewo! She's dead!'

'No she's not.'

'Yes she is!'

'Not!'

'Is! Is, is, is . . .'

'Not! My dad says she is not, but that she is a asewo; and that is why she dumped you at your grandma's house because she could not

olubunmi familoni

find a father for you, because you're a i-lle-gi-ti-mate child.' 'A what?'

'I-lle-gi-ti-mate.'

'What does that mean?'

'I don't know,' she shrugged. 'But I know it is a bad thing.' 'I am not a bad thing!'

'You are! You are!'

Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click for visiting.

'I hate you! I hate you.'