"THE BASTARD" (A chronicle of Failed Children)

I was born out of wedlock.
Sorry, let me rephrase that. I was born out of ‘rapelock’.
I mean, my mum was raped at the age of sixteen by a group of robbers that invaded her home one night.
There were 6 of them, 3 of the men raped her, the other 2 raped her younger sister who was just 12.

The last one refused to be a part, but he stood there holding their father hostage with a gun to his throat while the others carried on with the act.

Their younger brother who was just 7 laid there helpless and shaking. Their mother was late.
They still made away with a huge sum of money and some household appliances. It was the worst night of her life.
Few months after the attack, she was found with child, me.
I was the result of that night’s robbery.

Worst of all, she didn’t know which of them got her pregnant nor had she seen them again since then.
I’ve heard this story a thousand and one times that I can almost mime it while she’s recalling it.

I have no issue with listening to it but she always reminded me that I was a bastard, a bad luck, the reason she could not further her education, the reason no man wanted to marry her and of course, I was bad blood who might probably end up a criminal like my father, or rather, my ‘fathers’.

She always wished I was dead but never had the courage to kill me herself.
She never knew she was raising a dead child, a living dead child.
She’d killed me a thousand times more than I’ve lived.

I once asked her why she didn’t abort me and she said it was because her dad was a devoted Christian who was never in support of that.

I became a thief at the age of 8, not because it was in my blood, but mummy made me do it.
Well not like she told me to steal but she kept calling me a thief until I started contemplating being one, so I began.
Little by little, I graduated to stealing bigger things and whenever the report got to her, she’ll always say that’s the only thing I knew how to do, like my ‘dads’.

I am 25 years of age. I’ve been in jail for 3 years and I still have 18 more years to serve.
Let me spare you the story of how I ended here, I’ll leave that for you to guess.
I should be 43 years when I’m out.

I’ve heard that life begins at 40, I just hope it’s true so I can start my life all over again.
Maybe this time, I wouldn’t be the son of a criminal, just a man who is trying to look at life from a different view.
This time I wouldn’t have a mother who never had me as a child, because I’d laid her to rest myself when I couldn’t take it anymore.

Sometimes I wish I was born again.
To another person who didn’t see me as her only curse and obstacle, just an innocent child who needed just as much love, care and support.

I’m hoping to come out and learn how to live, how to love and how not to be a bastard.
I hope to have a son someday, to teach him to be the man I couldn’t be because my mum never thought I could. But now I know better.

I know I can be better; I know I will be better than this, I know now that I’m not bad blood, not ill luck, not a curse, just unlucky to come to the world at the wrong time.

I’m just hoping that the sun will smile at me and be friendly to an unlucky bastard.