AIR-CLINIC WRITING CONTEST: The Baby Coughed (A Short Story)
Nwayere walked into the room and noticed the silence. Why was the room silent? She gingerly walk to the bed, the almost empty bed and peered. She couldn’t believe her eyes. She wanted to scream but her vocal cords produced no sound. She wanted to cry but her eyes were dried. She simply froze in the moment.
They said Nnwakego’s mother was a witch. The first time her mother gave birth, neighbours gathered to celebrate. The second time, neighbours gathered to praise God. The third time, neighbour didn’t know how to react. When the fourth child, Nwayere appeared, everyone expected that she would die too. Instead she blossomed into the exact replica of her mother. That the three children born before her were boys didn’t help matters.
They said her mother made a pact with the devil; every male child belonged to him. They also said that witchcraft was often transferred from mother to daughter. So Nwayere had to leave the village as soon as she was old enough to. For no one wanted anything to do with the witch’s daughter.
Many years later, Nwayere was lucky to find a man who loved her. Just after their marriage, her village people found her. They told her husband a tale; a tale based on truths such that she couldn’t point out the lies without being called a liar. But she was pregnant and the ultrasound said it was a boy. Here was the ultimate test.
Nwayere had heard her son crying from the living room and had rushed to meet him. Instead, she met a lifeless bundle of flesh and bones lying in the middle of her bed. No one would believe her.
Nwayere came out of her reverie and selected one of her husband’s neck ties from the wardrobe. She pushed the side table to the centre of the room, climbed it and tied one end of the neck tie to the fan. Next she wound the other end securely around her neck.
The baby coughed.
Word count: 336
This is my entry for the #AIR-CLINIC WRITING CONTEST 23 by @. Do join the discord server here
Thanks for reading
Blessings
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Two thoughts that flew into my mind - what if the baby had coughed a minute later? Hoe tragic that would have been. And the other was about the power of suggestion, and how we see what we expect to see. Which I guess was the moral of the story.
Smiles
About the first one, for a long time, I was undecided if the baby should cough before or after the 'event'. I guess my dislike for unnecessary pain caused me to make it before. I just couldn't imagine the little boy live on his own without his mother; and then to learn later in life that he was 'partially responsible' for his mother's suicide.
For the second one, you're right. I come from a culture where a woman without a child is a failed woman. Childhood is so important to many that it has caused so much pain and hardship. Sometimes people measure how successful you are by how many children you have.
If you noticed, she didn't attempt suicide because her boy was 'dead'. She did because she was scared of popular opinion, of the stigma. My culture, and most other cultures, promotes societal norms above individual choices. You are who you are because the community says so.
It was for that reason I wanted to kill the woman and then put the guilt on others who wouldn't let her be. Or better still, kill the child and make the woman stand up to her 'haters'. In the end, I settle for that above because that's what happens most of the time.
And yes again, you're right. She was consumed by what the society thought of her so much that she wouldn't think of any other explanation for the event before her.
I think I've said too much. I hope it's at least coherent.
Thanks for stopping by
Blessings
Oh, and this proves my point again, about seeing what we expect to see. My interpretation of the story, not being African, was different. What I saw was that because she had been convinced that her child, being a boy, would die - she saw him as dead when he wasn't. A lot of those other subtleties went over my head. So I need to read it again tomorrow with that cultural understanding. (Not now though, I'm turning the computer off for bed)
Wonderful entry on the topic cough
Thanks
Blessings
The suspense races my heart beat.
Am learning everyday from you especially your style of writing.
Haha
Thanks boss
You gladen my heart with your comment
Blessings