____ KIYATA THE GIRL I MET ____

On one ugly morning, they spat on my kiyata and booed her away. 
"Go, we don't want you around here!"
Curious folks clogged the street, staring on in subdued bemusement. 


"Why?" enquired Kiyata, her soft, delicate eyes misting over with suspended tears. "Why don't you want to keep me anymore, momma? I thought I had found a home here. I thought you were a perfect replacement for my deceased mother. Please, where did I go wrong?"

"You will do us no good, Kiyata. You're worthless," they retorted with no tinge of humanity. 
"Am I worthless?" Kiyata asked, only to have the words club rudely into her mushy heart again. "Yes, Kiyata. You are dung. We're tired of keeping a mad girl under our roof. Your future promises no one shred of a thing worth our keeping you. Go. Go from us, Kiyata. Go. Be gone already, Kiyata!"

And so, ejected from here, with rivulets of tears soaking the puffy lapels of her gown, Kiyata packed up her little odds and ends into an old, rumpled Ghana-must-go; and set out on a journey she had no inkling where it would land her. 
Each stride my Kiyata took diffused a wax of blistering pain in her heart. One weak, unsure step after another, Kiyata trudged on into this clinging, swaddling darkness.

The thick crowd of onlookers? Of course, it did only what it had been winning Nobel Prizes for ages for — look on, swipe out smartphones and krap-prap . . . take photos and videos of Kiyata to post on Facebook, Twitter and whatnot!
Kiyata was with me this evening. 

We sat on a fallen log under an ikiri tree as she chewed the kappa and fish I bought her. 
"Kiyata," I beckoned on her from across my shoulder. Kiyata turned in a slow motion. Our eyes locked. In a flash, I looked away not sure I was prepared to stare too long at those pregnant clouds hovering in her reddened eyes. 

"You will be a wonder tomorrow, Kiyata. Just keep this dream of becoming a pilot alive againt all odds. Nurse it like your own baby, Kiyata. Shield it from the poison of people's lips. Guard it from the bug of fear. And Kiyata, one day, you'll stand on a podium with endless streaks of paparazzi plus a truckload of newsmen itching to interview and take photographs with you." 

Kiyata fixed me an eerie, faraway gaze but said nothing, at least not with words; for the new convoy of tears which coursed down her cheeks whispered a secret in my ears. 
"Promise me, Kiyata," I entreated her when it was time for us to part, "that you will remember this day, this moment, and this spot, and contact me to write your success story when 2051 arrives with your coat of many colours on its truimphant, outspread wings."

Kiyata again did not talk. She only picked her Ghana-must-go, pegged its ropes on her shoulder, waved faintly at me, "Thank you, big brother. I must be on my way now." 
"To where, Kiyata?" I dared to ask. 
"To where fate is calling, big brother," Kiyata replied and began walking away — head bowed, eyes teary, heart very! 😔


               The End 

          #JohnWritez

Author's Bio

JohnWritez is a 200 level law student of Federal University, Wukari. As a budding writer of promise, aside his blistering passion for law, he specializes in weaving catchy short stories that leave his readers hungering for more. His dream is to will the hemisphere of post-colonial African literature with imprint-leaving works that would usher in a new paradigm in the beautiful and tantalizing art of storytelling on the continent and beyond.