Jacy writes

Title: A good day to win

© Jacy Writes.

She was just a13 years old girl living in a local terraced house with her father who is a drunkard and a mother who suffered from arthritis.

"Victory Victory" her mother's voice blared from the other room in one breath. It was Harmattan and the cold was already causing a menace.

She hated mornings and the kind of work she have to do to bring food to the table.She hate the fact that if she does not go out on the street, she would not be able to purchase local herbs from Mazi Ugwunta for her mother's ailment.

She quickly blocked her ears with a pillow whose foams popped out from the openings at its edge.

"Remember you've to get medicine for my leg or do you want me to die before my time" her mother's voice came again sounding like she was about to cry.

Victory hated this emotional blackmail.

She quickly rose from the tattered mat on the floor, rolled it up and sluggishly kept it behind the door of the room.

She slided open the cotton that separated her parent's room from the living room where she slept and greeted.

"Good morning mama, how is your leg?" she said lazily rubbing her temples.

Her father who was snoring loudly caught his attention as she moved her eyes from her mother to the area of the room where her father was completely merged in alcohol sleeping.

After looking at him for a while disappointingly, shook her head, bent over by her mom and said gently "Mama, I will prepare breakfast and leave immediately".

She didn't wait for another utterance from her mother and headed for the kitchen.

Victory always walked with elegance despite the living condition of her family.

But this fateful morning, she was tired of everything. Her mother's sickness never healed, and her father who was a local carpenter spent his money drinking kegs of palm wine at Iguana's local bar every night.

Somedays, she will have to carry his father home with a wheelbarrow and some help from Nduka because he was already wasted. Most a times,he cursed the man who will allow her father to be in such a mess.

Life was unbearable for Victory who was the only surviving child of her poor parents.

Her two siblings died in a tricycle accident while returning from the village school last year.

She stopped going to school after she took her common entrance examination at St. Marks primary school, Atani.

The school headmaster, Mr. Timo once told her parents the potential he saw in their daughter when they came for her common entrance results.

But her mother kicked vehemently against the idea of her going further in with education. According to her, she may lose all her children in a road accident and to wrap it all up, financial constraint was a major issue.

Sadly his father agreed.

"Make sure that the pap is not watery" her mother shouted over the room and her heart almost skipped a beat.

She had been staring at the walls of the kitchen absentmindedly while seated on a wooden stool with a hand placed on her chin.

Her voice brought her up to her feet immediately as she proceeded to her chores. She neither want her mother to starve nor shout her name again. She wouldn't want her father to wake up to start pouring curses on Chief Nkeonye that took his only land by force.

She was feeble as she played with the plates she washed and rinsed while waiting for the water to get boiled on a local stove to prepare the pap for her mother.

She had a smack on her face as she remembered the days she made watery pap for her mother and she would pour it away and redo another before her mother would notice.

As months slithered into years, she got better at making normal pap with a semi-thick consistency just like the way her mother loved it.

She did her thing again this morning and served her mother while his father still clung to the sheets sleeping peacefully like he had no reason to bother with anything.

She quickly took her bath and dressed up for the day in a black top and a red oversized pleated skirt. She tied a red scarf like the women she saw on Sundays from a pentecostal denomination while coming back from St. Mark's Catholic church.

The fact that she was going out in the street to ask for alms for her sick mother and drunk father placed her in a state of loathliness.

She brought out her alms bag that hung on the wall close to the portrait of her parents during their youthful days.

When she was set for the day, she bade farewell to her mother who was scooping the pap mixed with sugar and soybeans gently into her mouth and blowing it at intervals when it feels too hot to be taken instantly.

Victory hates begging but she was at the mercy of those alms because she had a sick mother to feed.

She had wished her mother allowed her to sell her craft at the local market instead of rubbing people off their hard earned money with her sad tales.

She was about leaving but first went to the packing store where she kept her drawings on a medium-sized board her headmaster had given to her to use and practice her drawing after she got an A in English Language and Drawing

Her mother had forbidden her from drawing after she left the yam on fire she borrowed from Mama Akunie to burn to ashes few months ago because she was engrossed drawing the Hibiscus flower.

Drawing made Victory happy. She forgets her sorrows whenever she picks up her pencil to bring an image in her mind to reality.

She recognized her love for drawing when she drew a big elephant in primary five and she scored 9/10. Her teacher's compliments spurred her to draw more.

Sometimes, she wished her mother encouraged her like Aunty Flora that dance mildly during the national anthem to the beating of the band instead of standing at attention.

She spent most of her night drawing when everyone had gone to bed. She would put on the lamp and sit on the wooden chair and table drawing everything that came to her mind.

She drew animals, a child crying and women going to market with their baskets on their heads.
Some days, she will draw school girls going or coming back from school or kid playing under the rain.

She brought out her boards from the cement bag she hid them so her mother wouldn't notice she still horned her skill. Making up her mind that instead of begging she would rather advertise her drawings, she went for a sack bag dumped in the store to load her drawings.

There was a clash of thoughts as she packed five boards of her drawing into the baco bag.While a side of her mind thought of the attitude being childish, another pictured the ever smiling face of Aunty Flora on her lipstick that will give her a thumbs up on her wise decision.

She garnered up courage from the universe to give it a try as she load the final piece into the bag.

She trekked 5 miles to a neighboring community market to advertise her craft.

Victory mustered all the courage in the world and move into the market. She placed two boards on her left hand juxtapositioning it and kept the rest with a woman that sold water yams(she knew the woman from the catechism class). She was their teacher.

"Buy for your children. Decorate your home with these lovely drawings" she cajoled in a tiny voice moving slowly into the market and smiling broadly. In her mind, she feared she would be resented and laughed at.

Some admired her and other children hawking oranges, soda, and water stared at those drawings on the board.

Beads of perspiration descended on her face as she tirelessly waggled through the market.

"Art girl come here" a man called out from the crowd.

She turned to see a pot-bellied man in a senator wear beckoning on her on the car pack.

She hesitantly got there and greeted him, "Good day sir"

He nodded and asked, "You drew this? They are nice"

"Yes, thank you" she replied excitedly. He brought out a bundle of 500 notes and gave it to her.

"Give me your address, I will like to meet your parents to see how this talent of yours can be put to good use."

Moral of the story: parents should recognize the God given talents of their children and groom into that path❤️.

What else did you learn from the story?

How to stay awake at night without dosing off.

Check the comment section for the tips..