A Val of Void (3)
[MUMMY PHILIPS]
Her name was Roselyn, but everyone preferred to call her Mummy Philips. They called her mummy Philips because of her son. His name was Philip.
When he turned 17, He added an ‘S’ to his name and insisted that he should be called Philips, not Philip.
He loved it, his gang loved it, but the community didn’t care; it wasn’t anyone’s business.
His second name was Terror. Not his Surname. His Nickname, his guy name. It was the name his gang mates gave him.
He was the most active in the group and the second oldest.
When mummy Philips moved to Kerem-city, her Joy knew no bounds.
South City, the previous place she resided in, was rascally and unhealthy. It was highly populated and this brought about so many crimes on a daily basis. She believed she wanted somewhere safer, for herself and Philips, and so she moved to Kerem-city. It was a lie, these weren’t the reasons she decided to leave.
Mummy Philips had no job; being an artisan who made female clothing for meagre profit, she could only hope for the best. This was what she used to survive for the ten years she lived with Philips, in Kerem-city.
Searching desperately for greener pastures for several years, luck finally shone her way and Jane invited her to Kerem-city. “Come live with me, I’ll be getting married to a wealthy man soon”. That was the kind of news anyone would love to hear, it was one she was very happy to hear. Jane was her younger sister.
“South-city?!! Ah! God forbid o, that city is doomed for destruction, In fact, none of them is educated” she would say to whoever cared to listen to her sympathetic life story, as if she was educated, as if she completed her senior secondary school.
She didn’t, she didn’t finish school, she was among the dropouts in Kerem-city, among those lucky semi-illiterates who never saw value in education. They were semi-illiterates because they were forced to smell education no matter how little it was. So she managed to attend a primary school.
She was one of those dropouts who got pregnant out of wedlock and had to nurse the baby all alone. And she never found the man who gave her Philip.
Watching him grow from infancy, she promised to do everything to protect him. That was the next most responsible thing she could do, after years of unseriousness and carelessness.
Jane was her younger sister. They never knew who their parents were. They were raised in an orphanage home and discovered later on that they were related.
Roselyn and Jane didn’t have much history together, except the memories they shared in the orphanage home. The ones of torture, bullying, and maltreatment; because they had no parents, because every orphanage kid was trying to survive. And since the orphanage staff never ever cared, it was only trauma after trauma.
At the age of 15, they escaped and ran away from the orphanage. It was Jane’s idea to run away that fateful Sunday morning during the usual general outdoor exercise. And it worked. They somehow managed to escape forever and ever.
While they ran for their lives, they arrived a market which was under attack by hoodlums and the girls got separated in the heat of the turmoil. With bullets flying here and there, the two young girls lost hold of each other and never saw again until after so many years.
When Jane learnt that her elder sister lived in a town close to hers, she invited her to Kerem-city. It was also within that period that she would seal her engagement and get married to Felix, one of the wealthiest men in the city.
So when Philip was 16, they migrated to Kerem in search of ‘Greener Pastures’ according to his mum. Jane was the greener pasture. But they didn’t stay long with Jane under the same roof, and soon, Roselyn relocated to a somewhere else within Kerem.
After several months in Kerem, Philip modified his name to Philips-Terror. A name to suit what he was capable of doing.
When Philips and his gang started misbehaving, it wasn’t well received by the elders of the land. Having this nature of favoritism they would tend to overlook what their own kids had done, and be more focused on serving justice to a foreigner. That was Philips-Terror, he was a foreigner, the only foreigner in his gang.
“He’s just new here, what does he think he is doing?” An elderly man asked the other.
“I’m shocked o, he hasn’t even lived here for ten months with his mother and he’s already misbehaving”
Not that it was the first of its kind, but it had been long while since Kerem experienced something of such nature. In fact, it had been very long since a foreigner committed a crime in their land.
According to Jane, the one foreigner who had come close to committing crimes and actually doing them, was Ikem. The effect of terror and nuisance caused by his team, could be felt in the next community.
That was over fifty years ago and nemesis finally caught up with him not them. They were caught red-handed on a poultry farm, trying to steal white medium-sized fowls of a wealthy man. But he was the only one sentenced to death by hanging because he was a foreigner, because he wasn’t the son of the soil.
His gang members went scot-free and continued in their crimes, because they were sons of the soil.
His story was published and pasted at the central square where everyone could read and learn from it. Deep down within them, they knew that It was actually designed for foreigns to learn from it. Because crimes were still rampant on a daily basis.
“Your son is among those causing nuisance in this peaceful community” he began
“There is still time to change before the wrath from above, comes upon him” the elderly man said, looking at Roselyn straight in the eyes. The seven of them had walked into her little house that evening while she was trying to prepare dinner. They didn’t even knock, they only pushed the door open and sat on the wooden bench which served as the only chair in the little house.
“Am I the only one being cautioned?!” She asked
“Woman, what do you mean?!”
Don’t the other kids have parents?!” She asked, this time she stood and faced them all; anger welling up inside her.
“Woman watch what you say!”
“Old man, watch what you say too!” she fired back. To her, it was Aura for Aura. If she was being cautioned because of Philips, then they should also do the same for the friends of Philips and their parents.
“Is it because I am new to this land?, is it because I am foreigner?” She asked amidst the silence and glares of the bloodthirsty men.
“I will confirm all these from my son because I don’t trust any of you. But make sure you do the same for those people whom you are associating him with” She stood up and went into the kitchen.
Since they came in without her consent, she expected them to leave the same way.
“Woman! To be forewarned is to be forearmed, don’t say you weren’t told”
That night she spoke with Philips and asked him what exactly he was doing to raise the attention of the whole community.
“Philips, we barely came here four months ago and you are already giving me headache?!! What is wrong with you Philips?? She asked, but he remained silent.
“Am I not talking to you?!!”
And then he spoke
“I don’t want you to believe them mum, they’re all lying because they don’t like us, because we are foreigners”
“What do you mean?”
“My friends and I only play around the neighbourhood, we don’t cause any form of trouble, I wonder why lies are being spread”
Mummy Philips only stared in shock and amazement,
“Ah! So you haven’t done anything abi!??”
“No I haven’t, mum” he replied.
“God will repay whoever is accusing you of what you haven’t done my son!” She shouted and the young boy knelt and thundered “Amen!!!”. That night they prayed against their enemies, they kept binding and casting until it was midnight.
That was his tactics; he had succeeded. He had succeeded in brainwashing her once again. He knew that she would always believe him. Come rain come sunshine, she would always believe his stupid lies.
Even if he stole her wristwatch and explained to her how she must have forgotten it at the market square the other day; she would still believe him and blame herself bitterly for being careless. Even if he went to her pot of soup at midnight when she was asleep, and put his two dirty fingers inside, looking for anything made of flesh, and the soup got soured the next day, and he told her he had no idea on how the fish or meat disappeared, she would still believe him.
The elders had visited Mummy Philips because her son and his members were suspected of having assaulted a young girl. Her name was Jessica.
Jessica had completed her house chores that evening and left home to fetch water at the borehole. It was located at the central square, a place where everyone who didn’t have a functioning water system, fetched from, including Mummy Philips.
It was the water she would use the next day before leaving for school.
It was almost dark and one could barely see, save for those who had strong eyesight at night. With her pail containing water on her head, she walked the lonely path quietly to her house. She hastened her footsteps because she didn’t like going out at night.
Soon, she was stopped by some young boys whom she couldn’t see. But she knew who they were. No other set of young men would leave their homes at such hour of the night to cause mischief. Impossible. No guy in his right senses would do that. Such a time of the night was when the young guys were ironing their school fabrics and polishing their sandals. It was time to stitch up torn places on their uniforms so that they would look attractive to the girls, of which Jessica was one. A very beautiful girl.
It could only be Philips and his other gang mates who never believed in the value of school, that would be roaming around, looking for prey to pounce on. And unfortunately, that night, Jessica happened to be one.
They bundled her to a corner of the lonely path and dealt her blows.
“Next time learn to keep your mouth shut!” One of them said as he slapped her. She tried to scream but her mouth was covered with a mighty hand, almost bigger than her face.
“You’re one of those girls with a very bad character in this land, stop going around insulting people,” another said as he dealt her more blows.
Suddenly, one of the boys pulled down his shorts. The atmosphere wasn’t entirely dark, so, one could still see his erection standing tall and straight. He bent and approached her.
“Philips what are you doing?!” One of the boys asked. But he reached out to her skirt area and tried to pull it down.
“Philips?!, we only planned to beat her up, which new plan is this?!” The same guy asked but it all fell on deaf ears. So they all groped around in the dark to look for their slippers and leave. It was time to leave Philips to his fate.
That was when a middle-aged trader passing by, intervened. He was huge and hefty looking.
He shone his torchlight directly to where he had heard some noise and then saw the duo struggling, while the others ran.
Philips had been fumbling with her clothing for quite a while because the hook to the long jean skirt was so concealed that only the girl could locate it and unhook it herself.
As his desires heightened, he forgot about every other thing around him; that the other group member covering her mouth with his hands, had removed them; that she was screaming audibly and it was attracting more concerns and alertness.
All that rang in his mind was his erection and how to satisfy it. He had finally located the hook and was already pulling down her long skirt when a slap landed on his neck. Philips-Terror froze.
Being blinded by the bright torchlight he shielded his face with his left hand because he could see nothing. The person with the torchlight kicked him on his back and he fell to the ground in great pain.
He turned to look at Jessica. She lay on the floor in pain. She was bleeding from several sides of her face, and her pail lay some meters away from her. It had fallen off during the turmoil and was broken.
Then he shook his head in disappointment and grief. She had done nothing to them at all. Jessica was well-mannered and always stayed on her own.
It was he who had suggested assaulting one of the beautiful community maidens. And aside from their general plan, he had made his plan which was what he was doing when he received a slap on his neck.
The hefty man quickly walked up to Jessica and tried to help her up. He cleaned her face with a little cloth which he had in his pocket. It was not a handkerchief, it was a cloth because it was way bigger than a handkerchief or face towel. One would wonder what he used it for.
He helped her gather the pieces of her broken pail and turned to look at Philips, but the boy had fled.
Only if mummy Philips knew what exactly her son was doing, she would have found a way to stop Philips before the day of his doom arrived.
“I don’t want you to believe them mummy, they’re all lying because they don’t like us, because we are foreigners”
“What do you mean?” She asked
“I and my friends only play around the neighbourhood, we don’t cause any form of trouble, I wonder why lies are being spread”
Comments
Post a Comment