DEAD TO MYSELF

[VINA]

So, I'm trying my hands at writing something totally different from my usual. Less romance, less sex. I don't think I can but I'm going to task myself.

This influence comes from reading the works of someone (Bae) I admire a lot and she's even birthed this idea and I'm playing with it. 

Let's hope I can move past writing a few chapters.

[VINA]

"Do you really want these things or has society conditioned you to believe that they would make you happy? Marriage, Kids," was the first tweet I saw that resonated within my spirits and made me want to consider this funny app that my friend Lara had introduced me to.

"Join Twitter, it's the in thing, there are lots of intellectuals there and it would occupy your time and make you feel less bored with the kids gone," she'd said and as usual, I reasoned that I had nothing to lose so yes, I joined Twitter.

At first, it was pretty hard to follow, I didn't understand anything, didn't have the first clue on what to do. I was too old for social media anyways. So I logged out and dumped my phone that first day. I focused on my "soul food" which happened to be music and forgot all about social media until that day when my husband and I had a fight and I needed an outlet to pour out my anger. I was tired of writing about the things I went through with my marriage in my diary, I was tired of thinking about them or bottling them up. I needed to express them  somewhere I would know others could see it.

So I logged back in on Twitter, and there was that tweet. It was the truth staring back at me and I hated it. It had been Lara who had retweeted it and her Twitter handle was so funny when I read it out loud, "@saxxyMzLara." It sounded so fun, so young but that absolutely didn't describe my best friend from childhood.

I'd gotten married early, and the one thing I regretted often was leaving all of my friends at the advice of my mother, "Oma, married women do not keep single girls as friends. Birds of a feather flock together and now you have become a bigger and better bird. Those your friends would never understand you and they will give advice that would ultimately ruin your marriage."

I had believed her, like I had believed every single thing that she had ever told me and that was a lot. She'd taught me to fear when I stump on my left foot and rejoice if it was the right foot, she'd told me that money would come if my palms itched, she'd told me to stick a pin on all my maternity dresses while pregnant to ward of evil eyes and demons, to never take my baby out at night, she'd told me to never argue with my husband, to respect him as the head, to fear him, to never refuse him sex, ultimately she'd ingrained in me that I was a second class citizen.

I had always believed her, and I had dumped all of my friends and moved on with my family life with Oba, my husband.

At what point did I realize that my mother had deceived me or that she really didn't know anything? At what point did I wake up? 
Thinking back, I think it was the day I had birthed the twins.

When I found out I was pregnant, with twins, the whole family had erupted in joy. My mother had told me that having children was the best thing that could ever happen to a woman, how much more having two at the same time. It was a gift that would make me happy, the bond was supposed to last a life time and it would make my unbearable marriage much more enjoyable but that day at the hospital, the twins had been placed in my arms and I tried again and again to feel something for them. I looked down at their wrinkly faces and body, white from vernix caseosa and the joy or happiness they had told me of never came.  Their cries had irritated me and if not for sanity, I would have dumped them unceremoniously on the floor but luckily, the nurses got them out of my hateful hands and carried them away, not even bothering to get me to feed them.

The guilt washed over me and I cried till I felt the tear at my vagina threatening to rip open from the pressure of my dry heaving. I told myself that I was tired and that I would come to love the kids but that never happened for the longest time. At this point, no one had told me about postpartum depression and I knew nothing about it neither could I explain why having kids would make me feel so bad. It was the first lie I had caught my mother in.

It was while searching for answers that I stumbled on the fact that there was knowledge at my finger tips, and that I had the rights to get it. Once I started to question everything, I became the very thing that my mother, father, husband feared the most, I became a woman who KNEW.

So, I had gone ahead to call my once upon a Time best friend, Lara who still happened to be unmarried after all these years. She'd forgiven me in a minute and had since become the one person in the world who understood me.
****

That singular tweet about happiness and marriage resonated within me. I knew that the handle that had posted it was right but I felt defensive. How dare they make me feel so stupid about my life choices? The truth was, marriage didn't make me happy, I thought it would but instead I looked at Lara and the freedom she enjoyed and wished that I had known earlier. Also, as the kids started to actually grow and blossom before my eyes, I had grown very fond of them, but still, if I had known on time, would I have ever gotten married or had them?

I clicked 'reply' to the tweet and wrote, "what exactly is happiness and is it really achievable? Do those without kids and a spouse ultimately achieve this state of euphoria that you preach?" 

I went through the text over and over again, trying to gauge my tone. While I wanted to pass information across, I didn't want to sound like I was fighting. After a short while, I clicked 'reply' and so my reply went in to join the hundreds of replies that had garnered under the tweet.

Chirping sounds, and blaring red notifications indicated that my tweet had gathered responses. I clicked open the app again to realize that people were liking and retweeting my reply. A surge of adrenaline rushed through my body as I realized that I was being seen and heard by people.

A reply from the original poster @shadowgirl007 caught my attention and I clicked on the notification with shaky hands. It said, @silverfox11 I work with numbers and data and the results show that women who have never been married have longer life span and are generally happier than their married counterparts. So there,"

I was infuriated now, not because I didn't know the truth because this Shadowgirl of a person was saying the very things that I knew. I was dying, my blood pressure was off the charts high and I could keel over and die any moment but still, this felt like a personal attack on my choices and it was a mirror that I had to look into and what I did see wasn't so great. I was married but they'd lied to me, the romance books, the movies, my parents who had hid all of their problems expertly away from us until we had grown up and had our own homes and now all they did was fight, last time, my mother had sliced off my father's pinky finger in a rage. Everything had been a lie but shadowgirl had no rights to say these things.

"@shadowgirl007 if you're a Nigerian woman, then I expect to see your wedding invitation card very soon. We would be happy or should I say sad to welcome you to our miserable association," I tweeted but this time I didn't go through it because I was overcome with emotions. 

Maybe, if I had gone through the tweet, I wouldn't have sent it but I did.

"@silverfox11 it's funny that you would assume that every Nigerian woman aspires to marriage or that everyone can be bullied into it. If you see a wedding invitation with my name on it and my face, maybe it is my corpse."

I read that last tweet over and over again till I could say it off the top of my head. If anyone had tapped me awake suddenly and screamed, "what was the last thing Shadowgirl tweeted to you?" I wouldn't have thought twice before saying it word for word. 
There were really women who didn't find marriage attractive, they existed and years ago, if I had known, it could have been me.

For days, I didn't return back to the app and when Lara had called me, we'd talked about her, this girl who was so bold, who was clearly everything I wasn't and could never be.

"See Oma, forget that girl o, don't let her get to you but you sef, why would you tweet that she would later get married?" Lara asked after she listened to my rantings of how I'd felt disrespected.

"We are women Lara, we all will, there's really no fighting the society against this. They always succeed in bullying women into marriage," I said sulking even as I realized that I was talking about the reality Lara was facing.

Lara was 40 this year and even though she could pass off for a younger woman, age was catching up to her. She constantly complained about the things she went through as a single successful woman. There were the gigolo's, the subtle invite for church crusades that had headings like "my husband must see me this year," "breaking the yoke of singlehood," "Village people, release my husband," and the constant nagging from parents and friends. Last time, she'd even said that all her siblings and her mother had come to her house one after the other in what later became an intervention/intercessory prayers. 
"I won't," Lara said and I paused wondering what she was referring to.
"You won't what?" I asked, to which she replied after much thought, "I won't get married, I'm never getting married."

I sat there lifeless again for the second time that week. I was going to be alone in this misery? Even my  best friend wouldn't partake in this pain? 

Then again, why did I ultimately assume that every married person was in some kind of pain?  Couldn't there be anyone that was happily married? 

I was alone and like my mother had told me, there were things that Lara would never understand except she herself was married.

"Don't say that, you will meet a nice guy," I said patronizingly. 

"A nice guy is Bobby, he has his kids whom he keeps away from me, an ex wife whom I do not know or wish to know and a very great d**ck which he brings and serves to me every weekend and it is a perfect arrangement. Another nice guy is King and even you love King," she said.

I chuckled when I considered King but the laughter quickly died when I realized how totally independent Lara sounded. She was clearly a woman that knew herself, knew what she wanted, what she could accommodate and was now living towards that direction. I on the other hand didn't even know who I was or what I even wanted from life. All my life, I have just been existing.
"You're right, whatever makes you happy but my grouse is with that over confident cocky girl. She should be more sympathetic to us, she should understand how hard it is to be a woman in this country," I said again as I tried to fight the emotions swelling inside of me.

"That is why I follow her, I like her wit and confidence and everything in between. Give her a chance and be more open minded," Lara replied and that is what I did.

I went back to Twitter and discovered that I'd gained quite the followers. I liked some replies to my outburst and ignored those criticizing me and after much thought, I clicked follow and that was how I started to stalk @shadowgirl007.
 

[VINA]

WOMEN ARE (NOT) THEIR OWN WORST ENEMIES.

"'women are their own worst enemy' is a phrase that men have used over the years to oppress women even more. Do not be deceived, the average woman watches out for the other and the fight to liberate every woman must continue," was a summation of @shadowgirl007 tweets as I opened the app that cool evening.

As usual, I read the tweet again and again. At this time, I have gathered quite the following and every of my tweet was a direct reply or reaction to that of the enigmatic @shadowgirl007. I had nothing that wasn't related or directed at her, I fed off her and my growing fame was directly tapped from her.

People had started to follow she and I and whenever @shadowgirl007 tweeted, they would exclaim how they couldn't wait to see my reply. I hated them all, they always came off like men who gained erections from seeing a feminist tackled to the ground and I was always with the girl and believed in most of her views but today, for the first time, I didn't quite agree with her assertions so I clicked reply, "@shadowgirl007 I want to reply to this with a long story, so thread..."

I continued by telling her of the fact that while I had a flourishing business, there was one time that I had ordered a yam pounding machine from a woman who had advertised it on the internet. I had been skeptical as I doubted that any machine could really do the job of a pestle and wooden mortar. It was a risk I was willing to take because, Oba, loved yams and pounded yam was his favorite meal and my health always made making it a challenge.

This small equipment had arrived, and I and Dara, my daughter, had tried to manipulate it after reading the manual instructions. We cooked our yams and soon put them into the bowl, properly arranged the machine and then plugged it into power. A few turns later, my yams had turned into perfect, white, fluffy pounded yam. Dara and I had looked at each other in awe. This was a white man's miracle and I decided that I couldn't keep this to myself, other women must be liberated from the shackles of the tedious chore of pounding yams so I ordered twenty more from this internet woman in a move that ultimately became a bad investment move.

I agree that I had thought of making crazy profits in a speed of light but when the machines came, I realized that women, were a special breed. Sometimes, there are standards set for women and we like to think that these standards started from men but on careful inspection, the truth lays open.

What gender mocks an infertile woman more and refuses her access to send other children on errands, who makes an infertile woman contemplate suicide more often than not? Who shames older spinsters more? Why is there a need for a fight or silent hatred between working class women and stay at home mothers? Isn't there a choice for women to be whatever they wanted to be? Who creates these standards for women?

Why is there a silent hatred for women who have house maids, women who get their nails done, women who got pregnant through IVF, women who give birth through CS, why is there a separation between real women and those who are seen to be less and who creates this hierarchy or separation and who judges harshly when a woman is seen to be less of a woman in anyway?

I showed this awesome machine to my fellow women in the estate that I lived and the responses I got included, "I am a real woman, I have hands, God created the hands to be used, I am healthy and fine and so I can definitely pound yam like a real woman for my husband, it would not taste the same."

At first I laughed, of course, being a real woman involved servitude, there was almost a slave-like  quality to being a real woman and these women were far lost in the abyss of slavery. One even rained insults on me for daring to call her lazy, she said she wasn't like me that got my nails done and could barely wash my face properly, or if I had listened carefully, maybe she'd meant my vagina. I was a weak, hopeless mother because I tried to look good and dared to make life easier for myself. None of my labour of love counted as long as I still managed to look this good, real women were tattered, their nails broken and black, palms strong as stone. Even, a real woman washes with her bare hands and not the washing machine that I had at home. Washing with bare hands still had levels, a real woman does not sit to wash, she bends low and does the laundry until she's developed chronic back pain and waist pain in old age. A real woman dies in the end.

The gender that actually helped make my investments a worthy one was the male gender. A lot of the bachelors in the estate rushed the machine like it was hot cakes.

I should have been weary when Mr Oche had come to me one evening.

"Mama twins, I heard you have yam pounder and I saw it work when I went to visit Kunle, please I want one, I'll pay month end. I just want to make things easier for My wife," he'd said.

What a sweet man, to have put his wife into consideration this way. I handed him one even though I would usually resist anyone proposing owing me.

It didn't take any time at all for Mrs Oche to knock at my door like a maniac.
"Mama twins, I am disappointed, we are women and we ought to be responsible, how can you give my husband this thing as though his wife was a lazy woman who didn't know her job. I have hands, I can pound yam the way our mothers did," she said after entering the living room.

I didn't know what to say as I watched her but I did manage, "but he's the one that came to ask for it."

"You shouldn't have given him. I do not even have a blender in my house, I grind in the way of my mother, a sharp grinding stone, so how would anyone think I would use this? Let me tell you, I drive a manual car because let's be honest, automated cars are for the disabled. See, there are certain things we do that makes God angry at us," she said again.

Ha ha ha! Wonderful! There is a level to stupidity and this one was high up there on the throne. Not because of the things she'd said, but because she's had this coming.

Mrs Oche, as told by her husband had always loved the idea of putting to birth naturally. She'd bragged endlessly about how she'd coughed and her first child had slipped out. That was the only way God had designed for women to give birth so she had no mercy for women who went the Cesarean route. It would be the birth of her last child that nature would frown upon her. After about twenty four hours of labor and refusal to go through and operation, Mrs Oche had passed out with the last word on her lips being, "I am an Hebrew woman, I will deliver like an Hebrew woman, I have faith."

I know Mrs Oche enough to know that she was from Benue state and had no relations with the Hebrew people. To me, faith was believing that she would have her baby, and then doing anything to make that believe come to pass.

After Mrs Oche had passed out, the doctor had finally got the opportunity he needed. The baby was in distress and they could have lost him. Mr Oche signed the necessary forms with shaky hands and after much work, the doctors were able to save both mother and baby.

When Mrs Oche had awoken from her unconsciousness and discovered what the husband and doctor had done, she'd been outraged, according to the way Mr Oche put it, she would rather have died than be made to disobey God so blatantly. She'd held her husband by his tie and had almost killed him, a move that I was sure would make God frown in heaven, after all, hadn't He commanded women to be submissive to their husbands?

Anyways, Mrs Oche rained insults on me, debased me and walked out of my living room in a rage. I had since grown a thick skin and the only things that hurt me were now out of my control.

In a twist of events, I was driving back from my boutique some days later when I saw some group of women and wives living at the estate walking towards Mrs Oche's house. Courtesy demanded that I at least stopped to acknowledge them so I did.

"Mama twins, won't you come with us to pay Mrs Oche a visit?" Mama Victor said and from my lost expression they realized I wasn't aware of anything.

"My dear, her operation scar came open and got infected o, it's only God that saved her. She'd suddenly slumped while washing a pile of clothes. That woman works too much, I've told her to be mindful of that scar but she never listens," Another woman said and the rest shook their heads in sadness with a chorus sigh.

I snickered in my head as I drove off with a promise to try to check up on her after I had rested. When I was sure I'd driven far enough from the women, I burst into hysterical laughter. One real woman down! Ha! No way in hell I was going to visit that woman.
I hoped that this time, the doctors had been able to explain to Mrs. Oche the need to be mindful of her scar and to generally reduce the stress she put herself through. It was foolishness to compare the present generation of humans to our grandparents. The situations were different now, the food, the lifestyle, the environment, and we are nothing like them.

She visited me though, that very weekend and when I saw her face, the hysterical laughter threatened to start again but I tried to reel it in. 
"Mama twins, please is the yam pounder still available and where did you get your washing machine and blender?" She asked meekly and by God, this time I laughed.

Mrs Oche eyed me in anger as I managed to reply, "but you managed to convince me last time and I almost sold off all my household appliances. I want to be a woman after God's heart."

She was mad at me now as her eyes blazed with fire. "Is it because I came to you for help that you're mocking me this way? I didn't expect this from you," she said but she didn't make any attempt to leave.

I shouted for Dara and when she came, I asked about the yam we'd put on fire as I had another woman coming in to buy one of the yam pounders. When she came, I called all the women into my kitchen and demonstrated how the machine was used and as usual, I enjoyed the look of shock on their faces when they saw how it worked. I served them the pounded yam with delicious bitter leaf soup that I had made with my long pink faux nails.

Mrs Oche even licked her hands as she asked for my recipe which I wasn't about to tell her anyways. Even though I had the pounders in the store room, I still managed to tell Mrs Oche to check back in a few days time when my next order would arrive because, yes,  women can be enemies to other women.

I ended the thread with a last tweet that said, "@shadowgirl007 can you now see that there's a little bit of self sabotage in this fight for women liberation?"

The thread went viral and even ended on a few blogs. Even though I'd changed the names, if Mrs Oche used a phone and didn't communicate with pigeons then she would see resemblance to herself but I didn't care. 

Shadowgirl didn't reply that tweet, and for days she didn't tweet anything and it had worried me into thinking I had bullied her into a corner seeing as half the men and women in Nigeria were under my thread commenting on things women they knew had done to them in churches, school, offices. I had drawn the movement of feminism back a hundred steps by that singular thread and I understood why shadowgirl would hate me and go into hiding.

It was the following week that I would tweet, "where is my wife?" and then Twitter will catch fire over that tweet and then buy the word 'wife'. That was how shadowgirl came to be known as silverfox's Twitter wife and in many cases, just my wife.