Well, we know one thing is for sure: Akushika is gonna get roasted by her parents. How’s it gonna go down?
“You have disgraced us! You have put shame upon our name! How could you have sold yourself so cheap to allow some useless pig to get you pregnant?!”
“I’m very disappointed in you. Extremely disappointed in you. After all we’ve done just to ensure you have a bright future, you’ve thrown it all in our faces and gone to collect some bastard into your belly? You ungrateful fool!”
“So everything that the pastor says in church was just rubbish to you, is that not it? All the advice about keeping yourself for your husband, you thought it was nonsense he was saying, eh?”
“Who is that waste of clay that did this to you?”
Akushika sat on the sofa, head bowed, misery the only emotion she felt at that moment, as she received the most intense verbal lashing she had ever received in her life.
A verbal lashing she knew she’d receive the moment that pregnancy test delivered a positive response.
Oh God, why me? The one time I step out of the house on my own, I get into trouble. Why me, God, why me?
“I’m sorry…” she whimpered.
“Will you shut up? Sorry that what? Does sorry undo the sex you went to have? Disgraceful girl!”
“I’m even surprised. You think just saying sorry undoes everything? Huh? After disobeying our rules and going out with some useless, aimless friends, you think just a mere sorry will set everything back to default. You must be stupid!”
Her worst nightmare come true.
These two would not accept any apology of any sort. Nothing she would say would calm them down.
“Who is the useless trash that did this to you? What is his name?” Mr. Acolatse demanded.
Akushika stuttered, “Uh… his-his name is Laurence.”
“Laurence what?!”
“L-L-Laurence Lar-Larbi.”
“And after breaking our rules and going out with those stupid girls who don’t have responsible parents, you went and opened up your legs for this… this no-good fool? Huh? You decided to throw away all your good training for whoever this curse of a virus is?”
Already trembling from the vicious decimation, her pupils dilated as she saw him take his belt off.
She already knew what was coming: one hell of a ferocious whipping.
She fell to her knees and cried, “NO! FATHER, PLEASE!”
Her pleas for mercy were as useful as the pleas of a python’s victim to its aggressor.
She screamed in pain as the tough feel of leather met her skin. She jumped back unto the sofa and lifted her hands in defence, as if that would protect her from her dad’s furious lashes.
Of course, it didn’t. Mr. Acolatse lashed her as severely as possible, unleashing all his anger and abject disappointment onto her skin.
“Now she’s crying. Foolish girl! After all we’ve done for you. Protected you from all the filth of this world just to mould you into a woman that will make a change in this world, this is how you repay us! By going to receive some diseased child into your belly from some useless boy that probably won’t amount to anything better in this life! Fool!” Mrs. Acolatse barked as Akushika cried loudly in pain from all the welts on her body. This was one heck of a beating. She had received many, but none had ever been this vicious.
She continued to bawl, not only in pain from the lashes she had just received, but from regret for letting herself fall for the sweet talks of the guy who did not have any interest of hers at heart. If only… if only she had just said thank you to Drill’s compliment and walked away. This wouldn’t be her current predicament…
“Listen here, young lady,” Mr. Acolatse barked, still fuming and breathing heavily as he put his belt back on, “I am in no way ready to allow any bastard into this house. Over my dead body will I be the grandfather of such an abomination! It is either you get rid of that thing, or you move on with it and say goodbye to this house and everything you’ve known in it.”
Her eyes widened in horror. “But Papa -“
“WILL YOU SHUT UP! I’m not playing here. You either get rid of the child, or you find somewhere else to live. Because you will not carry that baby under my roof. God forbid it!”
“That is all! If you know what is good for you, you will find the number for the nearest clinic and arrange for an abortion straight away,” Mrs. Acolatse added. “It is not this illegitimate trash that I’m accepting as a grandchild. Never!”
Akushika trembled as she looked at her parents. As unsurprising as this order was, it was still quite horrifying to hear. Wasn’t this tantamount to murder as they had always claimed?
“Tell her! We don’t accept abominations in this household. We do not! Listen, we don’t care about this Laurence waste bin. We are your parents and we say you are not under any circumstance keeping that curse in there!” Mr. Acolatse ordered. “Tomorrow morning, you are following me to the nearest clinic, and we are booking an appointment to get that thing taken out. Do you understand me?”
***
Akushika lay flat on her bed later that night, unable to sleep.
What a nightmare of an evening!
She knew they would eventually find out, but it was the manner in which her mother discovered it that was horrifying. The number of times she had kicked herself mentally for totally forgetting to discard that new test kit was too many to count. Maybe the disappointment and shock at Drill’s vehement denial of the child was what contributed to it.
Whatever the case, it was a major level of slacking.
But as she lay there, she had a new concern altogether. And it had to do with her parents’ order.
Yes, she was not excited to be carrying a child this early. Yes, she wished she hadn’t fallen prey to the touch of a guy who only wanted fun. Yes, she wished the baby was never there in the first place.
But… it was there. It was obviously too early to know if it was a boy or girl, but the child was in there. And the thought of abortion was just so wrong to her. It didn’t matter that her parents were demanding that it be done, it still felt wrong.
And it was so ironic that these two, who had made their disgust for the procedure plain over the years, were demanding she get it done.
It felt like adding one wrong to another and expecting it to somehow balance out and become a right, in her opinion.
I can’t do this. I can’t, she repeated to herself as she continued to think about the issue. I just know there’s gonna be this lingering feeling of regret that’ll follow me for the rest of my life. I already have enough regrets to last me a lifetime, I can’t let the blood of this innocent child be on my head forever…
Indeed, she worried about the fact that going ahead with the abortion would leave her with scars and wounds that could never be healed.
Yet, these two would not relent. There was no reasoning with them. Once they had spoken, she had to obey.
What to do, what to do…
***
It was about 5:25 am, just around the time she was finally getting the chance to doze off, that a violent banging at the door knocked the sleep out of Akushika’s eyes.
“Ohhhhhhh! Ugh!” she quietly grumbled to herself before the angry voice of her mother rang through the door.
“Hey, Akushika, get up! Get up and go and get ready and let’s go to the hospital. Mtcheww, disgraceful girl!”
Before she could react, the door opened and in stepped her mother, that look of disgust still on her face. “Look at her, still lying in bed!” she sneered. “If it was dressing up to go and have useless fun with some aimless idiot, like you’ll have dressed up by now. My friend, get out of bed! We are taking you to the hospital, and you are getting rid of that thing inside you! Come on, hurry up!”
Akushika jumped out of bed and moved to the other side, staring sorrowfully at her mother. Oh, if only this woman would let down the iron temperament and show her a little mercy!
Given how she had seen very little of that since her infancy, she knew it was a futile wish.
“Herh! What are you standing there for? Will you move before I come and slap you over there? Foolish girl! If it’s doing the wrong thing, you’ll jump up and do it. The right thing di33, unless we pull your ear and force you to do it. Hurry up and go to the bathroom!”
Surprising statements? Not at all. Throughout her life, Akushika never really got much praise for doing the right thing. They once claimed they didn’t want her to let such comments get to her head and cause her to become lax. If she did what was good, it was the least they expected from her. If she messed up, it was as if she had never done any good thing in her life.
Akushika’s eyes immediately filled with tears. “Please, Mother, I beg…”
“Beg that what? That we should keep that disease inside you? Are you alright? Will you go and get ready so we can get it out of you?”
“But… but, Mother, isn’t… isn’t abortion equal to murder?”
Mrs. Acolatse’s eyes widened.
“What? What did you just say?”
She had seen that look before. The look of her parents whenever she did something they deemed to be ‘talking back to them’. And that was one of the cardinal sins in their book. She shook her head quickly and said, “No-no-nothing, nothing. I’msorrypleas-“
“So you are telling me that what your father and I are telling you to do is foolishness? We that we are doing this in your best interest, we are fools, eh? We don’t know what we are saying, eh?”
Another typical reaction of the Acolatses. The garnishing exaggeration of any such offending statement. Akushika shook her head violently. “No, please, that’s not-“
“BROGAN! Come and listen to what this young lady is telling me!”
In less than a minute, Mr. Acolatse was in the room with them.
“Ehhh, as I told this disappointment of a daughter that she should get ready so we go to the hospital, imagine what she’s telling me. She’s telling me that-that abortion is murder. So we that we are trying to eliminate this rotten rubbish of a mistake she has gone to take, so she can become the woman we have trained her to be, we are murderers and evil beings!”
Akushika shook her head, pleading with her eyes. “Please, Father, Mother, I beg you, that’s not what I meant-“
“Silence!” Mr. Acolatse roared, glaring at her. “I don’t want to hear it. Now, listen here, young woman, all your life, we have put structures in place for you and trained you the best way we could so you can be a woman of difference, a woman who isn’t like the rest of the world. A serious-minded, morally upright woman who is respected by everyone. But if this is what you can tell your mother to her face, then clearly, you’ve shown us that we were foolish for wasting our time. You want to be as unserious and directionless and stupid as the rest of the world, eh? Okay, no problem. Don’t worry. We won’t take you to any hospital. Since you like that bastard inside you, you are no longer a part of this house.”
Absolute horror wrapped Akushika from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet.
“From this moment onwards, you are not my daughter, and this woman is not your mother. This is not your home, and you have no business with any of us. Go and find the useless fool that did this to you and go and live the rest of your shameful life with him. Please, step out of this room right now! I’m taking your stuff and packing it for you. Then you can find that cursed swine and live with him.”
Akushika fell to his feet, screaming with fright. This could not be happening!
“Nooooooo! Father, please, don’t do this to me!”
“Hey, don’t touch me!” he snapped, moving away from her. “Foolish girl! Come on, get out of here! I am no longer your father, do not call me that. Nonsense! When we’re trying to do the best for you, this is how you repay us! Ungrateful idiot! Come on, out!”
As he grabbed her by the arm and pushed her out of the door, it slammed shut as she fell. She sat on the floor and wailed uncontrollably, the gravity of his harsh announcement falling like a ton of bricks upon her.
Just when she thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did.
What a horrible, horrible mistake that outing was turning out to be.
Wow, that escalated way too quickly, if you ask me. Disowning her over this? Too much. What’s gonna happen to her now?
