ABOMINABLE!

By Femi Abulude

My parents were a perfect couple. True love radiated between them. There was hardly anything they did not know about each other. We learnt they grew up in the same neighbourhood and even attended the same primary and secondary schools. Funny enough, they looked alike and talked alike. Their friends used to taunt them that they were twins from different mothers.

        Our home was a happy one; my twin sister and I complemented this happy family. For reasons best known to them, they did not have additional child after our birth. I was named Joy, while my sister’s name was Joyce. Both of us were in our twenties and in the University. Our dad was in his early fifties, while mum was in her early forties when tragedy struck.

Mum was doing a post graduate course programme at O.A.U, Ife and she used to travel down to the ancient city for her lectures every weekend. She went one weekend and never came back. We made frantic search for her to no avail. The blow was devastating. We felt as if a part of us was dead.

      What could have gone wrong? Where could she have disappeared?

There was one plausible clue though, we did not have a strong prove to back it up, but it was the best and likely option at the time.

      On the day she left Lagos for Ife, there was this multiple fatal accident at the entry point of Ile-Ife where a fuel tanker somersaulted and emptied its liquid of destruction on the road. It caught fire and everything in sight, vehicles and their human passengers, vegetation herds of cattle, were burnt to ashes. Therefore after several months of futile search and publicity in the media we concluded that mum might be one of the victims of the ill-fated inferno.

Years after, our dad refused to re-marry. His family members and friends encouraged him and even made some spirited efforts at match making him with some willing ladies. He refused their offers.

     We became more united than ever, we stayed more indoors and jettisoned weekend outings, our dad got more intimated with us more than necessary; like kissing us passionately and embracing us intimately. One thing led to another and he started sleeping with us .Naturally, this act aroused petty jealousy between us. Both of us were struggling over dad’s affection and attention.

 Dad would pamper us with gifts. We were so involved with him that none of us had a thought of having a boy friend. We became averse to the opposite sex in school. Some were even accusing us of lesbianism. All that changed when I met Zack, he was a handsome and intelligent merchant naval trainee. When my dad met him, he did not hide his hatred and aversion for him. Zack noticed this and drew my attention to it. There was nothing I could do about it, because I knew why my dad felt that way. Zack was unperturbed, despite my dad’s open hatred, he kept on coming. He thought it was the usual parental protection, so he was doing his best to impress my dad. When he suddenly proposed marriage to me, I accepted joyfully.

By then, I had stopped my dad from sleeping with me. He was enraged and threatened to disown me. He said he would not have anything to do with the marriage. He even threatened to strike out my name from his inheritance. At this juncture, I sat him down. I explained to him the religious and cultural implications of his action.

       “Dad, devil has taken over this family since the demise of our mother. What we are doing is abominable.”

What are you talking about joy?”

“You know what I am talking about; we are doing the re-harsh of Lot and his two daughters here. I don’t want what happened to them to happen to us. For the sake of our late mother, let’s stop it. It’s evil and if you insist, I’ll call the family meeting and invite our pastor too. I’ll tell them the reason you are against me marrying Zack.”

“You can’t do that. Have you really weighed the full implications of what you have just said?” he fired back.

Dad it’s you that should weigh your actions. Come out of your shell and get a wife!”

I did not know where the spirit and the boldness came from.

He sat down, put his head between his palms and started crying like a baby.

It was at this juncture that Joyce came in; she glanced at both of us. As he was trying to say something, I waved her down and explained what happened to her.

Before I could finish I started crying, Joyce too joined me in crying.

Enough is enough! That was how the abominable act stopped. Good radiance to bad rubbish!