Save the Black Child

The evening dew settled on everything around and harmattan dust decorated them to a different flavor. The humming sound of the strolling river spoke volumes to my soul. My heartbeats became like an accompaniment to the river music.

 For several minutes, my eyes felt like they were not permitted to stare away from the waters. Yet, each time they belched, my heart sank to its very depths. When I finally gathered the courage to look around, I realised how late it had become. The beach side was completely abandoned. The Michael Kors time piece on my left wrist screamed a tick; it was 8 o'clock.

Thoughts of stories of mermaids swimming out to river banks at unholy hours caused a tremor in my stomach. As I hurried away, my feet struggled to jumble through the thick pile of quicksand. The blue Amazon tie I wore kept flipping into clear view in response to wind direction. Suddenly, my eyes caught sight of the object of my fears.

An object lay quietly just a distance away. Oh no, rather, a couple of objects. I attempted a diversion, yet laziness and the length of the new distance brought me to a standstill. I produced the thick glasses; my spare eyes, and stuck them on. This thing has a grande relationship with my bone-filled face. It just sits in and hugs the face like a gorilla in heat. Just as it settled into position, the objects became magnified. And I saw, for the first time, the image of a tired child, lying beside a bag of pure water, a plate, a spoon, an old piece of canvas shoes for a pillow, a little heap of clothes and covered with two scanty pieces of whatever rags these were.

My legs wobbled as I gathered the guts to walk towards the heap. She looked 9. Frozen in the cold. Unperturbed even by nature. I simply sat beside her, pulled my glasses and let the tears flow freely. I pulled my suit and added to her self-constructed set of duvét. She smiled in her sleep and stirred as if to appreciate the increase in beachside temperature. As my teeth started clattering in the cold, it occured to me that this one could simply die out, unnoticed; and her corpse swept away by the ragging river.

While I sat, lost in thought; she woke with a start. "Officer please don't arrest me again, I have no way else to go. My mummy and daddy have died and my aunty said she will kill me if I don't sell all these pure water", she begged, almost wailing. Obviously, she has been threatened or even arrested severally. I simply pulled her closer. "I am no officer", I replied. Her heartbeat hurriedly slowed down as tears splashed from her eyes on my wrist watch. "What happened to you?", I asked. "My name is Edidiong." She began, in plain English. Her throat was cracked, I could detect it from her voice.

While the bag of pure water lay protected like diamonds, Edidiong excused me, strolled towards the flowing river and lapped off some water in a doglike fashion. I sat there, frozen and in tears as she hurried back, sat closely beside me, tugged herself beneath my left arm and began her story.

I am i~Witness.