.moshood
years of transporting load on his shoulders gave birth to the permanent hunch in his posture. perhaps they gave him his big, strong muscles, too; for he barely ever did any intentional exercising. woman did his work as a carrier at the dome market and lived in a kiosk, some fifty metres away.
on a typical day, he spent his mornings – and afternoons – ferrying sacksful of goods – normally foodstuff – to and from the market. in the evenings, he would meet up with friends at their base, and they would smoke, eat, play music from their phones, all while they chitchatted. later, at night, he would retire to his place of residence, to sleep.
on nights when his carnal desires were too oppressive to be resisted, woman leapt to the closest brothel to buy his loins some freedom. on other nights, when his financial situation wouldn’t allow, he would lock himself up in his kiosk, watch porn, and rub himself to ejaculation. all climax be climax, of course. but then again, woman acknowledged that there was no other alternative that came even an inch’s close to being as exhilarating as the flesh-against-flesh thing itself. he says to his friends every other time they talk sex, how he misses fucking – raw – with a romantic partner.
the last time he had one, when he was in a relationship, was some three years ago. the relationship had ended quite badly. he was left depressed; even contemplated suicide for a long while afterwards. that was the third time being heartbroken by a woman he loved. he swore, after recovering from it all, to live by the words of a popular West African note of caution: fear woman… if they were feeling extra generous, the giver of this rather silly piece of advice would add, for good measure: …and save your life. woman had decided that he was going to live; and therefore, those were the words he was going to live by. whenever he told his story of heartbreaks and of survival thenceforth, he would end it with his new life partners, the two words: fear, woman. that became his nickname. over time, people just called him ‘woman’ and he would respond with ‘fear am.’ and that was how he got his name, woman.
it was mid-morning and the weather was still very cold; the result of a downpour at dawn. woman had planned when he woke up in the morning, that the end of the day was going to see him make a trip to the brothel.
he was at work now, and had just completed his first transaction for the day. he was returning to the main entrance of the market where there was, every workday, an invariably benign tussle for prospective customers, between him and his colleagues. as he walked back, he fetched the only paper money on him – a 50GHS denomination – out of his pocket and made to fold it together with the 5GHS note he’d just received for his service.
somehow, his grasp faltered and the 50GHS note was whizzed away by the breeze.
woman gave chase but wasn’t quite fast enough to save his money from the jaws of the visibly pregnant goat whose meal of plain papers had been garnished with a golden-brown one, by the kind wind.
when he realized that his 50GHS could not be salvaged – for, the goat was almost done chewing it up when woman got to it – he landed a vicious kick onto the goat’s bump; which delivered the poor animal, a piercing squeal erupting from its insides, right in the middle of the street. the front wheel of an oncoming vehicle which was travelling at a speed that was criminal for a back street, crushed the goat into a bloody, intestinal flatness. the driver did not stop.
woman went down on all fours and burst into wailing. but what was he crying for? his money? the dead goat and the unborn kid that was in her stomach? or, was woman shedding all those tears for something else koraa?
.moshood lives in Accra, Ghana, from where he writes across genres. his scribblings have been published in a number of publications, both online and in print.