To keep, not kept, lost!

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Jess walked cowardly, in a staggered pace. She knew she has done the abominable. She dreaded the expressionless faces of the elders. “Onye merụrụ ala” as they would always say, must be prepared to dance to whatever tune the gods play for him. From time immemorial, killing a sacred python has been a taboo in Ụmụnkwọ Village. Ignorance of the law, as our half-baked graduates would say, is not an excuse. The sacred python had visited in the early marital hours of the morning; an hour when, in the cover of faint darkness, wives looked for comfort in the broad chest of their husbands and craved for their weapon of conception to push back the little nymph welling up inside them. The sacred python came to interupt the early morning frolicking; an exclusive reserve for the married. Jess and her husband had heard a noise in the room. Her husband felt it’s unnecessary to check where it came from; knowing such visits are almost inevitable, one messenger after another, from the gods. He has not told his wife this and that was his undoing. He let her go and check, an action he would regret later. Jess, when she saw the snake curled up near her travelling bag, she thought this was one of the reptiles which in recent times, crept into people’s house looking for rats and the like. Her judgment was wrong. She picked the machete and in a flash, separated the head of the serpent from its body.
The noise attracted the husband who came immediately to see the sacred python which represented the spirits of his fore-fathers now lying helplessly on the ground, its head apart. The deed was done already. He did not sleep for rest of the dawning night. The villagers would find out; now or later, by an honest confession of the murderer or a casting of lots whenever the python was declared missing. He wouldn’t want to face the consequences that comes with the later. He, in a bid to make things easier for him and his new bride, reported to an elder living near him; that his wife unknowingly killed a sacred python. The elder consulted other elders in the clan to decide the fate of Obinna and his killer bride. Obinna and his wife were told to purchase the items for sacrifices and appeasement of the gods and then patiently wait while the oracle decides their fate. During this period, they were to stay at home, not allowed to communicate with the rest of the villagers in order not to corrupt the other souls with their uncleanness. It was a 50-50. The gods could punish the erring wife with five years of barrenness, or kill her, or both. All the efforts Obinna made to make it secret failed as one elder told another and in a week’s time, the whole community had known that Jess, Obinna’s wife killed the sacred python.
The answer finally came, but not without drastic measures. Obinna and his wife were to host a reconciliation party for all the villagers in the village square. The villagers, after being fed sumptuously, were to make prayers and plead with the gods to forgive the erring couple and bring peace to their land. That was done and the couple were asked to go to the stream for the final cleansing by the gods; a trip from which whoever returns, lives. Jess followed her husband faithfully through the whole process, took the bath from which she headed back to the house and consequently, to her grave. Everyone was shocked. What did she do wrong? What process did she omit? Was she dishonest in her plea to the gods of the land? They must have found her unworthy to live and consequently, terminated her life. Obinna was thrown into confusion. The queen of his heart has been dethroned and his kingdom torn asunder. His now reflects a shadow of himself. He was meant to keep, protect and care for the wife but the mistake of allowing his wife to play his role of protection has launched him into the deep world of sorrow and pain.
He had lost her. Period!
The bride he had vowed to keep, he lost!
It’s happening so fast. Should he remarry? Or be made to spend the rest of his life in agony over the loss of his bride?

© Wisdom Oluchukwu Nwaenyi
Oluwisdomdepoet
https://wa.me/+2348109093314