story – Notes By Emmanuella

Affymma

I have become the people

I once saw at the top—
Those with crisp loins, buttered tongues, and pride sharp as blades,
They, who made it seem like my first-generation self would stretch too long to get here.

Hah!

Me? Emmanuella. My name, so long, surprises you I stuck around?
I stayed, pushed hard until my knowledge became so palpable,
You couldn’t turn a blind eye.

I stuck around for a day like today,
Where I wear my grandmother’s name with pride—Affymma, Affiong ete!
Affymma, from generations rooted in life and immortality,
Sprouting breaths of beauty and vitality.

Me? Affymma, who danced kokoma on bare feet,
Swung her waist to the dim dim drums made of leopard skin.

Now, I sit at tables once reserved for those I admired—
Bold. Rich. Audacious. Intelligent.
I occupy spaces once unwelcoming,
And I crush the tables of restriction.

Remember I came home with emotions flagged red from your microaggressions,
Questioning myself, doubting if how you treated me was right.
I beat myself up for not standing firm,
Never see it coming when you pour out your maltreatment.
But see me now—
Triumphing, one day at a time.

I am the woman who now sits beside you in Ankara dress,
Capped in a black bob wig, draped in the richness of my skin.
I am Affymma, the risen star.
And just like you, I am now at the top.

Brows and Life

I wasn’t fortunate enough to have my fingers master the art of brow drawing when girls clustered in circles, having their brows carved and learning the tricks of perfecting angles and curves.

Try as I try, e no gree me learn.

That morning, two hours before the start of an eight-hour shift, I sat in front of my mirror, ready to wear a near-perfect brow. They say it is best to start drawing from below, that the arch is easily formed that way. So, I plunged, holding my breath and rolling my face to the drive of the eye pencil.

With every draw came a wipe. I saw my mistakes, and my mind said: “No too draw am fast, take am sofrisofri.” Time was ticking, just as it was ticking for Mama Bomboy. What she didn’t know was that, for every minute she wiped her vagina, I wiped my brows too. While it was ignorance for her, it was just a mistake for me.

I sharpened my eye pencil more, peeling height from it and wishing the tip would do the magic. Mama Bomboy was home, dripping wet from the flow of amniotic fluid and wishing it would stop. She poked her hand into her vagina and noticed green stains.

“Na shit be this?” she wondered.

The baby was in distress, just like the skin around my brows.

With 20 minutes to work time, I dumped my eye pencil. I no gree die. Wetin street no tish you, YouTube dey. Brows unfresh, I walked into the labor unit. On the couch was Mama Bomboy pushing an already blue baby.

She spent time. She wasted time. I spent time. I wasted time.

It cost me redness around the skin that holds my brows. It cost her Bomboy.

Time!

Miss-carriage

That afternoon when you swiped your finger through the myriad of suggestions goggle presented, nothing in Nsukka prepared your fragile mind for the reality you would come to experience 24 hours later.

First, it was the dancing headaches that pushed from the left to the right side of your head, beating drums that made you hold your head in a salute. You gulped some paracetamol, pleaded the blood of Jesus three times and rubbed the anointing oil your mama bought at a crusade ground on your forehead.

Somehow the pain in your head managed to escape the anointing oil, it fell into your stomach and your belly began to burn. Goggle tagged this symptom preeclampsia.

You have been pregnant for 20 weeks, you now spend more time in the shower, rubbing soap lather on your bump and imagining Ebube’s kind of shiny skull on the baby. You screamed a loud “tufiakwa” then followed by “ my baby will have plenty hair, biko!”. Ebube, the child next door was born without a strand of hair, her mother now rubs palm oil on her head to appease her deceased relatives she may have offended.

Your husband, you call him “di”, he kisses your bump very often and tells you about the “pregnancy nose” and how soon God would increase the width and height of your nose to allow you breathe in more oxygen for you and Chizaram, the baby in your womb.

You are happy, your “di” is happy too but the rising hotness in your belly has defiled the many cups of cold water you drank.

You ring the hospital because your mind is unstable, goggle says its a lot of things but you hope that the Angels your mama commands to follow you goes ahead and makes everything right.

You are now on the hospital couch, face up and your left hand is cupped by your “di”. He runs his palms over yours and warmth rushes over you. You turn your head towards where he’s sat and he gives you the “I gotcha baby” look.

The sonographer presses her equipment on your belly, looks into your eyes and says the most chilling words you have ever heard, “ I am so sorry but there’s no heartbeat”.

Life pauses at that instance. You are blank. Your mind tells you it’s a dream so you shut your eyes and yell into reality. You open your eyes and it’s still you on the couch with the lady still in your face but this time your “di” holds you down from running mad.

A few days later, your baby disintegrates into your pad. Large clots of blood sit on your panties. You somehow recognise the body parts that are in the pool of blood. The head, then something that looks like the placenta, the back or the tiny toes that would have been wriggling at you if you had ended up a mother.

Tears. Sorrows. Sorrows. Prayers.

An Immigrant’s Shock.

An oyibo man called me “my darling”; it wasn’t just once but several times as he spoke to me.

His sentences were punctuated by the endearment before he took a break to swallow saliva. It felt like he had cooked his words like a pot of okra soup and emptied a big sachet of “darling” into it.

“It’s okay, my darling, you just have to write your name at the end of the text over there, darling.”

I have never met him, never seen him. I woke up that morning and showed up at his office, and that was it.

My Nigerianess thinks it’s because of the red lipstick I splayed on my lips. I didn’t bother to layer the bottom part with a black eye pencil to tone down how bold it turned out.

My gap teeth, coupled with the shimmering red lips, must have been too conspicuous to ignore. Is he liking me in an ungodly way? I thought.

He comes again, this time wearing a smile. “Hey, darling, would you like a cup of tea or coffee? Milk or no milk, sugar or no sugar. Tell me how you like it, darling.”

I wanted to scream an Igbo exclamation, but I muttered under my breath, “Which kind of Wahala be this.” I smiled and told him I was okay and he needn’t bother.

“You sure, my love?” I smiled even more and nodded in affirmation.

I am in this office for an interview, and this man whose name I didn’t catch during our introduction seems to be the nicest person yet. He did say his name, but my ears let the word slide, and I was too anxious to ask him to repeat it. I was 20 minutes late for the interview because navigating through the new city was still a challenge.

“Darling, I have just spoken to the manager, and you will be called in shortly. Let me know if you need anything at all. Alright, my darling?” He walked away with a file carried like a Nigerian university undergraduate in his first year.

A few minutes later, I had my interview and was ready to go home. The sinner at the mischievous part of my brain thought he would ask for my number so that I could tell him that I have a man whom I am committed to, but he looks me in the eye and says something that sounds like an over-rehearsed line. “I wish you all the best, my darling. Goodbye.”

I waved him goodbye, and best believe, he is the kindest receptionist I had met. Mr. Darling.