The Call of Nature
Based on one of the many true untold tragedies in the lives of African women
Aaleyah was only fifteen, undergoing bubbling orogeny into womanhood. She was acutely aware of the two perky mountains protruding out of her chest; her body folding into roundness and wider at the hips; her lady garden growing full and beginning to spill lava. These orogenesis of femininity both fascinated and scared her. And so, the day her classmate, a boarding student from the village across the desert, who was three months younger, was getting married, unlike the other girls in her class, who were content to send post cards of congratulations through the boys who were going and see the bride’s picture after they get back in their phones, she had to go and see for herself, not so much out of friendliness as the sense it felt like it was a celebration, no the coronation, of the same femininity budding in her. She desired to see how the wedding gown fitted her ripening body, how her leaning face shimmered, how her fresh beauty commanded everyone’s attention.
She implored her parents to let her go and attend the wedding. Her parents refused; they reasoned that a two-hundred-mile journey across the desert was no journey for a girl her age to take unchaperoned. And so, Aaleyah changed into her high collared blue navy dress, black shawl draped across her head, and ballerina shoes on and waited until after noon, when her father retired to his nap and her mom went into her knitting and she sneaked out of home, and scuttled to the marketplace where rides to the village were taken. She glanced at her watch — it was a little over two. She was late for the main ceremony, she observed. I will catch a glimpse of her in the dance party in the evening, she calculated.
A white pickup, headed to the village, with two dozen passengers packed like bamboo trees in a dense forest, was pulling out when she got there. Aaleyah hailed the car.
On the car, she saw that the passengers among whom she stood huddled together with were all men. The men did not grope her nor did they grind against her, as she feared they might. Instead, they suffered to squeeze into each other to give her space as though they too found her femininity both fascinating and scary.
Aaleyah was relieved to hear when over three hours into their trip, a man started banging at the roof of the car and hollered to the driver to get them off for a piss, for she had been fighting back pressing need to relieve herself, tightening the muscles around her private parts, biting her lips.
It was unimaginable for her to express to men her need to pass water no matter how euphemistically. Unladylike, her mother would say. A lady ought to be decorous, restrained.
Dusk was just beginning to descend, the sun withdrawing back with orange train trailing behind her across the sky, when the car came to a halt. The open barren land that laid before them was their latrine. Aaleyah noted upon getting off that the place was a plain with only short, sparse shrubs to hide oneself behind. She watched the men scatter in all directions. She averted her glance to see two men pee right under the car.
They are men. I am a woman. She had to walk farther, farther away from the gazes of men to attend to her call of nature. A woman’s body is sacred. It should not be laid bare for everyone to see. It ought to be veiled, treasured.
She looked about her to see if she had come far enough and she flinched away to behold a stone throw away to her right a man pulling his pants down to expose his buttocks.
She walked farther on and on until, from where the car stood, she looked like a blue dot in an orange canvas.
There, she pulled her overall up to her waist, her white panties down and no sooner had she crouched than pent-up urine squirted out.
Over on the dirt road, the driver honked the horn impatiently. The few stragglers hurried from whence they were and jumped into the car. The driver yelled, “All aboard?”
Some of the men thought she was on the car, chucked somewhere amidst them, and others forgot about the girl because their consciousness was bewitched.
Someone tapped on the roof and shouted “All aboard!” The car sped away.
Aaleyah was startled to hear the honks. She pricked up as a prey that scented a premonition in the air. She jumped on her feet, hauled up her panties. Kicking off her shoes, she began to run back with abandon the distance she had come on account of inhibition, screaming, flailing her hands with the violence of her spirit. She ran and ran and ran, weeping, long after the car had disappeared into the horizon, until breathless, she collapsed on her belly on the hard earth. Shaking with mortal fear, helpless, she sprawled in the middle of the ravenous desert, the grinning darkness encircling her.
Three hours on, the car stood before the wedding tent. Loud music, ululation, mixture of scents of food, perfumes and smoke welcomed them. The men jumped out of the car one after another and entered the wedding.
A man noted with foreboding that he had not seen the girl get off. He asked two fellow passengers if they had seen her. They communed with each other in grave solemnity that they had not seen her.
They walked up to the driver and expressed their apprehension that they had abandoned the girl in the desert.
“la samah allah[1]” the driver exclaimed holding his head in horror.
He ordered the three to hop on. He crunched the gears, sent the car racing into the darkness.
“God is merciful,” he thought in prayer, “He will have mercy upon the blameless child”.
He hoped the wilderness would embrace her into its bosom as it had done with feral children as in the fairy tales.
The moon was straight upon them when the men stood flashing a light over bloodstained spot, skeleton ripped apart, its flesh torn off clean.
“innalilahi wa innalilahi rojiun![2]” the driver cried.
[1] Arabic, meaning ‘God forbid’.
[2] a Quranic command for Muslims mentioned in verse 2:156[a] of the Qur’an meaning “Verily we belong to Allah, and verily to Him do we return.”
