I didn’t mean to kill her. All I wanted was for Nma to be quiet.

At first, all I wanted to do was to scare her, to make her stop the endless taunting. I wanted her to stop reminding me of how I've failed God and my father and my family and the church, and the entire Ndi Igbo community. A black ram is tupping another black ram. But what was I to do? This ram wanted another ram. But my mother wouldn't have it! How will her Opara, Nwaojiemeonu, prefer men over women? How will she have grandchildren? How will she boast to the other women in the August meeting that she already has a daughter-in-law and a grandchild, and now she's a complete woman? So she resorted to persistent taunting and name-calling. 

Every day, Nma spends the first 3 hours of her morning calling me a useless man, a disgrace for a son, Efulefu nwa, nwoke ihere! 

She would carry with her ‘holy water’ and an anointing oil which the Pastor, in a bid to extort her and the congregation, called the ‘blood of Jesus’. She would mix them both and rub them on my head and pray and cast out the demon that has caused me to forget the man I am. She would hit my bald head with her palm and ask God to deliver me from the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah. She would ask God to give me the heart and mind of a normal man. She insisted I scream ‘Amen’ to her prayers. On some mornings, I'm uninterested in the prayers, so I tune her out and allow her to do her thing. On other mornings, I do her bidding, so the prayers do not come with an extra 1-hour sermon and advice. The truth is all I want is for Nma to be quiet. When I'm not regretting my existence, I think of ways to shut Nma up.

So that morning, when she came to do what she always does, I decided to do what ajo nmuo had been asking of me. Ajo nmuo is the spirit inside me that whispers solutions to my ongoing torment. Ajo nmuo says that all I need to do is stick something inside her throat, and she will lose her voice. It's not murder; it's just an attempt to silence her. It was important I give myself the peace I deserved. While Nma closed her eyes and was screaming (or singing as she would have argued) ‘Ekwensu ihere me gi, na gi na ndiotu gi’ which loosely translates to ‘Shame on you devil, Shame unto you and your cohorts,’ I dug a knife deep into her throat. I made sure I reached deep, deep enough until I was sure I had ripped out her vocal cords. I continued this until she wasn't making any more sounds and wasn't struggling with me. Maybe this time she will lose her voice; perhaps she wouldn't be able to speak and call me horrible names. Maybe this time, nma will be quiet. 

So I didn't mean to kill her; all I wanted was for her to be quiet.