Saturday, March 12th 

The walls in my room were painted a dull ochre on a Saturday morning after a very drastic incident the night before. There was a hole in the wall and there was blood splattered on the white of it. My nightdress was red with blood, my hair was dishevelled and I was folded into one corner of my mother’s bathroom. I remember her wet hands shakily rubbing against my face telling me I was okay and I was not going to die. 

The bruises on my inner thighs told a different story, his weight on top of me -all of a sudden I couldn’t breathe. My mother splashed the water on my face again, her face wet with tears and her lips were shaking as she pulled me into an embrace I was too shocked to reciprocate.

“Did he—" her whispers broke into incoherent mumbling. Outside, there was a sound like the creak of a door, and it startled me. 

I started to scream at the sound and I did not stop crying until my voice broke and I could not make another sound. 

When I returned to my room the next day, it smelled freshly painted. The smell made my head spin, and the colour reminded me of mud and decay. I hated it. I looked for the hammer, but it was gone. My mom had laid my bed and held my hand while she led me to it. 

“My dear, do you need anything?”. 

I did not speak. 

Sunday, March 13th at midnight

I looked in my wardrobe for the bedsheets but they were not there anymore. 

Sunday Morning

“Is he dead? ”my voice fainted and it scratched the back of my throat like sandpaper. “You went to see him last night, didn’t you?”. 

Being sixteen was difficult as it was, being the sixteen-year-old who was raped by her father would be more difficult and being the sixteen-year-old who killed her father after he raped her was far worse. So I wished that he had died but I was a bit relieved when my mother replied that he was not. 

Not every thought is a reality, I guess because the sound his head made when I hit it with the hammer and the spray of blood made me think I had gotten him. I had to get even. 

Monday, March 14th morning 

My mother started driving me to school again because she would stop by the hospital to drop off food for my father. Spicy Jollof rice is my favourite food, and my father’s, too, so when my mom was in the kitchen, the smell of the rodo made its way to my bedroom window. I knew she was heading to the hospital today. 

“Gogo”, my mother called to me. She called me Gogo because that was what my grandmother called me; she named me after her, I preferred my name to Gogo but she did not care. 

“Ma…. call me Nengi abeg”.

“Please can you come so we can go?”

I walked out of my room carrying my book bag slouched on one shoulder. When she turned around she screamed. “what happened to your hair?”

“I cut it”.

“Gogo but you had such-”

“Ma I don’t want to know mehn- I just tire for the hair”

“Gogo. Gogo”. I walked out of the kitchen as she called to me. My mother used a blue flask to put the food meant for my father and the only reason I had not done it was the fear that she could mistakenly eat the food with him. 

When I sat in the passenger seat, I put my legs on the dashboard, she dropped the bag that contained the blue flask of rice in the back seat and entered the driver’s seat. 

“Ahh I left my phone”, she got out and walked back into the house. When she was out of sight, I brought it out of the small pocket in the blazer of my school uniform, a white sachet that would finally get me my revenge. I stretched my body in an awkward position and emptied the contents into the blue flask of food. I closed it and shook it around a bit before hearing the front door of our house slam close. 

“Ahh this jollof is really scenting in my nose”, she said as she entered and I did not reply. 

How fast does it take to die from rat poison? The words repeated in my head over and over again till it was nothing but an endless stream of words. 

Can rat poison kill a full-grown man? How much rat poison can kill a man? 

When I got back home from school, the blue flask had been washed and a smile crept onto my face. 

“Ma!” I ran through the house to her room. “How was your hospital visit?”

She looked at me tired, her eyes swollen and I prayed they were tears from him dying.  

“It went well oh but Gogo can you imagine as I came out of the car the food poured on the floor”, my excitement died. 

“Ahh, how nau?”.

“I didn’t close it properly”. 

“Sorry, Ma”. I dragged myself out of her room and back to my room to think of other ways to commit patricide. 

Monday Evening 

If I could not get him while he was in the hospital I would have to wait till he healed enough and was discharged from the hospital. In the meantime, I had to prepare, I needed money to get things and he had money hidden in his bedroom somewhere. 

Tuesday at 3 am 

I tried to stand up from the bed to get water to drink but the weight of his body was on me, I struggled to push him off but he was winning, his cold hands pressed my smaller frame down into the mattress. I did not know when I started to scream, I kicked and screamed but my hands were locked above my head. My mother ran into the room and switched on the light. 

“Gogo!” she said and as the light came on he was gone, my eyes opened and there was nothing but my mother standing in the middle of the room, her wrapper hanging flimsily on her breast. 

“I felt him on me, I felt him on me like it was that night and you still go to give him food in that hospital, Ma”

“Please Gogo, go to bed,” she said with concern. 

Tuesday at 9 am 

If he came back home this week, it would be three weeks since he was admitted to the hospital. I hope he comes back frail so that I have an advantage over him. My mother has not gone to her shop for weeks but after she dropped me off at school today, she headed to meet him. I hope he dies. 

Tuesday Evening

No, I hope he does not die. I hope he stays alive enough for me to kill him. Have you ever thought of killing someone? How does it feel after they’ve died? Satisfaction or regret? I know I’m going to enjoy killing him. I think about it all the time and when I am not thinking about it, I am reliving the moment, the moment that makes me want to kill him. 

Now

He died to me at that moment. And my mother thinks it was only that day, no, this has been going on for a while now. First, he pulls me into his lap and I think, this is my father I have nothing to worry about but then my father kisses my lips instead of my cheek and suddenly he sneaks into my room. I had kept the hammer under my pillow because I could see it in his eyes that he was going to come to me later. If only I had hit a little bit harder than this…. This would be all over. 

Thurs- Morning

“Ma, where is the hammer?”

She sat up looking at me with vacant eyes. 

“Gogo”

“Tell me, Ma”

“I got rid of it”

“You’re not going to ask me why it was not in the toolbox and why it was in my room?”

She looked at me and did not say a word. I stood there for what I think is five minutes and just stared at her before giving up and walking away. 

Saturday or is today Sunday?

If I stab my father in his face, then in his mouth then in his balls. Would that make me a violent killer?

The knives we have at home are not sharp enough to castrate a man, at least I think so because as I stand in the kitchen sink peeling the skin off these yams I am struggling.

Today in church, my Sunday school teacher said there are different types of killing- and when God said Thou shall not kill, he is not just talking about murder, he’s talking about insulting someone, deceit, anything that could lead someone to kill themselves. 

So my father is a killer. He raped his teenage daughter and that could lead me to kill myself. Why did that food pour? Why did the hammer not work? KILL HIM! HE’S A KILLER! He deserves death

Today is Thursday. 

My mother’s car just drove into the compound and peeked out my window, I waited patiently as the passenger seat door opened and my father lit the vehicle, he had no bandage on his head. It's been a month since I had seen him and a smile crept onto my face. Why did that food pour? Why did the hammer not work? KILL HIM! HE’S A KILLER! He deserves death! 

I locked myself in my room for the rest of the day and did not respond when my mother came to knock at my door at first and then the second time, the knock was so light against the wood. I knew it was him. I sprang to my feet and opened the door. He had lost weight, and a bit of the colour in his face, his beard was gone and he had a stubble coming in. 

“Go-”, I cut him short with my hand lifted to his face. 

“Papa”, I whispered looking around to make sure my mother was not coming. I could hear her on the phone with her sister in the living room. “Papa…. I’m going to kill you.” As his eyes widened in shock, a smile came on my face. 

“You are-” KILL HIM! I held my head to stop the voice. “You are an evil man and you deserve to die”. Before he realized I was done. I closed my door behind me and locked it. 

Poison was the easiest way. So I stole lead from the chemistry laboratory. I put it in a small glass tube and stuff it into my school socks. At home, I hid it in my pillowcase. If he came near me I would force him to swallow it. 

“Gogo, come and eat!” My mother called. 

“No” I responded. I pressed myself to my door as I listened to the whispers behind the door. I could hear everything they said to each other brilliantly. I could hear their whispers and their breathing. I could hear their heart and all I wanted was for his to stop. 

“We should kill her now so she doesn’t kill me”, that was his voice

“We should”, my mother replied without her mouth moving. We were sitting in the living room. I was on the armchair that faced the television mounted on the wall while my parents were on the three-seater couch talking about killing me. But I would kill them first, my own mother plotting with him. I thought I could save her but if she was going to be an accomplice I must kill her too. 

I couldn’t kill her, she

She’s my mother- KILL HIM- I WILL KILL him because he deserves to die. 

Later

“Gogo, we’re going to church this evening”. 

How can two murderers go to church? We went to church and it was something. The pastor talked about killing again, I don’t know why they keep talking about killing every day now. 

The sun hit the golden pulpit that the pastor was standing behind and he started to float in the air, I changed seats quickly hoping that this sun would not touch me and make me float.

“Gogo”, my mother whispered but I was gone to the back of the church hall far away from the sun, my nails sunk into the chair to stop me from floating like the pastor whose face had morphed into his own. 

Today 

Mother isn’t home today and he is asleep in their bedroom. “Your father is resting, Gogo, I’m going to the market. 

I walked to their door, walking so gently, that the floor pushed me up into the air so I did not make a sound. I touched the door and it pushed open. The knife in my hand is so tight it digs into the soft of my palm. 

“Papa?”. I tapped him. He did not stir. He annoyed me- I shook and shook till I started to scream and yet nothing. Why was he not waking up?

The knife clattered to the floor. No! No! Don’t tell me he is dead!! My head spun and I fell to the floor, I pressed myself to the wall watching him as the sun outside the window went down. 

He died. He killed me and did not let me end his life. Why did he die? And more importantly, why was I not the one who killed him? 

If he died from a head injury then it had to be me, right? The thought made me happy. Yes! I thought now that he’s gone I can go ahead and be a happy girl, the sixteen-year-old who killed her father for raping her. A legend. 

I kept staring at his lifeless body on the bed. I did not see my mother enter the room. She looked at me, and then back at my father. 

“Gogo,” she said to me with a small smile on her face. 

“Ma”. I replied and she hugged me. 

“What did you use?” I asked 

She did not reply to me but it did not matter. He was dead and she had done it which made me a little sad but happy all at once.