Masquerade's Flatus
There was once a lady in the island of Tikey called Tikan. This lady was extremely beautiful, her beauty attracts guys in the island to her. Apart from being beautiful it has been noticed that the lady also has good manners for she has been brought up by morally standing parents. Her parents chief and Mrs. Cock had five children and all their children were brought up in a well-mannered way.
The good attributes that people over the years have been advising guys to look for in ladies, but not to be married to ladies because of their beauty were seen to be present in the life of this lady Tikan. This thus drew people to her from far and near.
As if she was the only lady in the island of Tikey, every man wants to be associated with her, every man wants to date her. When a suitor leaves another suitor will approach Tikan.
One day her mother Mrs. Cock called her to talk to her on the myriads of men that have been patronizing their house because of her. After she greeted her mother, her mother asked her to sit on a stool beside her because what she wants to discuss with her is very important for her in life.
Everyone who comes into the world is expected to get married one day and start procreating, and one day I know you will get married and settle down Mrs. Cock started to talk with her daughter. Marriage could be interesting and lively and on another note it could become a hell on earth if the person misses it while scouting for a partner, this is why I want you to put what I want to discuss with you on your left palm so that you will not use it to eat.
The Ancient Belief
The people of the island of Tikey believed that right palm is the palm that should be used in eating, they frowned at people using left palm to eat. The types of food commonly ate in the island are the grounded yam-flour, pounded yam but not cereal that could be eaten with spoons neither forks. Apart from that, spoons and forks have not gotten to that part of the world when the word like this was being used by the people of the island. Thus, left hand is considered to be used for dirty things like cleaning the anus, removing mucus from the nose and so on. These are considered dirty things of the body which should be taken care of by the hand (palm) not regularly used. Based on this, those using left palm to eat, work were usually considered to be aberrant children (or people) those days and history has it that they were usually killed those days to remove dangerous people from their midst because they were considered extremely dangerous.
This killing of the children who use left hand, to work, eat, and do other things have been on for ages until when the village head who was chief Bat’s wife gave birth to a baby boy. It was after she gave birth that the law had to be revoked in the island of Tikey.
How The Killing Stopped
Chief Bat and his wife, Queen Bat had been married for years but without children. The leader of the village cannot go on without an issue, thus many a one within and without the island of Tikey had counseled Chief Bat that he should not rule out marrying another woman as it had been on his mind for ages. They told him that condition has necessitated his getting married to another woman now and his wife as well as others would understand with him that it is not his free will to be married to another lady but because his wife has been unable to take in despite everything giving into it so that she would take in for the king.
As if what those people were saying was not enough, the wife of Chief Bat, Mrs. Bat also advised her husband that he should get married to another maiden within the island and in case he does not want to be married to anyone within the island she can arrange for beautiful and virtuous ladies from the surrounding islands for him to choose from and be married to.
The chief despite hearing them well did not yield to any of their counsels, he remained adamant saying he would not marry any other woman. If my Queen gives birth to a child for me well and good and if she does not give birth to a child well and good, chief Bat says to everyone who has been concerned about he and his wife’s childless. When his wife was pressing that he should take another maiden from another island if he does not want to be embarrassed by the maidens within the island, he told his wife that she should drop the idea of him getting married to another lady within or without the island. “It is not because of being embarrassed by any lady, but, “one wife one travail, two wives four travails”, that is what my father told me before he went on the way of all the people of the world, he said to his wife, Mrs. Bat.
When chief Bat’s wife discovered that there was nothing she could do to make her husband change her mind to marrying another lady she dropped the idea of pressurizing him to marrying someone else and was daily hoping that something would happen that would startle all.
That was how chief, and Mrs. Bat lived together without a noise of a child in their compound for 35 years. At the end of the 35th year Mrs. Bat discovered that she noticed changes in her body. She would not take this serious on the immediate and was thinking it was due to old age. When the changes to her body continued, she had to contact the known health providers of their time, on getting to those health providers they were the ones who told her that she was pregnant. She couldn’t believe what she was told by the first health provider and had to go to another health provider. When the second person affirmed what the first health provider said to her, that was when she believed that what she has been seeing was related to what people used to say about a woman who is pregnant.
In the night of that day, she sought to discuss with her husband after his tight schedule. That day of the week used to be the hive of activities for the Chief because it is the day that he usually attends to difficult cases that his subjects cannot handle within the streets, families, and so on.
After taken his meal in the morning that day, he hardly has time for recession in the mid-day as he will keep addressing bottle-neck issues till the dead of the night. On this day, he had so many troubling and disturbing cases to resolve and palace lamp stands had to be put on for the people to see and to get the cases resolved that day.
After he was through with them all, he went into the bathroom to shower, having told all that he would neither be entertaining any visitor again that night nor listening to anything from anyone other than eating the light meal he has asked his steward to prepare for him and retiring to bed.
It was this day that his wife knew she has been pregnant. Mrs. Bat after hearing and confirming that she was pregnant hid the message in her heart waiting for when her love would be through with his duties at the upper chamber (for that is how the place where the chief discharges the duty is called by the people of the island).
After the chief had taken his bathe and sat down to his meal, then his wife appeared sitting across to where he was. When the chief saw her, he knows right away that something is in her heart because she hardly disturbs him on a day like this, no not before.
Mrs. Bat asked to discuss something important with him, but the chief asked if the discussion could be shifted till the following day, because he was too tired that day. The wife said the discussion cannot be shifted an hour forward because she has been keeping it in her heart for hours any attempt to keep it further within her would not augur well, she said. The husband told her that she ought to know that he does not like talking while eating. His wife implored her to please listen to what she wanted to say that it won’t take but a moment.
The chief suspended the food he was eating and started listening to his wife. When the wife broke the news of her being pregnant to him, what came out of his lips was, “no, it is a lie”. Mrs. Bat said, “did I tell you such lie yesterday?” looking straight into the eyeballs of her lover and husband, through the reflection of the lamps situated at all the corners of the room where they were discussing.
“How? When did it happen?” the chief asked standing up from where he was moving close to his wife, he has received new vigor now, the tiredness seems to have flee on hearing this news from his wife.
I would not know sir, but all I know was that I have not been feeling well over the days, and I have been thinking old age has caught up with me after all, who will old age not catch up with? No one, I said to myself. When we grow and keep changing our physiological status also starts changing, this I was thinking and had been trying to use some of the drugs in the gourds, those special antidotes but there has been no changes in my system, thus, I told myself that I will need to visit some of the health practitioners in the island. I took the palace maids along with me and we went to the renowned health practitioner in the island. When we got there, he examined me and said he did not see anything, then she asked me again what those symptoms were that I have been seeing. After telling him what the symptoms were, he said, “how could I miss these signs? I have left leprosy for candidiasis”, Mrs. Bat, you are pregnant he said, “I missed the diagnosis on the spot because I thought you are already past that”, he concluded.
I replied him that such cannot be possible, but he insisted that all that I said showed that I am pregnant. When I did not believe what he said, I had to move to another person that you used to invite to treat you and he said the same thing. It was after the second health practitioner said the same thing that I started to think about it, that the symptoms are akin to those that I used to hear that a woman would be showing when she is pregnant.
But you did not tell me about the physiological changes on going in your body before, chief Bat told his wife.
No, I did not tell you sir, and it was for that reason that I decided to go and check out the health practitioner myself when I left today, Mrs. Bat replied her husband kneeling.
Chief Bat started looking at his wife, he did not know what he could say, he was speechless standing at a position, asked his wife to sit down, putting his hand on his wife’s tummy to see if he could feel anything. His wife places her hand over his hand may be by that he would be able to feel what is in there, but nothing could be felt.
The chief was very happy just as the wife. The chief sat beside his angel and Queen and they talked at length into the night. The good news has added adrenaline into his system he seems not to be wearied again. He asked his wife to draw the table to where they were so that they will eat the food together. The Queen told him that she is satiated, but the chief insisted that she needs to take something out of the light meal, “taken something out of this is a celebration of our victory”, the chief said. At the insistence of the chief, the Queen took a gourd whose top edge has been cut used for drinking liquid, she raised it up and said, “toast to our victory”, while the chief also raises up his and said, “a wondrous victory, and new beginnings”.
The Queen laughed, “new beginning indeed at our old age”. Chief Bat also laughed. He couldn’t eat much that night except taken the drink with his wife and they retired to bed.
In the night the chief could not but stop thinking about what his Queen, Mrs. Bat had said some hours back, “me also becoming a father at this age and her becoming a mother?” Not as if we have seen a child by the bush and decided to adopt them, but a child that would be given birth to by her for me? If anyone has said this to me before now, I would not dare belief, I have taken off my heart on having issues in this world, may what my Queen told me be true after-all, he said to himself on the mat which was laid on the well-arranged bamboo which has been placed on the branches of the tree cut by the slaves from the wilderness to make a bed with four legs for the chief. On this bamboo are many clothes spread to make a cushion, making it comfortable for the chief to lie on. Very few people in the island could afford that because of the rigor it involves and one of such that would have that is the village head, chief Bat.
The people of the island try as best as they could to get for their heads and leaderships comfort, they deserve as it was being given to some other leaders in other climes and villages around.
This was the place where the king was lying on thinking about what he has heard from his Queen, he kept on thinking of how they would take care of the child when the child was eventually given birth to, how the child would be instructed on the rules governing the island and of the need to keep himself or herself well becoming a very good example to all and sundry within the island…, “but, I would love the fetus in the Queen to be a male child”, the chief epigrammatically uttered to himself, well whatever sex the child may be I would not mind he resolved afterwards, it is better than not having a child at all he concluded.
As he continued to think this way, on what to do, he slept off. He did not know when he slept off until when he heard the cock-crow in the morning and he was thinking it was the first cock-crow which usually happened before the day break those days. “Oh, I did not know when I left for the other side of the world, I still have few hours more to sleep before the day break” he said to himself on his bed as he opened his eyes not knowing that it was the sound third cock crew that woke him up.
He started hearing the palace maids talking, some sweeping the palace, looking through the openings on the wall he discovered that the day is breaking forth, “wow! It is morning already, I have had a deep sleep devoid of dreams, that was why I did not know when the first cock crew. Yesterday was a hectic one, a very long one at that”, he enthused on his bed, changed the position to face the wall “and it seems as if I need to rest more, my eyes are yet to be completely clear. Uhm! It is another day, a beautiful day, a day to set another milestone”.
While on this, the poetic slave in the palace started to talk about the chief’s ancient panegyric, praising and eulogizing him which is what the palace maid has been employed to be doing every morning in the palace before the chief comes out of bed to keep him in remembrance of his status and other responsibilities before him.
Chief Bat and his wife had agreed to keep the development to themselves until it is iron-clad before all and sundry. Thus, they kept the news from other people except those health practitioners who have been aware of the development. Soon enough the tummy of Mrs. Bat started protruding that was when it became the palace breaking news and everyone started sharing the news that the chief’s wife is pregnant.
The people of the island have loved chief Bat their leader very well because he is trying his best in discharging his statutory duties without fear or favor within the island. No one is perfect but if we can be having someone like him as leader the world would be a lovely place to live in, they used to say amongst themselves.
The palace breaking news soon got to the center of the town through the palace maids as they went to the river to fetch water, they will be talking about the Queen. Since the river is a common place for all and sundry within the island to fetch water from, they could not hide what they were saying to those who have come to fetch water too and by that the news got to the market place the center of the town.
Everyone who heard the news was happy with the chief and his wife for this uncommon event that has happened unto them at their old age. As from this time have the people of the island been looking forward to the time the woman would put to bed.
When it was time for the Queen to put to bed, she puts to bed as fate would have it, her child was a baby boy. The news of her birth was greeted in the island of Tikey with rapturous applause with people dancing in the streets of the island. The baby was alive as well as his mother. The chief could not hide his joy for what fate has brought along his path at his grey period in life.
The child was named Batul and they started bringing him up in the ways and manners of the island of Tikey. The chief bore it in mind that as heir to the throne which he may leave at any time, he needs to train the child in discharging his responsibilities to the people of the island without fear or favor but being truthful always. Truth promotes but lie debases the chief told his son.
However, something weird was noticed in the life of the son of the chief and it was that the Batul from his childhood stage was noticed to be using left hand. Her mother has tried her best to correct and control her child to be using right hand to be doing things, but this became impossible for her to do. She had to tell the chief as time goes on that Batul uses left hand. The chief also tried to dissuade the son from using left hand, before it becomes a public notice. The child tried his best to ensure that he changes from the use of the left hand to the right but he could not do that until the public notices.
When the public detected this, they decided that what they have been doing for others should be done on Batul the chief’s only son. This becomes a heated argument within and without the island of Tikey which led to them tracing the history of what led to the killing of those who have been born to be using left hand within the island and they discovered that it was share fear that led their fore parents to decide that they would be killing those who have been born to be using left hand. The people at their council meeting for the love they had for chief Bat, his exemplary life style among them decided that they need to abrogate the rule, the belief and that they would not allow such to happen again.
They need to put the matter into voting and 99.9% of the people of the island voted that the culture be abolished once and for all, no more killing for those who are using left hand within the island they resolved.
It was this voting that led to the resolution of the abolishment of killing of “special children”, children who use left hand to eat, to drink and or do things within the island of Tikey.
Outcome of Resolution
Tikan’s mother, Mrs. Cock said, “Tikan, part of the resolutions that was made when the council of the island met on special children millennia back was that parents should not be choosing for their children again when they are ripe for marriage. We, parents, of this island can only advise our children, but we cannot choose for them on whom they should be married to or whom they should not be married to”, she concluded.
“Uhmn”, Tikan said looking directly at her mother, “I have not been aware of the resolution that was made during the council of the island’s meeting millennia back. What we were only taught during the social studies in the primary school is that before now, our fore-parents used to kill those who were using left hand to do things but our teachers in the schools never included the issue of choosing for ladies being the bye laws of the resolution that day”.
“Well, may be such is not included in the syllabus. You know it is what the syllabus stated that the teachers will follow, they will not add to what is in the syllabus.” Mrs. Cock replied her daughter.
“Uhmn, okay, that is right”, she said, nodding her head in agreement with what her mother has said.
Since this period, no parent within the island of Tikey dare choose for their children again, either male or female children. What can be done is just advise the child before she or he gets married and that is what I want to do today, that I have called you here. This is why I have said you should ensure that you put what I want to say on your left palm and you should not use it to eat, because it is the right hand that is commonly used for eating except if you are eating grains and noodles.
I want you to look well before you leap darling daughter, I know many people, many males, young and charming guys are coming to you day-in, day-out to seek for your hand in love and your hand in marriage.
Every male that comes will look promising, they will tell you beautiful things, sweet words, some will tell you what they cannot achieve in the next 30 years that they will achieve it within fraction of hours, some of them, what and whom they will never become in life they will tell you that they have become that, some will even say they have exceeded the stage they have not gotten to and which they will likely not get to before they leave the world.
This is why it is of paramount importance for you to ensure that you look before you leap in this matter of love and marriage, do not fall into the wrong hands, do not allow anyone to lie to you, do not allow men to take you away with their sweet words.
Mrs. Cock continues, when marriage is good, it is the people involved that would benefit from it, but when marriage horrible, it is the people in it that would also feel the heat. We, parents and your siblings won’t leave with you in your home and if anything happened there, you will be at the center of the events there.
I hope you are grasping what I am telling you my daughter? Mrs. Cock asked Tikan.
“Yes, ma”, she replied her mother.
It is important and crucial that you get this message. I want this message to sink into your cerebral cortex darling because I have seen people wailing and crying at their homes. I have seen those who were mocking me for choosing your father then now crying in their homes that had they known they would have looked before they leaped. It is a phrase of regret.
Their case is like a masquerade flatus, you know when a masquerade passes flatus in the clothes or several masks he or she puts on while dancing and going around the streets, the flatus will not be able to exit the clothes or masks easily, because they are inside a mask with many layers. Thus, the odour that the flatus would produce will be concentrated within the confines of the masquerade, he will be the one that will principally be smelling the odour, it is limited one that will leave its masks to outside, to those following him. That is how it is to miss it in marriage.
Those people I am telling you about who are now saying had they known, they would have looked before they leaped are in regrets, they are suffering alone in their homes, suffering and smiling. They will put up happy and joyous mood outside, but within them they are burning, they are suffering. They are in psychological torments.
It is however sad that they have leaped, and what is next for them is to learn to live with the situation. Those who cannot live with the situation are those who file for divorce, but I want you to know that even if they divorce their husbands now, they cannot rewind the past. Please look well before you leap in marriage, do not allow anyone to coerce you into anything and when you see any surreptitious thing about anyone who comes to ask for your hand in love, leave that person, do not think you will be able to change the person with time.
This is my candid advise for you, your father has asked me to talk to you since I am a female and I have trod this path you are now treading before so that the leg you ought to put forward you will not place it back
Tikan knelt and appreciated her mother for those words she has shared with her that day and promised her that she will look very well before she leaps.
She got up from where she was sitting beside her mother to go and do the necessary house chores. Her mother with keen love in her eyes watches her daughter leave her
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