ADUNNI

ADUNNI

In reminiscence of those days when we were asked to write about  The Day I Will Never Forget, I won't forget the day my happiness was sold out in a reverse fairly tale.

My older sister, Adunni's hand was to be given out in marriage as a pawn to the son of my father's creditor. My father is actually a chronic debtor and that was how our oldest sister got married. He sees his daughters as debt replacement plans. An agreement was signed the same day her birth certificate was signed, that she'd be the payment of father's debt. We were never told the actual amount of the loan, but it in our heads, it resonated in father's voice that most of it was spent to add value to our lives. That doesn't stop him from being a chronic debtor—the one that doesn't pay back with money but with elegance with a backside and two melons.

The Atlantic City Hall always has a beguiling view, but this day, it shone at par with the sun in a blue summer sky. Aso Ebi to grace the moment hugged the shoulders of multitude of people present at the wedding ceremony. Everything that marks the glamour of wedding day was present as everyone awaited the couple's arrival. Bright lightening. Colourful backdrop. Romantic music.

My parents and I were to dance the bride joyfully into the hall, instead we began to vacillate in search of the bride. Stories like this are too sad to be true, but they are too true to be left untold.

It didn't take long before I remembered what Adunni had always confided with me. She wasn't ready to break the heart of her secondary school boyfriend, Tunde.

"She certainly have eloped with him." I thought to myself, as my visibly sweaty mother searched beneath the chairs for a trace of her.

In no time, I saw myself in the wedding gown my sister had left behind in the bridal van. My father never really thought it twice that he was sending a 17 year old down the aisle into the pronouncement of owner and pawn in a conjugal misery. He has always done it. From that day on, unlike every other fairy tale; I lived happily never after.

© Shomade Abdulazeez
#ILWSTTM

Like our page on Facebook

Remember to drop a comment, it encourages the writer.