The cascade of bougainvillea, roses and sunflowers was always a sight to revel in. So, as I sit today on this old wooden bench, taking in the beauty of nature the park offers, I only wish I was as beautiful. I guess people would be attracted to me then, and not treat me like I didn't exist. When I got any attention, it was usually a forerunner to very distasteful ridicule. The words pierced deeper when people saw me in the company of my sister and asked where I had come from in a tone laden with a mix of surprise and mockery. This has been my life since I was a little girl. I'm supposed to be used to this already. But how can I? The wound in my heart seems to be in a never-ending cycle of clot-and-open-up-again, especially now that I've moved into the teenage years. The words seem to hurt a little more now so that I can't shake them off as easily as I used to. Not that they were ever easy to shake off though.

You've known her all your life. You both grew in the same middle-class neighbourhood. Perhaps you even attended the same primary school or worshipped at the same church. You were once exuberant 7-year olds playing together in the evening rain, savouring the scent that came with the refreshing water that landed on your skin. They say pure water is odourless but rain sure has a characteristic scent trailing it. You used to be 9-year olds too, playing chase every other Saturday evening. Then, you were scholarly 12-year olds exchanging books and excitedly talking about them the next time you met.

'You look like you're going to fall any minute. Let me hold your hand,' he offered. The heels of my shoes were slightly higher than what I was comfortable with and it was embarrassing how obvious it was. At least, Josh had noticed it.

'Gosh. I'm so embarrassed,' I said as I placed my hand in his. I was embarrassed yet glad. Glad that we were holding hands like a couple. It felt like making a statement, like saying, 'keep off. He's mine!' to what pretty girls we'd find at the bash.

'Belle?... Dami?’ I heard Josh's call. I turned to face him. From the expression on his face, it appeared he had been speaking to me for a long time and only met with silence. 'Is there a problem?'

'Oh no, Josh. I'm fine. Very all right,' I assured him. Oh Josh, you care too much, I thought to myself.

He reached across the table that separated us and placed his hand over mine, squeezing it affectionately.

'Dami, you mean so much to me.' He was staring into my eyes, and I desperately wanted to avert my gaze to something else. Anything to avoid this eye-contact thingy. I boiled with confidence most times and always thought I could look anyone in the eye. So this feeling was new. I was so shy, so excited I feared I'd blush carelessly or smile too much or become breathless. Or I would wet my underwear. I was having a fairly hard time holding in the urine that threatened to escape its prison at any little provocation.

Phew! Where do you think you are going?' a voice asks in a forbidding tone.

'She stinks,' a plump woman remarks before splattering saliva on the rocky ground.

Other voices rise in the crowd and all their vituperations, or in few cases words of sympathy are directed to a little woman slowly making her way into the crowd. Her pale face hangs low in shame yet she keeps moving. She has very little strength and this makes advancing difficult and painfully slow for her. The smell from her body causes the swarm of people to disperse as though she is a plague to be thoroughly avoided. This makes her secret mission easier to accomplish. She had been troubled as she wondered how she could get to him amidst the huge crowd thronging him. As she gets closer to where he is, some distance away, her mind travels down memory lane. She remembers her harrowing experience at the hands of all the physicians she has consulted. There was the nauseating fluid she had to drink for two weeks, the painful needles injected into her body, the strippings, the surgeries et al. Each doctor she had encountered had charged a fortune off her before declaring her disease incurable.

I see it walking swiftly across the room with the characteristic lopsided gait. Disgusted, I hiss and curse but I do not go after it. Suddenly it changes its direction, three of its feet balanced on the ground and the other briefly suspended in the air. It moves towards me, fearless and dauntless courage written all over it. I remind myself that I'm human and what is staring me in the face is a mere, worthless... rat.

'One, two... three, four, five... six, ten,' I count to myself with my eyes tightly shut. I open them and find it still there, staring. So I let my eyes wander in search for the nearest object of destruction. I bend down to pick up the iron rod lying a few inches from me. I raise myself up, clutching tightly on the rod suspended in the air, ready to hit this 'spy' hard. But... it's not there. I can't find it. The thought that I'd have to live in this house with that mysterious vermin hiding away somewhere gives me goose bumps.

Every day, you see that young girl who lives down the street. But you've never seen her walk on her own. That's because she's with a new guy for each day. And you spit and shake your head and condemn her in your heart each time she walks past you, a guy's arm holding her by the waist. In your heart, you call her a spoilt mango. But you have no idea what she's been through. The day Chi Chi was born is the same day her father disappeared because she was female, the fifth female child in a row. Her mother was left with the herculean task of raising her girls alone. Mother is not one of those tough women, and the throes of life easily broke her down. She's too broken to show her daughter what love is, to tell her she's pretty, to give her a peck on her needy cheek like Vincent does. You condemn her but do you know... do you know that if you'd encountered half the temptations Chi Chi has faced in her 18 years of existence, maybe you'd have fallen face down?

I lay in bed, staring into space. I have just eaten the last garri in the house. I have no idea where the next meal will come from. I would have considered begging any of my neighbours but I dread the probable humiliation I'd receive. I have long become a laughing stock amongst even the poorest of persons. The poor call me poor. As my eyes move to and fro, from the cracks on the floor to the openings on the ceiling, I hear the honk of a car. A million thoughts race through my mind. Could it be a creditor? Or maybe an old friend. It takes a few minutes for me to garner enough courage to step out. I step outside to see a Toyota Venza, 2016 model parked right in my compound. I'm too shocked to move. As I stand glued to the ground, gazing intently, he alights from the car. My mouth goes open in shock, my legs are suddenly too weak to carry my weight, my eyes almost pop out of their sockets.

I sit here on a wooden stool in an ambience that reeks of the smell of garbage and urine and sweat. The odour is nauseating. The troublesome flies turn my pallid skin into a playground of some sort. But I'm too deep in thought to care. The rumbling and churning of my stomach brings me back to reality. I understand its message. It is saying that it urgently needs to be filled. It has exercised enough patience and has a right to complain at this point. But is there food? I count one to ten in a bid to build confidence, confidence to go begging for food again. After counting one to twenty, and still bereft of the needed confidence, I walk into my shack of a house. I live alone. No, I have the company of rats and cockroaches and geckos. There are also the Agama lizards that visit from time to time, sometimes running around in pursuit of their female counterparts. I stagger to my bucket of garri and pour every bit of it into the first plate my eyes find. I wearily reach for my old jug and pour some water into the waiting dish. It is then that I see it- rat excrement staring at me from my plate of garri-in-water.

Kara was the first. Enchanted by her surreal beauty, he thought she was the one. He imagined mornings when he would wake up on their matrimonial bed smiling and beholding her pretty face. She was that beautiful. They talked about their wedding. It'd be the talk of the town, they both agreed. But she walked away... she left with a piece of his broken heart.

I am a pretty face with eyes that glisten and sweep many a gentleman off his feet. My smile is worth a billion-dollar. My voice, its elfin timbre sends people yearning to hear yet again and drink from its melody. I am the life of every party, the soul of every gathering. Indeed, I am the envy of all and sundry. They wish they had my life, my ethereal beauty, my charm and what not.