UNCOUTHLY ATTACHED

UNCOUTHLY ATTACHED: 5.

Kano State, Nigeria.
2012.

Falak shrugged at the weird man that refused to take her to the house she's looking for and only showing it to her from a very long distance. Maybe there are more houses around the place, who knows! Now she's stuck into finding the house, the place looks huge. How can they maintain all those flowers they planted around the curbs. Yes, the place she's standing is a long coal tarred road that went straight to the beautiful gates she was gaping at.

She stared at the enormous, magnificent building towering over her small figure. It looks more like a castle than a mansion because of the way it's built. She could see the strong huge looking pillars from where she's standing which is so many feet's away from it, maybe even a mile but she's not sure. The pillars alone looks intimidating and talk less of the whole building.

So her mother is married in this rich family and never bothered to come and get her from that stupid village with so many starving people and heartless people. She don't see why she's even looking for her mother now when the woman clearly abandoned her!

What is her mother aiming at for not wanting her to come till after her father's death? Maybe she'll have to listen to her but not now, she needs to grief about her father's death. He also said that he was selfish and didn't let her go with her mother so she didn't know what that means. Well, she'll have to wait to find out all about it. She hates waiting though.

Her father's death hit her harder this time than the time she was thinking about it in the bus. She didn't think about it because she was sleeping most of the ride and then when she gets on the tricycle and asked the man to take her to this place she's standing, he asked whether she's mad or not and that thought why he's asking whether she's mad didn't leave her head till she reached here so now everything is drowning in on her.

She don't get why she had to reassure the tricycle rider that someone asked her to come to this address from her village before he reluctantly took her. This is not a place everyone and anyone to enter in the state so he was surprised looking at the dirty looking Falak asking to go to the palace. That thought vanished and then another one came, about her father.

Unknowingly, she collapsed at the gate -by the side- and curl her legs to her knees as she weep her eyes out. She's sitting in between beautiful and fine-cut looking flowers and might be easily passed as the flower or it's shadow, thanks to her small frame. At the moment, she doesn't care if a bug will come out from there and bite her or a snake, she wants to cry for her father silently with hiccups. Her father just passed away and she's already in another state looking for her mother.

After three good hours of reminiscing her moments with her father and crying her eyes out at how supportive he was when she wanted to continue schooling since no one is willing to marry her, how he made sure she doesn't feel insecure because she's not married at the age every female in the village should, how he'll stand up for her when her stepmother will almost hit her. God, she's missing him so much.

She finally remove her head from between her legs and look at the sun setting down the horizon. She smiled, looking at it with great interest in her catlike eyes. She recalled when they'll go down the hill with her two friends -Fikriya and Marawiyyah- to watch the sunrise before going to school and then stop to watch the sunset when they finish helping Marawiyyah's brother in the farm.

Those memories she cherish with warm heart. How she wish she could find Fikriya in this huge beautiful city they call Kano. Maybe she's not even here in Kano because when they say city in their village, it means anywhere fancier than the village so she's not sure. She might be in a faraway place where she will never know the name of. She sighed in anger and frustration, looking around.