My Journal – Episode 2

MY JOURNAL EPISODE 2

By Amah

She was shaking all over… The darkness in the room was terrifying enough, the footstep keep coming toward where she was hiding, she wish she can be invisible right now…is that what near death feels like.. Suddenly the footstep stopped close enough that she can hear him breathing. His presence fills the room with terror.. she thought of her late mum. She died of heart attack after there was no money again to care for her hospital bill..she was always afraid of dying and living her girls to the cold and lonely life…all her fear never stopped her from leaving…my helpless dad was devastated.. i took up the up keep of the home forgetting education…I strived forth…I’m never afraid of anything. But always cautious… nothing has ever gotten me…but the fear filling her with terror is beyond her…she has always seen herself as a strong woman…never scared of any man,. The only man she have really love with her heart but got hurt instead. Was Dan.. And she have tried to trade safe. Love was the last thing in her dictionary…something fell hard on the floor… It doesn’t sound like glass. Is probably a book… almost pee on her pant As fear gribbed her…she wondered what it was. She can smell smoke… something was burning.. The smell was beginning to fill the house. Smoke was cycling her.. “the intruder want to burn her up.. What will she do now… whenever she tried to scream, nothing comes out… everything is happening so fast… her phone must be laying somewhere. She can’t remember…is on silent… She wanted to come out and face her fear. But she was too scared to even move… but she will die anyway if she stays or leave… she decided to quietly crept out…the intruder wasn’t anywhere seen… he has disappeared.. and the only thing that was burning was the journal… could this be a bad dream…she thought…her faded old gift journal that has taken her back to memory lane where she got caught in the web… she need to put off the fire… she ran to the kitchen for water but it was locked … her room was equally locked.. she ran back to the living room there’s a pack of juice sitting on the center table she picked it up but it was empty… she can’t remember putting an empty pack of blueberry juice there, she doesn’t even have it in her fridge. Although is one of her favorite.. she wonder how the pack of juice came from. Maybe is the intruder that brought it…but why. For what.. “ was the intruder intention only to burn the journal…then why…why did he want to burn it…and why did he risk his life breaking into her house what if she has called the police when she had the chance…without allowing fear to get to her” the fire was still burning… and the journal was burning. Page by page.. I can’t just watch fire consume the book.. I still love that book that was why I kept it for many years.. I have never being able to discard it… I must do something to stop the fire…though it might of no use but she must stop the fire.. she took a throw pillow and started beating the fire..”STOP IT, LET IT GO ZAVIVA…” she heard a hard voice behind her and he even mentioned her name, and with her hand raise high she quietly turned. And there stood a man..towering over her.. with a facial mask.. she can only see his eyes and it was on fire..as he approached her with a mighty quiet step…she screamed. This scream was loud…and it did not sound inside her, it came out and she landed on the ground, she awaken with a sweat and head ach

Zavi was shocked that everything that happened was all a dream…it felt so real…look so real…yet there was no intruder.. no burning journal…the book was lying peacefully on the floor where she fell, is already morning.. 7:18am..her television was still on. Music was playing on the screen… she quietly stood up. The margin was coming strong… her wrist has swollen and she was feeling serious pain… she sustained a fracture because of the fall. the morning sun was already filling the house… she checked the kitchen and the room, everything was just as they have always being… she went back to the living room and picked up the journal… she stare at it for some seconds, not knowing what to make out of it she dropped it back to the table…she sat hard on the cushion and stare at the television her mind was still on the night mare…she wonder how everything could be just a dream.. she was just close to death.. or probably not.. she couldn’t just wave it off, it was just too much of realness that she thought that her waking up was the dream….the intruder and the burning journal was the real thing.. it was just too much…

It was already 12pm.. she’s done with the few things she supposed to do.. after taking a lite breakfast she was exhausted, headache was still there even after she has taking a pain reliever the pain on her wrist was still there, she has bandage it after using a mentholated cream on it.. and also the memory of everything that happened, nothing has change, only that she is alive but with pain…she was scared of taking a nap. Karena was on her way already… she guess so, Zavi thank God for her sister is coming around. She wouldn’t have been able to sleep alone tonight.. She was avoiding another night mare. But she needed to rest.. she decided to risk it..as she was almost dozing off on the sofa. She staggered to her room.. after making sure the doors where locked…include her room door…she put her phone on vibration, and lay down.. she thought of the voice in her night mare, strong with authority.. STOP IT,LET IT GO ZAVIVA” it was firm. Not familiar, she covered her eye with the pillow and after sometime when she still couldn’t sleep she decided to do something anything as she walks round the house…she picked up the journal and returned to her bedroom.. she thought of what to write in it and decided to write down anything that comes to her mind.

Hi journal, My name is Zaviva Johnson, almost everyone is cool with calling me Zavi…I’m also cool with it, only Dad and mum call me Zaviva..and maybe few others like neighbors back then.. so when the strange man from my dream called my full name..i was in schock…is being a long time someone has done that… is been years I got you from Gina Syvan… you were the best gift then..have not written or use any part of you before, I kept you hidden…reasons I don’t know…even right now I really do not know what to write down..all I can think off right now is my last night dream..it was so real that I can almost swear it..and it all started with YOU. You were giving to me twelve years ago, I was still a teen.. it was one of the best gift I ever gotten during then..my mum worked for a certain rich family, the Syvans, and when she fell ill I took over since there was no objection…I can do whatever she can even try to make it better… I support my mum during my free time…aside helping her with maid work. Some days I go to school when she’s feeling better, untill I finally quit school, my dad was a bricklayer he brings little to the table so with me helping out in my own way we were able to care for my mum and my only sister Karena, sometime I call her Karen, my parents call her Karena, while some people are cool with Karen.. she’s beautiful with a gentle heart like mother.. she has a good heart too, my parents had only two of us… Gina gave YOU to me, she has an angelic soul… she was the rich and important people in the society back then…don’t know about now though, it was a great opportunity to work for such people but to me it was nothing close to blessing …she was always nice and never treated me as a maid..her sister Jane was opposite her…she hated me because of my person… we weren’t in her class, she made that clear to me…after pouring insult on me and my family I slapped he..real hard, because I couldn’t take it anymore, well, to my understanding then..it was forbidden to do such to one of the Syvans, especially the one that got the ear of the mum . I walked out of their home and their lives just with YOU..I just felt you were too precious to be left behind..my mum wanted YOU to be returned back also my Dad but I couldn’t, instead I hide you from everyone… not to be seen.. I thought of you sometime but I was scared to bring you out because I didn’t want to be reminded of the things I lost… well…after the hit up between me and Jane I was expecting the unexpected but they never attacked us after I left with a slap on Janes’s cheek, it will take years for her to forget.. she threatened heaven and earth but I dared her to do her worst, we were later told that Kendrick their only brother with Gina and also the caretaker pleaded to their mum not to hurt us, she’s the action behind the family… she only send one of the securities to threaten us..’ she don’t want to lay her eyes on us or she will unleash terror… we should thank God that she was in a better mood because nobody touches her kids and get away with it…blablabla, well I hurt so much inside after the incident…mum died and dad followed suit after six years of mourning his wife..was left with Karena… we worked hard..i couldn’t finish school but I want to make sure Karena will… I work and I’m also into business…I don’t rest until my body is begging..i dated few guys… I was never in love with them until the last one with Dan..he was nice in the beginning. He was rich..he has other girlfriends.. but it wasn’t as serious as me and him… they were flings for him..well that’s what I believe then…because the money blinded me…and I truly love him…so I care little about other things he does with his life. He spent on me without care..i wasn’t spending the money I was gathering them. Life thought me not to spend stupidly…because it may not rain all the time…and I have something I wanted to do…to generate more money…Because of the business I wanted to set up I gather as much I can, I was wise like that…. Hahaha..is funny but is sad and bitter experience..i ones told him if he can assist me but he said he can’t allow his woman to hustle..he likes me working in an office with air condition no matter the stipend I’m paid… he has money to top it up…he later stopped me from working…I shouldn’t stress myself since I have him… he portray his self like god to me.. well I started saving up… my sister school fees and her upkeep has to be taking care off… yes some time I steal his money without him knowing and he will never notice… I wasn’t the social good girl I was me..and I wasn’t scared of anything…my parents are gone I only got my sister to care for.. Dan was the type that wasn’t ready to settle down, whenever I mentioned it to him he flays up..he started taking substance.. and with that came abuse… after which he will beg, but it continued and even got worst. With constant flirting, the girls he had doubled up…some even sleep over in his house, sometime they hiss and laugh at me when they see me.. I beat up one of them one day that insulted me.. Dan slapped me for doing such in front of the lady, the abuse doubled… I didn’t have a place to go so I stayed and avoided him when his angry.. coming back from club and taking one of those substances that always get him off he pounce on me and hit my head to the wall… because I confronted him, I woke up in the hospital with bruises and a broken head… after recovery I decided to walk out, he pleaded but, NO this time.. he was a rich kid too, an only child to a wealthy couple…. He does as he wishes… I counted myself lucky to be his girlfriend not until he almost killed me… I called my friend who live here, Lily, she said I can stay as long as I want..she was really a nice person.. I told her to allow me to share rent, at first she objected but I gave her my reasons… well she got married and I was left all by myself… I doubled up…set up my business and put somebody there, I found a better work through LILY, karena visits..she will be done this year with her school.. I’m glad. I moved on but I still look back everyday… I hate too much than love… Life is unfair, I suffer silently… journal you are my most precious gift and my worst nightmare, with you comes a lot of sad things…i have not heard of Gina or her Family, who knows what becomes of them… I never bother to find out anyway…because classes her different and I wasn’t in there’s and she wasn’t in mine…I want to stay were I belong. Karena met a guy in school, she said his name is Jack, she said his a good person. He also supports Karena with her bills…sometime Karena will call me and say I shouldn’t bother sending her cash for a whole month because Jack has taken care of that.. she said jack want to marry her, ones she’s done with school they will be getting married, which means I will be having a wedding to plan soon… I want to also get married… but I don’t want to because people around me are doing it… and not with somebody like Dan or his types… I’m also not scared of being single, what society says doesn’t bother me… I know mum and Dad will want me to take a break and allow love to find me but I don’t know how to do that… I don’t know if I can make a better wife or mother…because I can be temperamental.. Sometimes little things get me off..i get angry easily…sometime with God, with death, with the world, with myself… maybe I’m a bad person, probably I’m scared to admit that… I only care about myself and Karena… I don’t easily forgive people I try to get back at them whenever they wrong me… I don’t let go of things easily.. is not like I’m not trying…yes I am..I’m trying but. Probably This is who I am… Journal… I find it comfortable talking to you… I haven’t really told anybody much about myself.. but talking with you makes me comfortable, probably because you aren’t a human… I wonder how I can be comfortable with a book but not with people… I have not written anything important in a journal before…find it wired telling a common book so much… but with you I can write the whole day… you see, I don’t really have friends… my phone hardly ring. Maybe because is mostly on silent or vibration.. I look at it sometimes and see a lot of miss calls…from people within my cycle…sometime I return the call while sometime I don’t Karen has preach..i guess she’s tired already with my person.. Because ones I’m getting too comfortable with a person I retrace my step…i also change my sim..when the crowd is building up…the only friend that have accommodated me and my trouble was LILY, she was kind and gentle and forgiven…she has a beautiful soul.. Unlike me… is been a long time I attended church… I see some of them as hypocrite… the church me and my parents attended when they were alive, never helped us… they left us to fate.. God was silent… despite how much I cried my eyes out… he kept quiet… God allowed so many things to happen to people, he created the rich and then the poor.. why didn’t he make rich and rich, not rich and poor…in that way their won’t be oppression or slave…why? Just everybody being wealthy… he watched my parents die, he watch me get hurt and abuse… that everything inside me hurt… anyway…I’m angry with God.. that’s why I have spoken to him in a long while… and then last night, in my dream.. I begged him to save me.. I will be better… I will serve him, I will improve in myself.. I begged him to help me live…well I thought he almost did, until I found out it was all a dream, a dream that feels so real… a dream I can’t seem to forget… a dream that all started with you, MY JOURNAL, is full of misery… you were burning page by page and I wanted to put you out and the mystery man asked me to stop it and then he said I should let it go, allow you to burn..… why was he kin on burning you to ashes… why did it feel so real even now… but you were never burnt, I don’t know what to make out of the dream.. or me keeping you for twelve years… or anything in my life… sometime I feel so lonely…but I have things that keeps me busy I don’t dwell in my loneliness… I have a lot of soap operas showing, I have pack of fine movies and comedy, so with that I get out of boredom… journal tell me what to do… I’m confuse… will I ever be able to love again… will i ever be a wife to a good man or a mother… I don’t want rich man but a man who is real… a rich guy will pretend to be nice and still be abusing you… he will say.. he has money he can do anything he want and get away with it or he can have as many woman as he chose after all he has money.. just like Dan said and did… his niceness was only when he gives me money or treat me well… but the abuse was more than the care…and I don’t want a poor man either… because I don’t want to suffer. I’m hard working but some men will take that as an advantage to be lazy…I don’t want that…maybe I don’t know what I want…. I chose to stay because it seem I didn’t I have choice or I don’t know how to start all over… or even I was afraid to be alone again… I choose to stay in abusive relationship because Dan has money, he was always cleaning my wound with money…and sweet words.. that’s more of the reason…I was tired of being broke.. I have to take care of my sister…because she’s all I have… I choose to stay for a thousand and one reason.. but I almost got killed… even if I have died… nobody will care…people will only say “she’s one of those girls that follow rich boys..she got herself into this… some girls and desperate… they will never learn”. That’s all people will say because he has money… I will be gone and forgotten… he made me do things I hate to do… but I have to please him for love sake and for the money too.. here I am… I walked out alive, I have never dated again…that I’m still scared of… but I’m alive, very important…because only the living have hope.. journal, if you were a gene, or some sort of magician I would have ask for a favor, which would have being…..

Her phone was vibrating… she wiped her eyes from tears that has already socked her top, she picked it , karena was on the other end, “hello Zavi, I have being calling since, I was almost getting worried, is your phone on vibration again, hello Zavi, are you there?

“Karen, I’m here, sorry, didn’t notice my phone ringing, yes it was on vibration….how are you? Where are you now…. This is 3pm… when will you get here”

I’m fine Zavi, you sound as if you have been crying.. are you okay… what happened to you… oh mine… Zavi..i have being calling since…it should be like 27missed call…or even more, please try and stop putting your phone on silent or vibration most time, cos of emergency. You can never know… I’m always worried whenever I call and I can’t reach you… what happen to you…are you okay? We are still in the afternoon, is not like is already night and you need to silent your phone to sleep … Zavi talk to me…

I already said sorry… and I’m fine. I’m not crying, stop dwelling on one issue…you worry too much. I’m fine.. only had headache. But is easing up now. My phone was on vibration because I needed a nap,… is my phone anyway….i can choose to leave it on or off… people don’t really call me that much though.. except you and few others, Don’t have much people to call either after I changed my sim again..

Ooh Zavi, please don’t say i dwell so much on this issue, I care a lot about you and It worries me… you are the only one I got, I don’t want anything to happen to you, I lost count of times you changed your sim because of what “people? What are you always afraid off.. Sometime after putting your phone on vibration you won’t remember to put it back to normal… sis… please break out of all this…isn’t it time to let go and be happy…I..

Karena… please don’t go there.. don’t preach to me.. I’m fine with my world… so where are you?

Well, I’m sorry I can’t make it today.. Jack is coming to pick me to his family house… we are meeting his parents and sibling… and they have been calling me to come around and I have being promising…I just want to spend some time with them… I really want to come over but I can’t. I’m really sorry… but I will come around…please. Don’t be angry, I will make it up to you… and guess who called me today and asked of you..?

Is fine Karen. I totally understand.. so tell me…who called you?

Thank you sis that’s why you are the best, Gina… Gina called me… do you remember her… in our formal side, where mum and you work as cleaner… the girl that once gave you one beautiful journal, do you remember, you slapped her sister when she insulted you…and..and.. that was the end of them. Haven’t really heard from them since then, she called and ask of you, she wanted your number, I didn’t know how you were going to take it so I told her to call back later let me ask you first…she called back and I told her I have not been able to get across to you….she said she will call again later in the day…and I have being trying to call since… hello Zavi..hope you remem

Yes Karen. I remember Gina, hmmm.. everything.. I remember all… you can give her the number… is fine…

Alright.. Please stop putting your phone on silent, change it to normal ones we end the call… Jack send his greetings too…I will call you before I go to bed, thanks for understanding with me and Jack, be good and takia… I got to go now…

“Sure…take care too…bye

The phone call ended… she clung it to her chest and looked at all the things she has written in the journal, she have covered lot of pages with her writing, she can’t sleep in this house alone… what will she do and where will she go… Gina…haa..why is Gina… everything is happening real fast…the journal, the flashback just yesterday, the night mare that’s still fresh, the journal…then Gina. Why do Gina just remembered her now… what is happening… Zavi stood up and walked to the kitchen.. she drank water with her other hand…she didn’t want to stress the wounded hand… she took fruit from the fridge and ate…the she thinks the she gets crazy… where is she going to go now…she don’t want to sleep in the house all by herself… but it looks like she has to still face her fear tonight.