Written by Ekyhills Adindu
The girl in the mirror is a constant reminder.
The face, the eyes, the nose and the mouth.
Your beauty is the pain you live with, for it has followed you everywhere.
As a child, you were immune.
Everyone liked you and gave you gifts
You would hear them tell your mother “Nwa gi amaka”.
You would come home from school and shout in excitement “Mummy my teacher calls me Ocha ka omaka”
She would laugh and say “Omalicham”
You liked it, it made you feel special.
You grew up and the name stuck but the meaning changed.
It was in the way the women in your old office looked at you,
With an expression that seemed like admiration but laced with jealousy.
The men did not mind your beauty so long as they got something from it.
A pinch to the waist, a hug from behind, a tap to the buttocks and sometimes,an unwanted peck to your cheek from a smelly mouth.
And then you moved to a new office where no one noticed your beauty.
In fact, they admired you for the great job you do.
No women to make you regret it or men to remind you of it.
But one day, your boss’s wife comes to visit,
You greet her in the most cordial manner and she looks at you from head to toe as though to say “this fine evil”.
Just then, you knew it has come back.
You sit at your desk and wish it hasn’t, that it’s an imagination.
Then you hear her loud voice from your boss’s office saying
“ She’s too fine to be your secretary, fire her!
And that’s when you knew it’s never going away, for your beauty is your curse and it’s a castigo divino.
Ekyhills Adindu is a lawyer who specializes in mediation. She is passionate about humanitarian works and law. She lives in the UK with her husband and son
