BROKEN NEST Ep 1
It was raining heavily that cold night when my mother left us. Even when she heard our cries and pleas to come back, my mother didn't look back.
It happened that evening, before the rain began, that mother made dinner for everyone and we silently waited for my father to return.
My father was a soldier, and his presence alone scares us, because he neither laughs nor speaks calmly with us. He's always shouting, ordering us, or beating us like criminals.
There was no peace in my family; the only good thing my mother does is to cook food for us. I was the one that washed clothes, cleaned the house, washed plates, and ran other errands.
We were neglected. I was just twelve and the oldest of two other boys, but my parents neglected us and paid little to no attention to us.
Everyone was always raising their voices at each other; my little brothers always fought like cat and rat, and I knew they were learning it from my parents.
Due to my poor academic performance, my mother hired a private lesson teacher for me—he was just a secondary school graduate with no experience at all, but my mother hired him because his service was cheaper.
I didn't blame her; she was the one taking care of the family while my father spent all his money on drinking and gambling.
While my siblings went to school, I was at home with my lesson teacher, learning.
Each time my mother threatened to report my father to the barracks where he worked for gambling, drinking, and neglecting his family, my mother would get the most dangerous beating of her life.
We were trained to live in fear of our father. Once he returns, everyone is busy doing nothing, bowing our heads, keeping quiet. No TV when he is around, no playing, no talking. He was a dictator.
At a point, I concluded he wasn't our father because there was no love coming from him to us.
My lesson teacher used me at twelve. He was the first man that defiled me, but each time I tried to tell my mum, she wouldn't give me the chance to talk.
She would tell me to go for lesson so that my scores could be improved. She would threaten me that if I perform badly again, I would never return to school again, and I will start hawking.
Then, my lesson teacher would also threaten to kil*l me if he ever finds out I told anyone.
Twelve-year-old me was scared because I had no one to tell—my father was unreachable, my mother didn't want to hear it.
My lesson teacher continued destroying me, until my father walked in on him one hot afternoon while my mother was away.
My father beat the hell out of him; he beat him until he was near the point of de*ath, bleeding and coughing out blood, then my father pushed him out.
I thought it would end there, however, my father pulled out his belt and started to flog me too. He was angry I accepted to be used; he said I was just like my mother who loved to cheat and I would grow up to be a bad mother.
That afternoon, his belt hurt one of my eyes until it was swollen. Then, he left.
I cried all through that afternoon, because I knew I tried to say something but no one wanted to listen.
When my mother returned that evening, she didn't notice my swollen eye either; she was too busy with cooking and, as usual, paid no attention to me.
No matter how hard I tried to make her look at me, she didn't.
I was pained, I couldn't talk. Who do I report? My father or my lesson teacher?
When my father and brothers returned that evening and we all settled to eat—my brothers and I at a corner, my father on the table while my mother served him—it thundered ahead and it started to rain heavily, I thought the world was about to end.
After my mother was done serving my father, he turned to her and said: "Who did you bring into my house to teach Nana?" I could smell his anger and my heart was beating wildly, knowing what was about to happen next.
And as my mother tried to reply, my father pounced on her and started to beat her again.
My brothers broke into tears, but this has become a norm in our house, so I wasn't new to it. I wasn't crying, instead I was blaming myself that this particular one was my fault.
I thought my father was going to ki*ll my mother when he was choking her, but he stopped halfway and pushed her away, then returned to his food, staggering.
While I went to help my mother, I could perceive the odour coming from my father—he was drunk again.
My mother managed to stand up, then asked me to stay. She went into the room and picked her bags, and then she told us she was leaving.
I was shocked, I was scared—what are we going to do if my mother leaves?
I begged her to stay, but she didn't look back. My father didn't even try to stop her; instead, he was busy eating his food.
I concluded that night that my parents never cared. My soldier father and my private nurse mother did not care even though the both of them were educated.
My father lived a bad life and it affected my mother, but my mother left without us, her children, even when she knew we were scared and would get hurt. She never looked back as she walked into the heavy rain.
That night, I was forced to become a wife,
a mother, and a guardian to my siblings.
To be continued.
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