The Discovery

Busy cleaning the dishes, eyes downcast and focusing on the foam that formed as she diped yet another dirty plate into it, Tamara was in her own world. A world of endless and controversial questions about what people said about her. She had started loosing her childhood friends due to it .It pained her most to recall the nasty sentiments once pronounced by an old man fit to be called a busybody. The man had incessantly spread the rumours that Tamara was possessed by evil spirits and was good to be explained as cursed or bewitched. Sure as it always is, many undiscerning villagers believed his words and only a few loyal friends and her father formed the less portion of those who dismissed what the old man rumoured.

Tamara had on many occasions asked her father what really terminated the life of her mother and he only gave the same emphatic answer. She recalled with apprehension how her father finalized his answer obviously indicating that never should she ask such a disturbing question again.

" Dad, I still want to ask you the same thing again and it's because I feel awkward to live a motherless life. What really killed her?" Tamara had asked him that day.

" Tammy! Do you ever perceive that a father could lie to his own daughter? Just as I told you and I repeat it again, your mother died from drawning ." Father had elaborated to his curious daughter.

Contrary to other times , this round Tamara had went further to inquire from his father how the incident happened. She wanted the meat and the born too even if it was too hard for her to chew. Her father only sighed and played a grimmace on his face before he started narrating the incident to the ever inquisitive daughter.

"I will be forced to give you what you want." He started and continued, " As you know that our village depends heaviy on agriculture. Any climate inconsistence means something to our crops and overall food security of the community. The time when your mother drawned in river Hoji was when a smile was being witnessed on every anticipating farmer. The rainy season had set in with so much vigour as if to overcompensate the preceding dry spell. As you have know since time, this river has never flooded to disastrous levels but at that particular time, the rain went on for almost two days and the unexpected happened. Hoji started to threaten breaking it's banks but fortunately, it never." He stopped and tried to blow his nose sadly. His face was rapidly changing into revealing masculine attempts to hide certain emotions. He blinked rapidly to force back a drop or two. Tamara realized this but kept quiet to wait for his next move. Whether he intended to complete the story it would be satisfying to her. Whether he would decided to halt in fear of emoting like a weak man, the better. Either way was okay to her.

" I was out for my daily errands when I was puzzled by what a kid of almost seven was saying to a group of women just behind that hat over there." he pointed at a decrepit hat some few metres away that belonged to one of their ever gloomy and cold neighbors.

" What was the kid saying?" poked Tamara curiously.

" That he had seen a stocky woman who was running down River Hoji at a terrible speed contrary to her voluptuous stature. I almost loughed hysterically as the words passed my ear sending me into imagining the incident. The kid himself was already in uncontrollable stitches. Half of the women believed her while most seemed to ignore and get amused by the prowess of the kid to roll out his storytelling abilities.

I continued my journey home very tired and expecting to take a rest as my wife comforted me. I did not find her and only found you still sleeping soundless in cosy children clothing and rich milk frothing from the corners of your mouth. I told myself that maybe mother had gone to relive herself or was out with her friends in the neighborhood to express the joy of nursing a first born . Nothing really sounded awkward or dangerous to me until an hour passed, two and finally dusk was approaching. My feet wobbled as I walked around the village looking for your mother. By that time, you had woken up and was letting out a deafening yell both from hunger and from the somewhat instinctive awareness that mother was not around. No sign of her was evident. " He paused for a moment in order to check his sadness. He still felt the incident to be real and alive until today. It was a great loss for him as his tone clearly suggested.

" You see this friend of yours Doo..." He struggled to remember her name.

" Dorothy." Completed Tamara impatiently.

"Yes Dorothy. It was her mother that came and took you that night. She readily empathized with you and fell in love with you to the extent that she agreed to nurse you alongside Dorothy. Both of you were almost turning six or seven months old. Meanwhile from that night that I lost your mother, I never slept. Her image was still clear and fresh in my mind. I could not fathom her absence in our lives leave alone her death. On the third day since her disappearance, she was found on the banks of Hoji very soaked that her belly swelled slightly. Her death did not find me well that time . I could not believe she was dead. " He stopped briefly as if he was honouring the death of his wife.

" It was after she had been buried that I now could remember vividly what the kid said that day your mother went missing. I learned that it was her that the kid was narrating about. That was how she died."

"Was she having some stress or something troubling . Was it suicide?" Tamara had inquired.

" No ! No! Your mother had a disease of running and falling." He replied uneasily.

" Running and falling?" She wondered.

" See Tammy! You may not understand what I mean . It exist." He supplied with a tone of finality.

That was where Tamara's resent stress had emanated . She still remembered what her father told her. The disease of running and falling . She still could not understand whether her father was trying to hide something sinister or really meant what he said. She finished washing the dishes but her mind was still clouded. She was trying to add two and three. Her neighbors and relatives talked about a mysterious disease that her mother had . At one time, her friend Dorothy had mentioned it in a rather coverted manner that she wondered what really it was. As if she was summoning her, She heard a feminine soft and clear voice from the back of the hut. She recognized it at once. It was Dorothy her friend.

" Today you came so early . Are you taking me somewhere?" Tamara joked after she had greeted her.

" Is it wrong to see my friend early enough so that I can have more time with her?" Dorothy peeked and continued impatiently

" Ooh you haven't seen this." She turned around to show Tamara her new skirt that had been bought to her from the city. Having a grace to wear nicely especially in such a remote rural setting was word for the community. Everyone would have to know that so and so had afforded a new raiment. It was a community that had channels of spreading every bit of news so fast even in the absence of meaningful technology like media . Gossips were the most widely used avenues not only amongst women but also real grown up bunch of men. Dorothy was not an exception. She wanted the village to acknowledge that she too can afford it.

" So you came to show me your new skirt?" mocked Tamara in slight giggles.

" You're putting it rather straightforward Tammy!

You can't even tell me how I look?"

" You look great! " Tamara commented tersely.

" You remember my aunt who's house is in the other side of our village?"

" Which aunt?"

" The one I told you lived in Nairobi?"

"Eh! I remember."

" Yes she has just arrived and bought me this new skirt. By the way are you going with me to check something from her? She said I should..."

"No! I'm not." Tamara interrupted impatiently.

" Why ? " Dorothy probed as she frowned slightly in disappointment.

" Just that I don't want to be moving around the village aimlessly. It's better I stay here and think about my things."

" Think about your things? Tammy! You've started changing recently what is wrong?"

"My mother!" Tamara answered vaguely. Dorothy was taken aback momentarily and focused her eyes on Tamara's face . She was trying to gauge if Tamara was fit to be called a mad or something had gone wrong with her. Her heart grew cold and she sympathised with her . As if to remind her, she muttered in a low tone. " She is dead Tamara!"

" I know that Dorothy! Her death is now my problem!"

" Your problem? Please Tammy! Don't think of that for heaven's sake. It is passed okay?" She leaned closer to her and embraced her with an attempt to calm her from thinking about it.

" Dorothy ! " Tamara called as she pulled from the hug. " My mother did not die from drawning. She died from a disease!"

" Something is wrong with you Tamara! Why are you creating hallucinations ?"

" I know what I mean! It's the disease of running and falling." She explained succinctly with confidence in her words. Dorothy was dumbfounded.