Does your spouse or lover love you? If yes, how did you know? If no, have you taken the pain to find out or do you intend to find out whether he or she does?
While I am expecting to read from you, permit me to share, with you, how I discovered that my own wife didn’t love me.
While I was discussing with her one day, she jokingly and carelessly said something that struck me. Her exact words that day were: “If no be money you think say I for marry a man like you?” which means that she married me because of my wealth and not for any other reason, including love.
I was shocked by that statement even though we were not having any misunderstanding at that particular time. I was shocked because I was taller than her, more educated than her, richer than her, and my family was nobler than hers, and so on. I was highly upset by that statement but I didn’t show it.
Apart from that scathing statement, I also noticed that she had started being rude to me. For example, whenever I told her to do something for me, she would ask me to tell our maid to do it for me. She was simply not submissive to me any longer. As a result of that, I decided to test her love for me.
The first step I took towards that was to go to the popular Jankara Market in Lagos Island,
specifically to the section where items used by native doctors were sold, and bought a small black earthenware pot, as you can see above. In addition to that, I also bought other things, including feathers of different birds, kola nuts, white or native chalk called nzu in some Nigerian dialects, smoked fish and some quantity of palm oil.
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| The shop at Jankara Market in Lagos Island, where I bought the the pot and other items. |
On my way back home, I stopped over at a tailor’s shop and picked some pieces of red, black and red cloth. When I finally got home, I used all those materials I came back home with to prepare an image that looked real and scary. I’ll show you how the pot looked like after I had finished preparing it, in my next story, tomorrow.
While I was preparing and dressing the pot, one of my friends, whom I invited to my house for that purpose, were busy recording every step I took in making it on my Android phone. My wife was away to work while all that was happening. I had finished everything about the pot before she returned from work later in the evening.
I allowed her to have her bath and to have her supper before telling her what I wanted to tell her about the home-made pot. As soon as she was through with all that she was doing, I invited her to our sitting room and informed her that I had something very important to discuss with her.
I had hardly finished saying that when she asked me rudely: “What is it that you want to discuss with me? Won’t you allow me to rest so that the food I ate could digest very well?
After pleading with her to bear with me as I had something very important to discuss with her, she reluctantly sat down at a corner and waited to listen to what I had to say. Immediately after she took her seat, I excused her and went to my bedroom to fetch the pot.
As soon as she sighted the pot with me, she shuddered and shouted, “Jesus! What is this?”
“Don’t be afraid, darling,” I assured her. “It’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s something that has to do with my life, and probably, with your own life, too. Just listen to what I want to tell you about it.
“I’m sorry I did not tell you anything about it before now,” I continued, “ It’s a pot of protection prepared for me by a native doctor from the next village. With it, nobody born of a man and a woman, can harm or kill me. The only condition is that it must not fall to the ground or break, whether deliberately or by mistake.
“You know I am sometimes very careless in handling and keeping things like this. So, for fear of breaking it mistakenly, I’d be very grateful if you’ll be willing to keep it for me in your bedroom.”
“This thing, in my bedroom?” she retorted. “God forbids!”
“Yes, darling,’ I pleaded. “Please, do it for me, if not for any other thing else, at least for the sake of love and the relationship between us.”
“Which kind of love is that?” she asked rudely.
“Please, darling, do it for me,” I pleaded again. “If you do it for me, I promise to take you out for shopping tomorrow.”
“If I don’t do it for you who else will I do it for?” she said with a wry smile. “But I hope what you told me about this pot is the truth?”
“Haba! Darling, how can I tell lies about things that are as serious as this?” I assured her.
“How do I know if you’re telling me lies or not?” she queried. “Anyway, let me assume that what you’ve just told me is the truth and nothing but the truth.
“Meanwhile, why not give me the money that you plan to spend on me when you take me out for shopping, so that I can use it to buy whatever I like when I get to my office tomorrow?”
Story By John Usiyen
