The morning sun was piercing down with arrowheads. Yeye cut through the overgrown cassava plot. She was a gazelle of a woman. Only unhappiness has rubbed away her grace. It remained a wonder how she went about each day, her heart buried under such burden as hers. Because her matchet was short and blunt, she had to bend real low to work. Also, she needed more energy to cut through. At a point, she cut off a cassava stem pulled it out with so much force she crashed back with it. Staggering on her feet, she went on working and cursing. She heaped the cassava tubers on one side. The stems went the other way. Her little daughter, Ododo busied herself, packing everything to the tiny path running to their farm. She brought down the matchet heavily on the next stem, so hard that the poor stick snapped off in two places. The matchet got through to her shin, giving her a cut. She stopped working, looked at the line of blood on her leg. Blood was dropping from the cut to the wet grass. The sight of her blood drops shattered her mind. Sitting in a heap of leaves in the wet grass, she began to cry. It was not really the pains from the cut that brought out these streams of tears, it was rather the pains, the memories of a drunken husband who took endless delight in bruishing her with his fists, as it was last night. As it was also from the memories of living with a man who knew no shame, a man ho had no sense nor any promise of tomorrow.
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