She landed on the ground with a thud. The ground mourned the extra weight as sticks and grit tore into her bare flesh. Her attackers had been decent enough to leave her with an underwear, after they had taken away her clothes. A shameless woman should not be accorded the decency of covering her nakedness.
Maria Gorety looked up. She squinted her eyes to draw away the mixture of sweat and blood that rushed down her cheeks to mix with the stale water that was her spit. Her throat was burning. Water, please, I need some water. She kept saying again and again in her mind, her throat too dry to send the message forth to her lips. If she didn't die today, then definitely she was not dying soon. This seemed like the end...
The crowd kept swelling. Men and women gathered around to see the scumbag who was writhing in pain on the floor. The elders spat at her. Their faces spelt death in capital letters. Even before they started speaking, she knew her judgement already. Guilty as charged. Her sentence? Death by stoning. It was just a matter of time...
Amidst the crowd he stood. Lonely in the sea of humanity. A silent singleton in a pool of shouting mammoth. Something had sealed his mouth shut. He was the only one not carrying a stone, ready to pounce on the bleeding woman who was about to be sentenced. It didn't matter anyway, because once she was found guilty, he would have to cast the first stone. Someone would give him a piece, which he would have to accept. And when the time comes, he, Stanslaus Nyang'oma would be ready. Because she deserved to die.
Theirs had been meant to be a blissful marriage. She had met Stanslaus during the days of her youth, a robust young man working in the sisal farms of Taveta. She had come to live with her aunt who was a teacher, and to pursue a course in tailoring. Every evening as she walked home from the training college, Stanslaus would be waiting for her to 'gaze at her beauty' as he called it. Her long legs joined perfectly into her curved hips, and the two moved up to fit a perfect straight back. She had a forever neck that held a beautiful, round face completed with dimples in both cheeks. Her nipples were pointed like the tower of Babel. Stanslaus was sure he would die if he could not win this girl's heart.
Little did he know that he didn't have to try so hard. She was secretly dying for him too. She admired his strong physique that screamed of masculine strength. When he laughed, muscles would appear on his face and neck. He had already swept her off her feet even without trying.
They started dating. It was the platonic kind of date where stories were told and no more actions taken. She loved it that way, and Stanslaus agreed. After she was done with her tailoring course, they relocated back to Sidindi, a groom and his lovely bride. For the long haul.
Theirs was a beautiful honeymoon spent in the beautiful countryside of Alego Sidindi. Their mornings would begin lazily. The beautiful weaver birds would wake them up in their melodious voices, which she would listen to for some time before waking up from her metallic bed. She would light a stove in the corner of the house, known as simba, where they lived. It was a two-roomed house. One served as the bedroom-cum-kitchen, while the other was the sitting room. Stanslaus had been kind enough to buy her a stove, so that she would not have to walk across the compound to mother-in-law's house to get her breakfast.
After the morning tea, she would willingly accompany her mother in law to the farm, where she did no more than gathering weeds off the farm. A new bride, miaha, was not meant to tire her back digging and weeding. At ten, she would go back to her house to rest as she waited for lunch. Afternoons were spent with her husband in Sidindi market, either watching a movie or laughing away the day with friends.
Marriage was rosy and blissful. Until it was not
She begged for mercy with her eyes. The mess that was her hair tangled all over her face, making it hard for anyone to see what her eyes was communicating. The chains ate deeper into her flesh, and she could hear her own heart beating in her ears.
The crowd kept swelling as if the whole of Alego Usonga had been invited into this rather unorthodox gathering. The first elder stood up.
"You are the biggest disgrace this community has seen since jorochere left us alone!"
Jeers from the crowd
"You don't belong here. You don't belong anywhere!"
More jeers
"She should be stoned!"
"She should be hanged!"
"Kill her!"
The voices got louder, and louder, until she could hear them no more. She passed out.
Stanslaus was seething with ire. It was bad enough that his wife had wronged him beyond redemption. It was that the whole village knew about it. He would live the rest of his life being the center of endless ridicule. He was a walking target. Everyone would find an opportunity to throw a word or ten at him, young and old alike. And he would have to curl his tail like a well trained dog and not talk back. Talk back? What would he ever have to say? Respect, as he knew it, was over for him in this society. It was done. Fin. And all because of Maria Gorety. All because of this woman he had brought home all the way from Taita Taveta. The woman who was meant to build him a home had come and built him a disaster instead. She deserved to die.
Somewhere in her brain, a child was crying. Calling out her name. Waking her up. It had to be Mandela's voice. He probably needed some food. She wanted to wake up and pour some uji for him. But somehow, her head was too heavy because she could not lift it off the ground. Then something heavy hit her. A stone. Another stone. And another. The voices of the people had turned into one big roar as stone after stone hit her mercilessly.
She was sure that the first stone had been thrown by her own husband, the man who had swept her off her feet a decade ago. A man who was too bitter to show her any mercy today. Had he refused to cast the first stone, everyone would have gone home, her life would have been spared. But he wasn't keen on sparing her life for anything. Not even for the kids. The kids...their kids. She knew their lives would be one hot mess after her soul meets her maker. She hoped that someone would show them mercy in this otherwise merciless world. She held onto their image. It was the last thing she wanted to take home with her. If there was any home yonder...
"Kwani what did she do?" A passerby stopped to ask.
She asked herself the same question. What did she do? How did she arrive here? Where did the rain start beating her? All she did was cover her husband's nakedness. All she did was ensuring the continuity of a home that was on the brink of sinking. All she did was love her man in a special way that was hard for normal people to understand.
"She gave birth to six children", a bystander answered.
"And how exactly is that a problem?"
"None of them belonged to her husband. DNA showed that not even two of them had the same father".
She breathed her last.
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