Sometimes, the dog barks reach the edge of the door, then fades away. I stand, my hand almost touching the door knob before I back away. I wonder when someone will realise that I am inside the apartment. I wonder what that will lead to.
I have been inside this room since I returned from the village. It is not like me to remain indoors for so long but how do I leave this space, go out and interact with people when I am yet to come to terms with what I have heard.
"She is not your daughter, Amos,"
My mother's voice rings in my head. I wonder how my father's face rearranged itself to accommodate pain when he heard. The silence after that loud statement followed me back to my room. I found it on top the clothes in my suitcase as I hastily packed my bags. It sat by the window in the bus that took me away and I found it in this apartment, waiting like an eager lover.
My neighbours have knocked my door several times, trying to get me to come out. I have played the role of a ghost haunting my absent self. The man that I held dear all my life is not my father? I can't face the world now. I was to be married. How do I tell the man that I don't know who my father is? What does it even mean?
I didn't even wait for my mother's sharp explanations. I didn't even ask her to explain. I just left. It was as if I have been waiting for the pin to drop. Everytime something good is about to happen for me, these things happen. I don't know which god finds it funny to complicate my life.
I am hungry. I can't send anyone to get me food. The city was locked down just as I entered my rooms. I will have to order in. No wonder when I told my father that my genotype was AS, he looked stunned. My mother is AA and he is AA. My file from my birth lists my genotype as AA. Unless, the doctor was in on it. But he is a family friend, along time friend of my father. Or is this about marital infidelity? Did my mother have an affair?
Questions fill my brains like the buzz of bees. I open my laptop and begin again, the story I have been trying to tell. My phone rings for the millionth time. I have not connected with anyone since my return. I feel like a ghost in an empty city. I'm no longer comfortable in my body. I'm not sure of who I am?
Who am I? I ask the picture on the wall. The picture is of myself and my dad at Bonny island, when he still worked in the oil and gas sector. Those were good days. I was so sure I was going to be an engineer back then. I look at the laptop screen. It glows in the half light like some long lost magic.
How do I begin to tell this story. I think to start from the beginning. In the beginning, there was a planet in a boy's hand. He kicked the ball across the cosmos and the wind of space rippled and opened a gate into this rich man's house. The rich man's son wanted the world for himself but the boy refused. It was his. His father had made it for him.
The rich man bribed the little boy with chocolate and stole the earth while the boy wasn't looking. Now the ball is in a glass cage in the rich man's sitting room, doing nothing. Doing nothing. I should do something. I should find out the truth about my life. Where do I start?
The dog is still barking and I'm tired of staring at the screen. No words come to mind. A gecko crawls the wall near me. I'm sure it has a better grasp of its begetting than I. I get up and scratch the soles of my feet on the floor. I find myself near the window. I look out. The sky is full. I ask, who am I?