FICTION|| Chisom Miriam Iheadiri: If I Were God
Penned in Rage Journal, Amplifying Marginalized Voices |
God, if this is how your followers are, then I do not want to be a Christian anymore.
The worst thing God ever made was human beings, rotten from the marrow out. Once, even He had regretted making us and wiped the slate clean with a flood.
I do not know why He keeps making more of us, why even now, there is one growing inside me, another soul He has decided to send into this broken place. Another one he would regret later, another of His mistakes.
The worst of all the humans He created, the most concentrated dose of that evil, lives inside Nne Amara.
I spread the small cloth I have and lie down in this empty stall in Lagos, a city that does not know my name. The floor is bare beneath me. My skin is pressed against the bare floor, and every inch of my body feels the cold. My thoughts trail off as my body slowly becomes numb.
Lagos air has always smelled the same way, like there’s salt in the air, mixed with exhaust, yet street food and suya linger. My body has slowly gotten used to the ground, like I belong to it.
I wish God was the same way He was in the Bible, in the days of the Old Testament. He did not play. He opened the earth and swallowed people whole. That is the God that makes sense to me. Not this New Testament God who asks me to turn the other cheek while Nne Amara uses both sides of my face for sport.
I was four when I lost my parents, the most gruesome thing I have witnessed. Every time I close my eyes, I still see it. I can picture their faces after the car crash. The accident was bad that everyone called me a miracle baby. To have survived it, I had to have been destined for greatness.
Nne Amara heard this and decided she wanted a piece of it.
She was childless then, she and her husband, a man respected far and wide, viewed as righteous and kind and wonderful. But you would have to live under their roof to know how cruel he truly was. He had several businesses, with many men working under him, and made sure that every worker who passed through his hands left with less than they deserved. He paid them barely enough, kept them indebted, and made sure they were never settled enough to start out on their own.
For the first four years, they were good to me. I called her Mummy, called him Daddy, and believed that I had been saved. That God had finally done something right by me.
Then Kelvin was born.
Their miracle. Their flesh and blood. I watched Nne Amara hold him for the first time. She looked at him like her whole world revolved around him, leaving no room for me.
I was no longer God's miracle child. I was ‘the help.’
For the next years that went by, I joined the other workers: fetching water before the sun came up, washing Kelvin's clothes by hand, sleeping in the kitchen, and most times in the boys' quarters. I stopped calling her Mummy because the word no longer felt right in my mouth.
Her cruelty was only witnessed by the workers in the house. To everyone outside, she was righteous.
And she used that against me, telling whoever cared to listen, the neighbours, the women in her church, the relatives who visited during holidays, that I was difficult, rebellious and ungrateful.
Soon I was seen as all those things. I had nowhere to turn, nowhere to run to.
Heaven knows I did try. Several times.
And then he came.
Ignatius came with promises. He said he could give me a home, peace, something better than what I had.
I mistook his patience for kindness, his attention for love, and his love for a chance to finally be free.
When I found out I was pregnant, I did not feel blessed. When I told him, he went quiet. Then he disappeared.
I have never met any of God's own who is a good person, a truly good person.
I left the island for the mainland, safer in a kidnapper's den than under her roof. I took construction work. The men pitied me. Not God.
I was sleeping in an empty market stall when I heard a roar building into something like an animal. I pushed myself upright and walked toward the noise.
They had caught a thief. Burn him. Burn him. Someone produced a tyre.
Then the crowd moved, and I saw his face. Kelvin.
I remembered the day he was born. Nne Amara had held him so tightly, looking at him like nothing else mattered. He was her son, her joy, her whole world. He recognised me. Why wouldn't he? I felt pity. Then memory swallowed it. The darkness felt familiar.
God must love this.
I turned around before he could see my face. Not my business, not my family, not my grief.
Behind me, the crowd's roar changed, the sound of one that has gotten what it wanted.
I thought about what was growing inside me. I could teach it differently. I know exactly what not to do.
I was still thinking that when I heard a voice.
"Why is a pregnant girl lying alone in an empty stall?"
I opened my eyes. A woman was standing over me, looking at me with much concern.
“How long have you been sleeping here?” she asked.
I considered lying. I did not have the energy for it. She clicked her tongue once.
“Come.”
I was hesitant at first, but at this point, I would take my chances even with the devil.
She welcomed me into her home. She gave me food to eat, showed me a room and brought out some clothes for me to try on. Her children looked at me strangely, but the air here smelled different. It smelled almost divine.
So I stayed.
I had gone to take a shower when I felt a sharp pain in my belly. I looked down and saw blood. The water ran over my legs, washing it down with it.
The pain became unbearable, and I screamed.
The woman came rushing in. Her daughter came too. I barely had time to put something on. The woman had the saddest eyes, but she drew me close and held me with a towel around me.
God had taken again from me.
He knew.
God looked at what I was carrying and He knew. He knew what I had promised myself. He knew I wanted to make one good thing in this world.
Job did say God gives and He takes.
He took my birth parents. And now He had taken my child.
The pain came again.
I closed my eyes, and for the first time in a long time, I was not angry. The room was warm. The hand holding mine was warm.
Maybe, this was a good thing to finally experience true kindness.
If I were God, I would have done it sooner.
About The Writer
Chisom Miriam Iheadiri is a Nigerian writer and poet whose work spans fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and personal essays. Her writing has appeared in Brittle Paper, Kalahari Review, and The Table Read Magazine UK. She writes about identity, faith, womanhood, family, and the complexities of growing up in Nigeria.
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This Piece Was Selected by Janine Milne
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Beautiful piece