*Mother of Life* *Part 1* *_By Timmy Turner_* As I paced down the street, tears gushing from my eyes, weeping and wailing as my father's belt lay on my wet back filled with sweat after running around the yard and eventually finding my way to the gate thoughts ran through my mind. You know thoughts such as what is happening, when will this end? These lashes that continue to viciously land on my back which by the way feels like I'v been sliced by a machete and my skin is wide open with the belt landing on fresh wounds. Thoughts such as how did I get here, I mean just yesterday my father was my best friend and I was his best friend too, just yesterday my father walked tall because of me his daughter, his pride and joy, he bragged about me his first graduate daughter who made it to college and had collected distinctions thus far and now in the blink of an eye here we are, best friends turned into an episode of Tom and Jerry, well in this case a gruesome, violent episode filled with rage, disappointment and hurt. Lost in my thoughts while in my pursuit of escape from my predicament I finally find myself on the tared road after tripping on a brick that lay abandoned on the street. The look in my father's eyes, that was another story. I had never seen anything like that before in my entire life ever since I opened my eyes. My father was one of the most gentle men i knew and he wanted not a single soul to inflict harm on any of his daughters and most especially his most brightest daughter in school. This man that stood over me repeatedly lashing me even on my face with his crocodile skin belt, I did not recognize but what can i say, disappointment does change people doesn't it? You ever found salvation in the most odd thing or place? I did. That brick that lay abandoned on the street and tripped me resulting in me falling and my angry father finally catching up, yes that brick turned out to be my salvation. As my father continued to 'discipline' me, I had eventually given up any hope of him being satisfied and I just lay there waiting for whatever may when I heard voices fast approach. When these voices seemed to come closer and finally close enough that's when the lashes decreased and eventually ended followed by me opening my heavily teary eyes which were as red as crimson. The sight that followed was that of our neighbors holding my father back and him struggling to let go and break free and as I hoped and prayed at that moment the neighbors managed to hold him back. As I looked at my father walk back home in the middle of the two well bodied men who were part of my rescue team and as I saw the look on my mother's face as we walked through the gate at home, that's when it dawned on me that yeah, I have messed up, really messed up. After the neighbors left, the situation had calmed, my father had calmed down, my mother well she was a good pretender just like any typical woman you know how women always say they okay, everything is okay when it is completely the opposite? This time she even failed to do that. She sat there on the floor next to my father after what seemed to be a discussion between the two with her head bowed down and you could tell that she was in pain and anguish and that there were tears streaming from her eyes as she looked down. My father on the other hand looked too calm for my liking and I knew by that that my verdict had been decided. The moment I sat down on the floor facing the couple the first words that came, came from my father which were followed by the weeping of my mother. She mumbled, " Njomane" please don't do that to the girl, where is she going to go? She is just a girl please think about this". The response that came from my father was just a simple, "you heard me Nompilo, pack whatever is yours and get out of my house, I will spit on the floor and by the time this saliva runs dry I want you to be out that gate. Are we clear?" Now one thing about my father is; you never get into a dispute with him. What he says goes no matter how calm he might look, never and I mean never say a word back to that man unless you're looking forward to having the nearest object to him land on your face. My mother wailed and wailed as one who had been hired as a mourner at a funeral or rather as one who had lost a loved one and left in anguish and pain and that noise continuously pierced through my heart as I walked out the dinning room to my small bedroom to get whatever I could get and leave immediately before my father's saliva dried out. That I had to do for my own safety but where was I going to go? The moment i walked out the gate, tears still full on my red eyes I felt so cold, a different kind of cold I had never felt before and only then did it make sense when they said it's a cold world out there. As for me, not only was it a cold world but I was all alone in that cold world with nothing but my bag with the few clothes I managed to gather and the growing foetus in my womb, the reason behind the transition from a little heaven to a wrestling ring that our home just went through. Speaking of which this foetus fortunately belongs to someone, let me call him or not. I think I'll just show up at his house, there's no telling what a man can do if he's told that not only is his girlfriend pregnant but she is homeless as well. So Riverside it is. I'll just have to beg for a place to crash overnight from Slindile then early morning I'll catch the first bus to gweru and give my dear boyfriend the suprise of a lifetime... *Let's react if we get 500 reactions we drop part two*