I HATE THE NIGHT #2

KEMI’S STORY

It’s going to be Funke’s 19^th birthday tomorrow and I have a pretty gift for her; a pink and white large print Amplified bible. I hope she likes it. I would have gotten her a phone or a laptop but she needs the bible more.

Funke is afraid of the dark; at least that’s what she told me.  When she first mentioned it to me it sounded funny but then I could see the fear in her eyes as she spoke and I quickly cut her short with a dramatic soliloquy of Psalm 23. The next time Funke broached me with the subject I didn’t let her finish before I started telling her about the powers of Psalm 91. I haven’t heard about it from her again.

I am not insensitive and I am not wicked. I just don’t want to hear Funke tell me of horrors that I know too well. I don’t want to hear about how daddy kisses her on the forehead and on the nose just before he penetrates; I can still feel his cold lips on my face. I don’t want to hear about how about how daddy squeezes and scratches her butt cheeks right after he ejaculates; the scars on my buttocks bear witness to that. I don’t want to hear how daddy whips her with his belt and almost throttles her to death when she tries to refuse him or fight him; the scar above my right eye that I tell people I got from a go-carting accident is a monument to his cruelty.

Tomorrow is Funke’s 19^th birthday party and she is not the only I have a gift for, I have a gift for Daddy as well. He will learn to hate the night.

I HATE THE NIGHT

I hate the night, it terrifies me. When I told my sister  Kemi about my Nyctophobia she went all Psalm 23 on me, the next time I tried broaching the subject she went from zero to Psalm 91 real fast. Since then I never bothered again.

How do I let Kemi know that I’m not afraid of arrows of evil or pestilence or doom and destruction?  How do I tell her  that her psalm 91s and 23s won’t work against my fears because the Bible also said that I should honour my nightly torment  so that my days may be long?

 How do I explain that it’s not the darkness that scares me but what daddy does to me in the darkness?

How do I find the words?

The first time Daddy came to me was the night of my fifteenth birthday; he told me he had come to say goodnight to his beautiful princess-he always knew how to make me feel special- he told me that I was all he had ever prayed to God for and that ever since mommy died I and my sister Kemi where all he needed in this world and he kissed me on the mouth…. Twice.

The next time daddy came to my room he told me he loved me and that it would make him so proud to have me as a daughter if I would let him show me how. I did.

As Daddy was beaming with pride at my blood stained sheets I stared at my feet in shame and pain, he told me to keep this as our little secret. I did.

It’s four years today since my fifteenth birthday. Daddy says he has a surprise for me ……

I hate the night, he terrifies me.