The Luminescence -The Unbroken Moon

CHAPTER 1

She sat there melancholic-her hands to her chins. She felled into a deep sea of thoughts. Emeka was the only name that mattered in the whole wide world to her, the symbol of her intimate feelings and a reflection of her love. There is no man who had won over her heart the way he had done. She had never believed she would have ever had come to trust any man in her life, least love him. It would have been like passing through a needle's eye for her to dream of a man whom she would so much worship like an idol least pine for him after that terrible incident in her life.

It would have been consoling to accept the blame if she had taken a premeditated action in the past. However, for having been raped, she wouldn't have been in this present dilemma, going through the emotional pains of insecurity over her relationship with her fiancé, Emeka.

She was perplexed-she had come to a point of near emotional breakdown. What will become of the relationship if he learns that she was once a virgin? How terribly disappointed he would feel, possibly ending their beautiful relationship thereabout. If only she could find the courage to open up to him. If only she could come off the emotional agony that had hunted her. She has had to endure these for too long a time; after that painful intrusion into her life-the feelings of worthlessness that had trailed her ever.

The appalling nature of the incident had really shattered her young and innocent life. It equally had exposed her so early to the cruelty in nature of the society. The attendant events that had followed also revealed to her, the totality of the society's insensibility towards victims of rape-the victims' emotional traumas notwithstanding.

*

She had gone to one of her classmates' apartments within their neighborhood to retrieve her textbook. Her classmate was reportedly ill. She had to lend her the said textbook. The sick friend had been unable to be in school due to her ill health. She hadn't returned the book as was promised. She decided to pay her a visit.

On that fateful day, she met her friends' elder brother in her absence. He however persuaded her to wait for a little on her friend whom he assured her would be back in a jiffy: her friend was sent on an errand to a nearby minimarket to purchase some items for him.

However unknown to her, it was décor to grab a moment alone with her. The young man had planned to carry out an assault on her. He merely sent her sister out to give him an opportunity to be alone with her.

Seconds soon dragged into uncomfortable minutes. She found herself sitting alone with him in the rather large sitting room with her would-be assailant.

She was rather alarmed when he moved from his seat opposite her, to her own and began touching her in an improper playful manner. Uncomfortable and taken unawares with his inappropriate behavior, she had quickly stood up to leave the house. She ran towards the door of the sitting room. He ran after her. He grabbed and groped her. Suddenly he stopped but still holding her arms. He quickly carried her feet off the tiled floor, threw her onto one of the large sofas, and started once more, now more persistent, groping at her.

All her efforts to get free were quite futile as her feeble attempts were no match to his masculine strength; being a boy of 20; 8 years older than her. When she felt she couldn't be able to put him off, she had promptly resorted to screaming for help at the very top of her voice. However, her voice soon was drowned by the throw pillows. He used it to muffle her voice by pressing it hard on her face. He didn't mind he was suffocating her and she could die. She became scared and breathless. She kicked for the last time with every left strength in her. Almost immediately, her wriggling body was overpowered and she soon fainted out of shock.

When she came to, and it was all over, he rudely shoved her out of the house under threats; to deal with her should she open her mouth too wide concerning his assault on her. She however had told her parents when they had queried and discovered her pathetic emotional imbalance.

The culprit was later arrested and sued in court for violating a minor. Her parents took her to their family doctor for an immediate medical check-up to determine the degree of damage to her psychological, mental, and emotional state of being.

*

It was true that her assailant was later convicted and successfully jailed. However, it was for a mere six months with hard labor. Her family though disappointed, took it as a feat. Credit to her fathers' doggedness and unshaken belief that justice should take its course. Credit too to his financial capacity to waddle through the rigors of the judicial nightmare.

She had been quite fortunate to have a convicting verdict on her assailants, something most victims wouldn't have found possible.

The outcome of the court proceedings, to her families' greatest shock, raised a cloud of unexpected unpopular dust on her as a victim. Members of the society especially, from the family of the jailed boy. They insinuated and criticized her parents for taking the matter that far when they had earlier pleaded for forgiveness on behalf of the accused, with the remorseful boy present most of the time.

Out of bitterness, they however resorted to cheap blackmail. They held out this notion that she, a twelve-year-old girl then had intentionally seduced their innocent adult son into such an indecent act. According to their thoughts, the incident that happened was made possible by her way of unaccompanied visits to their house in the guise of visiting her friend─such wicked and malicious blackmail!

Some mischievous persons who in their neighborhood, were known to be sympathetic to the family of the jailed boy soon accepted the latter's shameless line of reason. They were of the view that she had gotten what she deserved by been raped.

They saw no reason why she should rubbish the good image of the jailed boy. To them, it was quite unfair and an act of wickedness for her parents to have demanded justice and reported the matter to the police and the subsequent court actions. To them, her parents' action was not the norm of society.

She soon became an object of ridicule and yet another victim for crying out for justice! At her school, some of her acquaintances for confiding to her parents persistently scorned her. Some were of the view that she would have kept rather mute about it as proof of her maturity, vis-à-vis such is part of her growing up! She was not considered for any sympathy, though by few, as a victim but rather as an immature girl.

What had the world come to? She thought aloud to herself scratching her head for the third time. What a shameful state of disorientation of mind people had degenerated to?

As a result, her parents had to move out of the neighborhood to save her from further emotional and psychological derailments due to the heavy toll of the emotional upheavals which she has been made to undergo.

Likewise too, she was withdrawn from her previous school and readmitted into the nearest in their new neighborhood.

Now years after, that event is once again threatening her relationship with her heartthrob, Emeka. What could she do to avert it?

"How I wish I could gather the courage to open up my whole life to him,"

She was in that total confused state of mind when the voice of two of her friends jolted her out to life,

" C- l-a-r-a Argha-argha, what's wrong with you? So pensive looking" worried Chidinma.

"What's eating my baby? What the hell eating chunks off you!" retorts Ngozi, the funky melon.

"Hi... no... I'm really quite cool. It's just that... I'm worried over some personal issues," replied Clara still wearing a worried look.

"Too cool is too cold, you know. Is it too personal to let us in?" said Ngozi in her usual quirky persuasive manner.

"Not at all ... actually it's something that has to do with me and my fiancé, Emeka... and....My...you know...state," She stammered. "I'm aware he won't be too happy to discover that I'm not a virgin as he had been boyishly been feeling. I don't have the courage to let him know and at the same time...girls I am too afraid to lose him to any other girl," Clara replied straight. "I'm just too scared and equally confused. I can't afford to l ose him. No, I can't. I couldn't go on," She repeated.

"That's quite a rough edge I must say, especially, if a girl had to fall in love with one of these virgin-crazy- men around. Sorry, I never meant to be mean," Chidinma remarked.

"And the ugliest part of it all is when she might have lost her pride in circumstances where she finds herself too feeble and vulnerable to prevent it," Echoed Ngozi concerned.

"The emotional near-breakdown of her sense of security; the feelings of shame and guilt, she would have been made to feel by the cruel society at large," added Chidinma.

"It's quite a very sensitive issue, dear. I must add that you have to take the bull by the horn now than later. Don't be feeble at heart to do it. Allowing it to eat you up wouldn't help either, nor feeling sorry or pitying yourself," admonish Ngozi.

"Then how do I go about it?" Clara asked literarily begging for help.

"Just like Funky had just said, you should be strong at heart. We know how you feel, but we're only trying to prepare your mind should it turn out too difficult to handle. You should let him know without delay but I would prefer doing so gradually and respectively without compromising yourself by being guile or guilty-looking," advises Chidinma.

"Sure, you must let him know your state and how it all happened if necessary, as sincerely as you could, then if he still loves you, there you go, but if otherwise...mind you, it's going to be rather shocking news to him. He might even go mad at you calling you all sorts of names if he's so damned that sort. You've got to expect the worst to happen. Give him time to readjust himself to reality and never push him to take you back no matter what. He should come to that by himself. It's gonna be tough emotionally with both of you. So just girdle your heart." Ngozi reechoed her advice once again.

*

Years of early rising have to lead to waking before the unpleasant clamor of an alarm clock. Ogonna sluggishly stirred to wake. Stretching her full length, she let out a loud yawn. It was still dark on the outside though it was already morning, she observed. She drew her rope light by the bedside. Locating her wristwatch, she was quick to note with amazement that it was 4: 00 a.m on the dot-two hours and some minutes to the break of dawn.

She knew she wouldn't be able to sleep once it had fled away from her eyes, a usual occurrence to her. She notwithstanding, she has lost even the nudge to embrace another sleep again. Slipping out of her bed´s quilt, she said her morning prayer and decided to find something to while away her time with, until it would be morning proper.

Looking at her room, it was tastily furnished-she seemed to observe it for the first time, though not that expensive, within the range of an average student financially speaking. It soon occurred to her, that her annual room-apartment rent needs renewal. However, that hadn't bothered her mind a flinch. It was quite an expensive adventure to live off-campus as a student, yet she had preferred it to the school hostel, because of the cramps and jams many students were subjected to while living in such a place.

Secondly, her field of study-Mechanical Engineering, is time and energy-sapping that she needed a place to be at ease to improve on her declining grades.

It had always been her resolve to be a first-class graduate honors and as such the need to move to a private apartment, free from all unnecessary distractions as she would call it. Her mind flew into her earlier encounter with her Father some years back when she was contemplating enrolling as an undergraduate of her present discipline.