ENGENDERED THOUGHTS

EVERY SUNDAY 4PM

Wheels of Fate

Aneeka scanned the dingy abode she lived in for the last time. Memories came surging back, like pictures, clearcut and with sharp edges as she stared at the side of the mat Nana loved lying on before her passing on about a year before then.

Standing on the piled crates, she fixed the knotted rope that dangled from the roof around her neck.

Nana, a poor widow, had picked her off the roadside, where she was left to die a few days after her birth. Tales had it that she was cursed by Olisa himself, for on the day she was born, her dad with excitement drove his bicycle as he headed to the midwife's house to behold the first fruit from his dearly beloved wife. He didn't make it there alive. His dismembered body parts were found along the bush path. In place of her husband, her mother got the news of his demise. It was too hard for her to bear. She named the swaddled child Aneeka before her heart gave up the fight.

Aneeka, alongside her adopted mum, scavenged each night on the dump in a little town away from their village because she had stolen out of the village to save the lad's life, leaving behind her farmland and all she held dear. They picked semi valuables from heaps of waste with which they made a living. The love between the duo was so strong for non left the side of the other.

Fate came knocking again, tuberculosis gripped kind hearted Nana and she took a bow off the planet in the arms of Aneeka. The only person who gave her existence a meaning was gone. A beautiful 17 year old outcast, a scavenger, an unfortunate being and a loner. All these best described poor Aneeka who had nothing left but a mat and a thatched hut well stricken in age, to accommodate her little body.

A rapt knock on the door stirred her back to reality . Bimbo had come so they could go scavenge. Aneeka cursed under her breath, she didn't know it was night fall already.Reluctantly, she followed her.

"I'll execute my plans tomorrow" she muttered.

She poked and poked but found nothing remarkable. As she made to leave, she decided to try for the last time. Beneath the rubble lay a golden disc with a strange insignia. She threw it into her bag carelessly and walked home.

The long walk from the dump to her abode worked some magic on her and only the sound of the gong aroused her from her deep sleep.

"The king has lost his golden emblem." the town crier announced, "whomever finds it shall be handsomely rewarded " he added.

Taken aback by the announcement, she stood up and searched the contents of her night bag. The golden disc still lay beneath a few other things she got. In her under sized gown, with the golden disc in the flat of her palm she matched palace-ward.

She found herself before a very huge man who she immediately recognized as the king from his appearance. At his bidding, she placed the disc in his palm. The king's son Ankurki wouldn't let his gaze fall.

"Do such beauties exist in the land?" He questioned. Aneeka became his wife the next day.

She was crowned the princess of the seven villages the king presided over. She became indispensable, for with the fragments of her wise counsels, the king ruled the land in prosperity.

Truly the ways of the gods are incomprehensible

Dorcas Andrew is a writer, singer and a motivational speaker. She is multilingual, innovative and
dynamic.

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