The Weeds We Left To Grow
By Sope Lartey
The raindrops attacked Morenike on Monday morning. The rain did not fall straight like it usually did, but poured diagonally, daring to break the tempered glass of her car, to punish her for fleeing, to show her that she was not welcome. Everything about Lagos annoyed her: the streaks of mud on her Hilux, the little children with running noses and shirts that had been punctured severally by the hardness of the city, the grey that clouded the lower parts of Lagos, the tremulous voice with which domestic staff spoke. Her driver asked for the address of the destination for the third time.
“Can’t you talk well! Eh, Julius?”
He mumbled an apology under his breath as he collected the sleek Samsung Galaxy phone from her clasp. Morenike regretted her tone. The man looked like he could have fit in with her father’s friends if he wore better clothes, earned a higher salary, had drawn a better card from life’s deck. Morenike lay back on the headrest and gripped her churning stomach. What plagued her was not irritation, but anxiety.
The violent churning began when Morenike had received a message last week: WE NEED TO VISIT IYABO.
It was not so the message, but the messenger itself that brought confusion: FROM ENITAN DUROJAIYE.
Morenike pondered on a suitable response. Should she say hello first before politely declining? Enitan’s direct tone was not surprising. She had reached out to her through friends last year, but Morenike could not bear to look at those beady eyes. Enitan’s eyes shone like they held a secret that no one could unravel; she was a child with a history. Before Morenike could make sense of it all, the icon next to Enitan’s name had morphed into three jumping dots. Enitan was typing.
I KNOW YOU ARE IN LAGOS, NIKE. I AM GOING TO THE YARD ON MONDAY.
Her breathing quickened as she imagined Enitan’s eyes drilling into her from across her poorly lit ‘self-contained’ flat.
LET US DO THIS FOR HER. I WILL SEE YOU ON TUESDAY AT NOON.
The dots merged into one and died. And Iyabo, it had been forever since Morenike set her eyes on her oblong face, her skin that glowed like local soap covered in vapor, her milky teeth that contrasted with a black gap. Iyabo had been her first friend.
***
Mother had always told Morenike that she loved the things that were not good for her: Coca-cola, Gala, Iyabo. Morenike still remembers the charcoal-skinned girl smiling mischievously with ashy kneecaps, an oil-stained dress, and orange lips that told the tale of the mischief. On Easter Sunday, the children in the small section of Rock of Ages Church were to wear white clothing. Mother had dusted off the “little bride” outfit from their neighbor’s wedding and led Morenike by the hand through the off-white gates surrounded by red and white Ixora hedges. She stared at the girl, whom she would later know to be Iyabo, standing beside the playground. It looked like she had tie-dyed her dress in palm oil. Morenike's mouth opened until she felt a stinging sensation on her cheek, ‘Wo ona, jare. Face your front!’ Mother’s slaps could resurrect a dead man, although he might choose to remain dead if only to be spared the agony of her insults. Earlier in the day, Iyabo wandered to Iya Makinde’s bukka and exchanged her offering money for three roasted plantain slices and some palm oil wrapped in a black plastic bag. Drunken with sweet sin, Iyabo wobbled off the termite-infested bench in Iya Makinde’s makeshift canopy. When her doll-like feet touched the black earth, sticky from yesterday’s rain, Iyabo realized that the bits of the food that missed her mouth had landed on her now soiled dress. She trudged to church on Easter Sunday and walked straight into the path of the tight-faced Sunday School teacher.
Iyabo was punished to gba adura. She clasped her palms together, with her elbows jutting out on both sides and one foot raised to touch the kneecap of the other. Beside her was Mr. Koye with a cane inspecting the position of her limbs.
“You are very lucky, this girl-” he poked her head with his finger, “-if not for your stupid sneezing, you would have knelt in this hot sand.”
She looked more like those Kung-fu warriors Morenike’s mom watched on their parlor television. Mothers pointed their fingers and smacked their lips at Iyabo’s figure, warning their children that even worse would befall them should they follow in her path. Iyabo would make faces back at the women, occasionally wagging her tongue with giggles ensuing from the children. Her mocking smile acted like a shield, bouncing off the venom that came out of those women's mouths, but her eyes revealed the truth, that she was not as impregnable as she sought to be. As people exited the church building after the benediction, Iyabo was still beside the playground. Her legs wobbled like loose threads as she squeezed her eyes shut, commanding her tears to retreat into their glands. Morenike approached her cautiously and extended the half-eaten stick of Easter suya to the questioning eyes. Iyabo grasped it with her oily hands, eating hurriedly, and throwing the evidence into the sand of the playground. Morenike giggled as Iyabo wiped her fingers on the skirt of her dress, creating a new yellow pattern on the gown. Iyabo’s chest heaved as she sucked in the catarrh running down her nose and wiped the stray teardrops sliding from the corner. The up-and-down rhythm of her chest slowed and they sat in a quiet calm until the crowd dispersed.
The storm arose in the night. Through the thin walls of our Apapa ‘face-me-I-face-you’ flat, we heard the terror in Mama Iyabo’s voice as she descended on her daughter and unleashed the load of the day on her. Although she neither went to church nor believed in a ‘three-in-one God’, Mama Iyabo expected Iyabo to be present and punctual. Iyabo’s wails pierced the black silence of the night, her pleadings accompanying the strokes of her mother.
“Ma mi, ejo-” whack, whack.
The groans of the neighbors began as Iyabo’s screams persisted.
“Wo, if this woman wants to-" whack "-kill her daughter, must she do it in the compound and-" whack "-make us accomplices?”
The landlord yelled from his master room that he does not want to answer any questions if Iyabo starts her madness and gives up the ghost.
For a second, there was utmost silence. The whacks had ceased, Iyabo’s screams had risen to its climax and died out, even the crickets sensed the tension in the air. Morenike focused on the unsteady breathing of her mother lying beside her, the beads of sweat meeting at the center of her chest, and trailing down her sternum. Then the madness began.
“Iyabo.”
This time, there was no voice chorusing, only rusty uneven groans. “Iyabo!” she wailed louder. She called again and again, the anger dissipating from her voice and turning into worry. Iyabo wheezed painfully in response, her voice like a dying whistle.
The neighborhood heard Iyabo’s mom begging her to stay. In the heat of desperation, she had tossed her new Christian beliefs away and called upon the gods of her ancestors to save her child, not to take her mother away for the second time, not this soon. Beams of light traveled from the center house to Morenike’s eyes through the torn-net window. The landlord had grabbed his torchlight and ran with haste to Mama Iyabo’s door.
“Se mo so fun e, did I not tell you? Stupid woman!”
Morenike wondered where Iyabo was leaving to. After all, no bukka would be open at this time. Besides, she had spent the last of any money she had on plantains today.
The wrapper slid off Morenike’s body and she turned to her mother, stirring out of sleep.
“That woman is fighting with her traveling daughter, abi? Both of them are witches.”
“Witches?” Morenike knew better than to press her mother for answers, especially about Iyabo. Morenike’s mother sized her up and down with her eyes.
“Sun, jare! Sleep!”
Iyabo’s name echoed in Morenike’s ears as she slapped away the drunken mosquito in her ear and fell asleep.
***
The downpour had calmed to drizzles and the traffic on Third Mainland Bridge was moving faster.
“Julius, please be careful. The road is still slippery.”
Her driver said nothing in return. She would buy Gala rolls and some bottles of LaCasera for his children on their way back as an apology. Those sausage rolls that were as thick as her arm in 2001 could not compare to two fingers put together. There was something about Lagos that sucked the moisture out of its things and people, leaving them leaner and harder, with tiny cracks that threatened to widen with the smallest pressure, yet the day of collapse never came. Morenike’s phone lit up. Another text from Enitan, the fifth of the day, and probably the hundredth of the week.
I’m in the blue Mercedes-Benz in the church parking lot. What’s your car so I can identify you? You can meet me in my car if you’re in an Uber.
Enitan had not changed a bit. She was still asking questions and giving the answers to them. Asking Morenike to come into her car like she was still her poor project from Ajegunle. Morenike hissed and killed the Messenger app. She would meet Enitan however she wanted to.
Morenike clicked on the Facebook logo and opened up Enitan’s profile page. She was hugging a man in the display picture. Boyfriend? Lover, maybe? Her relationship status read as “happily married”. Enitan’s Facebook posts reminded Morenike of her mother’s. Backgrounds of different vegetation with overstretched pixels holding short Christian tenets: When Jesus says yes, nobody can say no! Husbands cannot love wives that do not know how to respect. Pictures of her in the gallery. Enitan at graduation. Enitan at NYSC. Enitan with a car-all glory to her God who never disappoints. Enitan with two little girls, her smile almost forced. After 2010, the pictures were all angled to show her wedding ring: a hand on her shoulder, or buzzing an invisible fly. Morenike imagined her tilting to the photographers, “Is my ring showing?”
***
Morenike had met Enitan five Sundays before Easter at the tuck shop. Morenike knew she had never been considered a friend. She was more like Enitan's personal buffer to absorb the dust and make her ego shine brighter. While Morenike’s mother disapproved of Iyabo because she was too little, she had always been wary of Enitan because she was too much. However, Mother never stopped Morenike from hanging around Enitan because she secretly hoped that Enitan could pull Morenike up the ladder that she could never climb. On Sundays, Morenike would chastise them that their drink was not Mee-lo, but My-low. When the landlord’s children asked her to play police and thief with them, she would decline. In the evenings when it was time for a bath, she no longer bathed with her brother, Rasheed. Morenike would fetch another bucket of water and huddle behind the water tank for a private shower. Mother could sense that the aroma of Enitan’s luxuries had begun to widen her daughter’s appetite, but what could she do?
On Easter Sunday, Morenike walked into Sunday school holding her mother’s arm. Enitan saw her and bellowed, “Ah-Ahn, Is this not the dress you wore last week?” Her mother had held unto her hand tightly and murmured in Yoruba about children who get stomach aches from fruits stolen by their parents. “Parrdin?” Mother looked at the girl -more like a masquerade- standing on one leg beside the playground and recognized her as the crazy neighbor’s crazier daughter. She knew that she would swallow any insults to save her Morenike from the dark clouds of their pitiable slum. “I said your dress is beautiful, Omo mi.” Enitan had already redirected her gaze to her Kiddies’ Bible.
Enitan’s faux-friendship with Morenike extended to Iyabo. Iyabo was not considered a friend either, but a black polish that would go well with Enitan’s buffer. On their way to Sunday School class, Enitan would insist on walking in the middle of them. After class, she would lead them to the tuck shop even though they never had the money for snacks. Iyabo and Morenike would watch her eat golden puff-puffs with a sweating bottle of Fanta. When the service was over and the congregation had dispersed, the three of them would pass time at the playground waiting for the afternoon sun to resign before parting ways. Later on, Enitan’s mother would insist on giving them a ride back to the Ajegunle market where Morenike and Iyabo would cross the bridge home and Enitan would never fail to point to the identical beige houses with electric gates on the far right, “That’s where I live!” Enitan’s mother would curl in a smile as she would ask in Yoruba, “Maybe you should visit sometime. I’ll ask your mums one of these days.” She always spoke to Enitan in English but reserved her Yoruba for them.
Morenike wished she had seen it earlier or had listened to Iyabo who had. On Pentecost, Mr. Koye talked about how Jesus had been attacked by the devil on the mountain. They too would be tempted and attacked by evil people, he said holding his finger high, there were witches among them in the world.
Enitan shouted, “Like Iyabo.”
The whole class burst into murmurs and Mr. Koye shook his finger warningly at her.
The girl beside Iyabo asked, “You are a witch? Don’t use juju on me o! With dis your black hand.” shifting her plastic stool in the other direction.
The whole class burst into laughter.
Mr. Koye clapped his hands twice, “Enough!”
Iyabo’s face held a cold stare and the Sunday school continued in whispers.
When the grace was shared, Iyabo walked towards Enitan’s seat, “Why you call me aje?”
Enitan turned with wide eyes. “Why are you getting angry? Abi, is your grandmother not a witch?”
The girls snickered.
Iyabo took her Bible, “I’m not your friend again.”
Enitan looked dazed for a second but hid it with a smirk, “Sorry na. I was just playing. Is that why you want to cry?”
Morenike held her walking figure, “You will not follow us?” Iyabo looked at her with tears in her eyes, “No.”
Later at night, Morenike wished she had walked home with Iyabo, had held her hand and told her that all the other girls were stupid. That their Sunday school class, and even Mr. Koye with his big cane and skinny arms, was stupid. That Enitan and her thieving mother were stupid. But she followed Enitan to the tuck shop to watch her eat puff-puffs. That day, Morenike had thrown the first fistful of dust at her friend.
The following Sunday, Enitan had bought an additional bottle of Fanta to bribe her polish and buffer. One for her, and one for Iyabo and Morenike to share. Iyabo simply sat on the stool and watched the water drops on the bottle fall to the table.
“I’m sorry, na. You don’t want to be my friend again?” Morenike opened the bottle and put two straws in. Iyabo’s straw remained untouched.
“I’ve heard.” Iyabo removed her scarf and wrapped it around her neck as she hopped off the tuck shop stool.
“Nibo lon lo?” Morenike asked her friend.
“I’m going to ile. Home.”
Enitan shrugged her shoulders, “If she doesn’t want, that’s her business.”
Iyabo turned to them, “O da a bo o.”
Enitan apologised but Iyabo never rode with them again. She would ride the swings in the playground with them, waiting for evening to come, before waving goodbye to them both and walking to the bridge, her pitiful gaze shifting from Enitan, lasting longer on Morenike.
***
There was nothing nostalgic about Morenike’s return to church. The Ixora hedges were wilted, the gates coated with rust, the left door had half of its hinges unscrewed. The swings of the children’s playground were detached from the hooks. Morenike closed her eyes to preserve the image of her church from childhood. She wanted to remember it that way, not as the mess in front of her. Morenike found the Mercedes Benz easily in the deserted parking lot. Nothing happened in Rock of Ages church on Tuesdays, and Enitan’s presence was never hard to spot. She stood beside her car, a phone pressed to her left ear, her eyes hidden behind bejeweled sunglasses. Morenike was tempted to call Julius, but Enitan turned and waved a hand in her direction.
“I’m surprised you came.” Enitan took off her sunglasses and her beady eyes shone.
Many years ago, Morenike had envied those eyes, but now they looked like plastic buttons on a plastic face with a plastic smile. Enitan gave her a dead hug, her arms wrapping around her shoulders with her torso far away as possible. Enitan’s baby bump brushed against Morenike’s tummy, her gaze lowering to it. Without Morenike asking, Enitan announced, “Yes o! God has finally blessed me. My son is due in November.”
“Can we go to the site now?”
Morenike had no intention of catching up with Enitan. They followed a narrow route to the back of the church. The concrete floor stopped at the corner of the church building and was surrounded by wild grass. Enitan stopped at a soft bump close to the edge of the fence.
“This is where they buried her?”
Enitan paused for a second, “Oh? Oh...yes. The cleaner said that it was here. You know it’s still the same woman since? I was even shocked to see her. She’s very old now o. Do you remember her daughter in our class, Tolani?”
Morenike surveyed the area. There were a few more bumps roughly five feet from each other with headstones. Iyabo’s was bare. Her grave had just two metal rods welded to form a cross. A carpet of Bahama grass spread over her grave with wild sunflowers sprouting randomly. It was obvious that no one tended to Iyabo’s grave, no one to put Bibles and flowers, there was not even a picture of her. Morenike squatted beside her graveside and uprooted the wild weeds. She tugged hard at them, forcing herself to tune out Enitan’s voice. Morenike wished to stuff the weeds in Enitan’s mouth. She should have come alone, not have to listen to Enitan talk about the poor state of Nigerians and how they were dying from silly diseases that could be prevented with simple vaccines.
“What happened to her was sad.”
“To who?” Morenike gazed up at Enitan.
“Eh, to Iyabo nau. Hospitals are really bad at Apapa. It’s only Lagoon hospital that is reliable.” Enitan threw the back of her right hand on the palm of her left, opening and closing her mouth while avoiding Morenike’s steady eyes.
Morenike scoffed and tugged even harder. The roots of the weeds had grown stronger because no one had cared to stop their damage early.
What happened to Iyabo.
As if Iyabo had been sitting on a porch and had been taken away by flood or she had been walking on the street and been blown to bits. Iyabo had seen Enitan as the weed that she was, and Morenike had simply let her grow stronger.
***
On the day of Iyabo’s death, the three of them made their way from the tuck shop to the playground. It never sat right with Enitan that Iyabo no longer hovered around her or accepted rides from her mother. After all, Enitan had apologized and demanded to know why she had not been completely forgiven. However, remorse could never be shown to a dirty girl like Iyabo, so she expressed anger. With the sun no longer scorching, Iyabo got up from the swing and prepared for her trek home.
“Iyabo, you will not go with us again? Why don’t you want to follow us?” Enitan whined.
Iyabo hopped off the swing, “You say I am aje.”
Enitan did not like begging, “I’m sorry nah. You are still angry?” Iyabo ignored her and dusted the back of her dress. Iyabo’s silence annoyed Enitan.
“Abi, are you not a witch? Eh? You, that you are black like charcoal.”
Enitan stepped in front of Iyabo, edging her backward, filling Iyabo’s vacant footsteps.
“See your black face like a witch.”
Iyabo, with irritation, pushed Enitan away from herself, muttering that Enitan’s mother was an ole, a thief that gives blood money as offering in church.
Enitan steps even closer, “Who is ole? You think I don’t know ole?” pushing Iyabo unto the sandy ground. “Who did you call ole, you this witch?”
Morenike stood, hoping that the fight would not require intervention. Enitan’s eyes looked otherworldly. She was filled with so much anger that a child should never be accustomed to.
Enitan straddled Iyabo, who struggled to take in air and gripped her neck.
“Who is a thief? I will show you!”
Iyabo weakly struggled against Enitan sitting on her lungs and began to panic.
Morenike did not know what to do. She had always been afraid of Enitan and what she could do in Sunday school class. Her legs felt like cement bags. She did not want to be her target of ridicule next week, so she watched cautiously.
“Open your mouth, witch!”
“Enitan!”
She sat on Iyabo’s stomach, forced her mouth open, and stuffed it with sand. Iyabo’s body shook like she had touched a live wire. Iyabo heaved heavily, whistling like she had done in the night with her mother, panicking more and more until her madness began. Morenike knew that Enitan had taken it too far.
Morenike pushed Enitan off and gripped Iyabo’s head, kneeling beside her.
“Iyabo. Iyabo.”
Morenike saw Iyabo’s eyes welling with tears, her wheezing more desperate than she had ever heard in the nighttime. Her head was covered in dust, her hair was matted and looked dirty brown.
“What’s wrong with her?”
Enitan’s anger dissipated as she saw her friend writhing and struggling for air.
“Enitan, what did you do? Why did you pour sand in her mouth?”
“I didn’t do anything! I was only playing with her. She said my mummy is a thief.”
Enitan repeated, willing herself to believe it, begging whatever was holding Iyabo, “I was only playing with her!”
“Iyabo, ejo!”
Morenike tried to stand and seek help, but Iyabo clung to her shirt. Morenike looked at Iyabo’s face in her hands, the same face that she would describe in therapy. Morenike was crying, tears dropping on Iyabo’s neck. But Iyabo was not. She stared back at Morenike, chest heaving restlessly, her mouth covered in a mixture of saliva and sand particles, her wide, reddened tearless eyes focused on Morenike.
Morenike did not hear a car drive into the church compound or see Enitan’s mother walking to the playground.
She could not even hear her screaming, “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!”
***
Morenike’s neck felt tight like a stone was lodged in the middle. She had always known Enitan to be willfully ignorant as a child. When she broke Tolani’s Barbie mechanical pencil, she had faulted the make. Hers from London did not crack so easily. However, what had seemed irritating in a child was very wicked for an adult. Morenike had spent two grueling years in therapy opening and closing nesting dolls, writing worry trees, repeating slowly at night with her counselor on the phone, and her face streaked with tears “Iyabo died of asthma. Iyabo died of asthma. Iyabo died of asthma.”
Enitan had casually rewritten history, labeling Iyabo as an unfortunate accident, Morenike as an “old friend”, death as something that had “happened.”
Enitan was still chatting about the poor state of hospitals and all of that. How she could not have her son in Nigeria as she had done with her two girls. It simply wasn’t palatable, America would be much better for her child. The back of Morenike’s thighs burned. Morenike pulled herself upwards, rubbed her palms against each other, wiping the remaining dirt on the skirt of her dress, and slapped Enitan.
Enitan raised her manicured hand to her cheek.
“You slapped me.”
A burst of shrill laughter emerged from inside Morenike. “No, I kissed you.”
“How dare you! After all that I did for you?”
Morenike laughed even louder. Enitan had always dangled money in her face, letting her eat the tiny pieces that fell off and making her say “Thank you” after.
“Do you want to kill me because of the degree your mother paid for? Is it not my money that she stole? Thief!”
Enitan’s eyes and mouth opened like someone who had just eaten raw pepper and Morenike’s overdue rage could not be subdued.
“What will you do? You will kill me abi?” she said, clapping the remaining dust on her palms in Enitan’s face.
“Enitan, you are wretched! So so wretched. Fifteen years and you are still lying! Come and fight me! If I will not pour this sand in your stupid mouth.”
Morenike’s laughter angered Enitan even more as she walked away, saying something about poverty causing people to go mad in Lagos.
Morenike caught a glimpse of Enitan. Every time Enitan was embarrassed or furious, she would become red like an agbalumo. When Tomisin from the Teenage class said Enitan’s breasts were mosquito bites, her neck became as hot as a pressing iron and she had not come to church the next week. Always like Enitan to run.
“Morenike, we’ll see!” yet she had retreated to her car and asked the driver to move.
“Don’t call my number ever again!” she shouted through her lowered window glass, dangling her finger at Morenike.
“I don’t even have your phone number, ode. You, unfriend me! Run!”
Morenike laughed and laughed until she sank to her knees. But she had run too. It had been her mother’s idea to go back to Abeokuta with Grandma but Morenike had not fought it, had not uttered even a word of protest.
***
She had snuck inside her house through the backdoor, squeezing herself between the mouldy wall and the water tank. Enitan’s mother had dropped her off at Ajegunle bridge on return from Lagoon hospital, “Please, don’t blame yourself.” She had said in English, nodding her head.
Morenike wanted to pull on her dangling earring until she yelled in pain. Through their smudged window, Morenike could see Mama Iyabo throwing herself on the ground, thrashing around like an earthworm, begging it to open up and swallow her as well. As she rose and fell, her wrapper slipped lower, bunching up at her waist and exposing her genitals. The women surrounding her held unto her legs and arms while the landlord screamed, “E ma se be! Don’t do that!” Iya Iyabo broke free from the women, attempting to run out to the streets.
Morenike just stood there shaking, thinking of Enitan in her air-conditioned car, sipping on a Fanta bottle, shielded from the havoc of reality.
The following Tuesday, Iya Morenike had woken Morenike in the early morning. She did not want her daughter to grow up with a label as a murderer. Even though no one thought Morenike killed her, it was still a bad omen to see death at a young age. On the bus ride to Abeokuta, Rasheed sleeping with his head on the window, her mother asked, “What happened? Oko mi, please. I will not beat you.” Her mom screamed as she told her the truth, and cried with her. What could two lone voices from Ajegunle say against a rock as solid as Iya Enitan?
***
Cold kisses on Morenike’s arms signaled the coming of more rain. Enitan would run to her air-conditioned life, but Iyabo would remain here- immobile. Morenike began to cry, the sunflower weeds scratching her knees slightly.
Julius tapped her shoulder, “Madam! You dey alright?”
She cried even more. She would never be alright like Enitan who squeezed history and tore out its corners to make it fit into her conscience.
“Madam, make I bring car?”
He must have thought her to be crazy. “Madam! The rain go heavy o.”
Morenike pulled herself away from his grasp like an enraged bull. She would never be alright. She would never be alright. Julius pulled his shirt over his head and ran to the car, leaving her on the floor. She cried and screamed and begged Iyabo to forgive her, to let her go. Later, she would call the familiar number, eyes on the ceiling, feet on the headboard, alcohol bottles on the floor, tears running down her temples.
“Listen to me Morenike, you were a child, you did not kill Iyabo. You did not kill her.”
“But I didn’t do anything to help her, oh God, I didn’t help her.” she would say, tossing her head from side to side.
She would pull on her hair, holding the phone to her ear weakly, repeating, “Iyabo died of asthma. Iyabo died of asthma. Iyabo died of asthma.” Begging herself to believe those words.
Sope Lartey (@thesopelartey) is a 33% Ghanaian, 66% Nigerian, 1% vacuum, multi-disciplinary artist. She writes both fiction and non-fiction and is majorly interested in telling taboo stories about women who dare to create their own identities. She studies Animation and Visual Effects by day and writes on her Medium blog about equality, racism, and misogynoir by night.
All rights to this story remain with the author. Please do not repost or reproduce this material without permission.
