KNOT.

Written boldly on Chukwudi’s face is shock. The joy he had felt just a split second ago has disappeared. It has turned to pain, to bitterness. It has turned sour. He stares hard at Amaka, his wife, as if his stare would stab her just the way her words had just stabbed his heart.

‘I’m sorry. It’s Henry’s.’ She had told him, barely audible.
‘Pardon?’ Chukwudi had asked instinctively even before he could think her words through. But Amaka’s silence and her fidgeting countenance showed that what he had heard is true.

Fear grips Amaka as she cuddles into a corner of the room to distance herself from Chukwudi. She wishes she did not tell him. She wishes she hadn’t listened to Henry who had pressured her into telling Chukwudi in hope of being forgiven.
‘Henry’, the name keeps re-echoing in Chukwudi’s head. He couldn't believe it. It hurts him to believe, Henry, the love of his life had cheated on him. And worst, he had done so with Amaka!

‘Please, tell me she is lying.’ Chukwudi pleads with Henry who is trying to hold back tears from his eyes, hoping to hear him say all she had just said was a lie. But the tears that streamed out of Henry’s eyes proved it wasn’t a lie.

Anger swells in Chukwudi, triggering pools of adrenaline into his bloodstream. Wild thoughts roam in his head. He hates Amaka. And he hates himself more for allowing his tradition to enforce her on him all in the name of being the first son of his dead father, King of Egwurogwu.

Now, the Jezebel of a Queen had poisoned the love of his life, Henry, who he had legally married while in the United States. And to worsen it all, Amaka is pregnant!

Oh, finally, Eve’s daughter has sown a seed of discord in my garden, he curses.
Aggrieved, he walks out of the room, headed to his room, with a single thought in his mind: to put an end to all of this!