Of sins, exaggerated punishment and celebrated neglect.

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...
She remembers living with guilt for most part of her childhood life. Guilt that came from taking the traditional "mummy and daddy" game too far. And so, each passing day had her living in trepidation and fear of the unknown.
She could easily have confessed her sins to the adults but there was something in her that told her doing that would be fatal to her being.
That something gave her a preemptive intuition that if she ever spoke, she would be looked down on and her sins will never be forgotten. Forgiven, yes but never forgotten. Of what use is a forgiven sin when you are told a throwback story of that incident every Thursday? So, she shut it. Her mouth that is.
It wasn't easy living with the guilt. Each passing day had her counting down to days she could get caught and punished by the adults or the Bakassi boys. Back then, Bakassi boys were the people she feared more than the police. Funnily, the police lived up to their vague and cliché reputation that they were your friend.
She learnt to be afraid of Bakassi boys from Nollywood movies and it was in same Nollywood movies that she learnt all she needed to know and understood why it was sometimes best to remain mum and pray to God directly, asking him for forgiveness while hoping he would listen.
The movies she saw had people dying even when they repented. Had people being stigmatized by the church. And had people receiving only partial forgiveness.
A wicked stepmother would have her body bathed with sores and burns and pus that oozed badly despite asking for forgiveness. It was unheard of for the wicked to actually go unpunished even though they might ask the merciful God for forgiveness.
The church was one. The Bakassi boys was another and they weren't any different. Jungle justice was always meted on offenders. She didn't want her death to be so gruesome and so, she kept mute.
At that young age, she mastered the art of living with guilt. She also mastered the art of appearing or pretending to be happy because long as people may try, guilt isn't exactly a nice buddy to house.
She laughed the loudest at play gatherings and talked the most at quiet meetings. Anything to take her mind off what she was feeling. Someone should have been able to see through her facade but she hid them well.
At that young age, she let her innocent mind get defeated. She let herself get overpowered by 'evilness'. If only she had said the truth and damned the consequences and actually said to herself "You cannot come and go and kill yourself", it might have set her free.
Yet, she kept mum because she was wiser than her age and because she had learned from the movies, the movies she had no business watching without a form of parental control and because freedom, as she has come to know now, is relative. Truth is too.
Sometimes, you are made to doubt yourself even when you are right. It is the system that protects the rich. The society that looks down on the poor. The media that sells lies as truths.
The result? A grown adult living a lie. One which the society approves and applauds.
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