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HARMONIA

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For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Femalefriendship2020@gmail.com

This is a work of Creative fiction. All words, expressions and imagery are inspired.

Cover Page Design: CreaTTive designs (Olayiwola Titilope).

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to all women who have proved the popular narrative wrong by reaching out and assisting other women. This is for you.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Book Title

Dedication

Table of Contents

Preface

IF LOVE IS FRIENDSHIP

G.B.E.M.I

THE JOURNEY

MOVING ON

TIES THAT BIND

A WORD CALLED…

DORA’S BLISS

BEGGING FOR RICE

Contributors Profile

The End

PREFACE

History and mythologies across cultures have portrayed that contention, dissent and rivalry are common occurrences among women and have been accounted as part of the reasons for societal chaos and backwardness. Contention, dissent and rivalry have been portrayed in several Greek mythical stories among which are the narratives of Echo and Apple of Discord. In the same vein, several negative narratives as these have also influenced several females' reactions toward their same sex in several social milieus.

Drawing illustration from the trajectory of the Grecian mythical narration is the Apple of Discord which portrays women as covetous, vain, inordinately ambitious, excessive, and perpetually contentious. In order to perpetually bind generations to this wrong notion, the Greeks ensured that the deity that presided over discord had to be a goddess with the name, Eris. Eris inscribed on a golden apple "to the fairest" and threw it into a banquet which she was not invited to. Another three major goddesses, Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, chanced on the apple and it became a dispute on who should claim the apple, as each of them felt she was the fairest. This little contention fanned into a bigger dispute that ended a whole nation.

As a reaction to the aforementioned, Harmonia is the 'seed of concord' that addresses and redresses this negative narrative of female to female relationship by rewriting and re-presenting female relationships in the good light of what obtains. Harmonia brings to fore several narrations, fictional and non-fictional, of positive female friendships that border on unity and love, in the bid to negate the wrong notion which has been in circulation that female togetherness has been breeding discord, gossips, enmity, discontentment, jealousy and rivalry.

Harmonia aims to emphatically showcase women relationships in positive lights through several female friendship narratives. It aims to foster cordiality among women and to also annul any form of resentment nurtured overtime by many females towards same sex friendship, as this will lead to women unification needed for societal progress and liberation.

Harmonia is a collaborative fictional work that revolves around female relationships inspired by experiential and fictional situations. It is a collation of several stories that run together to form a reverberating voice with refractive tendency.

IF LOVE IS FRIENDSHIP

By Victoria Chukwuneke

PLOT

Two sisters, twins, grew up with almost no love for each other. As rivals, friendship between them could only be imagined. Will their parents’ absence be the miracle for their reunion?

CHAPTER 1

am Sandra Okeh and I clocked 22 years a few weeks ago. Up until then, I had lived the last 21 years with no single excitement every time I got reminded that I am a twin. People say being a twin is a blessing. I rather consider it a curse. I am not totally ungrateful for the privilege to be brought forth into this world with another beautiful soul but growing up as a twin was difficult.

I have a twin sister, her name is Sarah and she is the beautiful one but friendship between us was almost impossible, and love could only be imagined because we had lived our lives with nothing but resentment towards each other. This was not entirely her fault; our whole lives had been a summary of an unhealthy and an unrewarding competition. This competition only drove us further apart every minute. Together we had competed and struggled for the same things; love, attention, same friends, good grades, and even to the littlest things as height, beauty, body, boys, long hair and just every other insignificance.

Our parents tried their best to make us closer, but their very best always seemed futile because I believed that the feud was beyond the ordinary. Well, as ‘African’ as they are, trust them to have organized series of prayer and deliverance sessions but nothing. Trust them to have also given the ‘long talks’ but still nothing. Trust them to have displayed how love should be between siblings but then again, nothing. Finally, trust them to have enforced and demanded love and respect between my sister and I but also nothing. They tried their best but I also believed they decided to channel their old little strengths to rewarding ventures.

Not just our parents, but our best friend, Dave, suffered from our ‘mischief’. Surprisingly Sarah and I managed to have just one best friend and the same guy over the last years. It had been an impossible mission for us both, but even more impossible for Dave as he had to put up with the most annoying and totally selfish friends for the past ten years. I look back and I imagined just how much strength Dave had put in, how much work to always try to reconcile us after every fight, how many silent prayers I watched him say, and then just how long he held on to hope.

When Sarah and I clocked 10, I heard my mom’s best friend whisper to my mom and she said “Your girls are gradually growing into beautiful women. I hope they grow up to be good ones too but I think that might be difficult; they are different in every way. For instance, Sarah is the beautiful and wild one while Sandra is the brainy and reserved one, also I can sense some unhealthy competition between them. I sincerely suggest we start to curb this demeaning behavior before it goes out of hand.” Amazingly, my mother said just nothing. Subconsciously, that remark has remained in my mind for twelve good years. Now, I tell my story.

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CHAPTER 2

I know so many friendships that engender nothing but jealousy and rivalry. In fact, Sarah and I are victims. At stages in our lives, we have had to defriend people whose only aim was to continually fuel the hate between us, we also had to defriend the ones whose aim was to benefit from this feud, as well as the ones who were just simply envious of everything we had. So indeed, we had a roller coaster of unhealthy friendships.

The last encounter was observed by my mother and she immediately destroyed that friendship. Two years ago, we both had a neighbor and a friend called Adele. She was about our age just that we were a few months older. Adele wanted everything we had; she had no siblings as she was an only child, she had no father as she was raised by a single mother and an extremely busy one, so she wanted desperately the ‘unseeing’ blessings that we had.

Adele always caused a rift between Sarah and me. She would pretend to be our friends but eventually only to gossip us both, even worse as adding the lies we never spoke. Sarah and I were always at logger heads because of this because we always believed whatever Adele said to each of us. We never believed the smallest truths we said to each other in defense.

This went on for a while until my mother noticed that even enemies had the probability to reconcile than my sister and I. So, she carefully observed and listened to our own sides of the stories whenever we had an argument, including Adele’s. Overtime, my mother was able to deduce that Adele was the enemy within. She would reprimand Adele on few occasions until eventually she decided to cut off the friendship.

Then something happened that made my mother act out her decision. Adele really liked Dave. Dave always tried his best to avoid fights between Sarah and I. Adele noticed that and tried to talk Dave out of being friends with us but Dave was adamant and bent on always making peace. So Adele came up with a plan and forged a fallacious story stating that my sister and I saw Dave as a fool and someday he would get tired of his ‘kindness.’ Dave became furious and approached us but of course, we told him we said no such thing. My mother got to know the story and she instantly cut off our friendship with Adele. That is just how our lives had been. Now, we have only Dave as our only genuine constant friend.

“Sandra! Why did you leave the gate open?” I recognized my mother’s voice from within my thoughts. I immediately came back to myself and quickly reasoned.

“It wasn’t me. Sarah must have gone out and forgot to close the gate. I saw her dressing up to leave the house a few minutes ago.” I almost shouted back as I was slightly furious. “At least, she should have called me to close the gate”. I muttered. My anger vanished as I remembered that Sarah and I have not been ‘in talking terms’ for almost two weeks. This resulted from our last fight.

“Sarah will meet with me when she returns. The fact that you two do not behave like sisters and practically ignore each other, does not give her the right to make my house ‘an invite’ to armed robbers”. My mother said angrily and walked away. Of course she was aware of the malice between my sister and me but she was very annoyed by it.

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CHAPTER 3

“Daddy has called for a family meeting”. Sarah said as if talking to no one and then immediately walked out of my room. After a few seconds, I dropped the novel I was reading on the bed and went to the parlor.

As I sat down, my father began speaking, “Your mother and I will be travelling to the village in two weeks for an important meeting. We would be there for a month. Your mother’s work leave starts next month and I have taken a leave at my office as well. Now, you two will be alone in the house. You can kill yourselves if you like before we return but please do me a favor and not tear down my house”. My father finished speaking and looked at us intently.

“A month?” Sarah asked with raised eye brows. “What will you do in the village for a month, Dad? What meeting exactly are you going for?” Sarah questioned with a worried tone. My father ignored her and said no word.

“Dad, what is so important that you would be away for a month?” I quietly asked. I knew there was no better way to receive answers from my dad with such rude tone.

After a few seconds he reluctantly replied, “We have work to do. It is a meeting I can’t tell any of you about. I will also need your mother to be there. So we will be leaving together.” He concluded and said nothing more. Sarah turned over to my mother, requesting more details with her looks but my mother only shrugged.

“Mom, could you at least explain what exactly is happening?” I walked over to my mother and placed my right hand on her left shoulder. “Please talk to us”. I pleaded.

My mother turned over to Sarah and I and spoke, “We just have work to do. Before you count the days, we have returned. You both will be fine. We will provide just everything you need. Just make sure we do not return to meet one or two dead bodies”. I rolled my eyes at my mother’s comment while Sarah loudly hissed. My mother gave her a scorned look in return.

“Dave will be visiting often. He is a man so I told him to regularly check up on my building and my expensive furniture.” My father finished speaking and we just laughed. We knew very well this sarcastic side.

“We do not need Dave to check up on your furniture or even the house Dad. You will meet them just intact. It will be nice though if he still came around to help if we needed help.” Sarah said.”

“Well, he is your friend; you can always call him when you need him. Besides, you could use the break to get ready for service year.” With that, he got up and left. We were new university graduates and as it is rightly done in my country, one must render service to one’s fatherland for one whole year. My mother followed almost immediately, not without first giving us a warning look.

Sarah walked straight to me and said, “How would we survive for a whole month?” She asked, demanding an answer.

“By an act of kindness daily towards each other”. I simply replied and walked away.

CHAPTER 4

“We need to set some ground rules here. Your father gave me the permission to coordinate things around here while he is away, so we do things according to my terms only”. Dave spoke with authority, he really sounded so different.

“Well, last time I checked, my father only gave you the rights to oversee his building and furniture not his daughters”. Sarah spoke back in confidence.

“His daughters live in the building, don’t they?” Dave shot right back.

Right then, I knew I had to intervene to avoid further back and forth, so I turned directly to Dave and spoke, “We just want you to be present in case we needed help. You are the closest to having a family right now”. I spoke calmly. Things would never be the same, I somehow could feel it. My parents never came up with such a decision, especially one as huge and tough as this.

“Well, I live right next door but I will be visiting everyday till they return”. Dave finished speaking and got up to leave. Just before he got to the door, he turned and spoke, “Try to remain alive, I’ll be back soon.” Then he smirked and left.

“I hate the guts of that boy. He is beginning to feel too important. Who gave him the right to make the rules in my father’s house?” Sarah frowned.

“Our Father did”. I paused and turned over for a response but she said nothing. “I guess he wouldn’t feel this important if we did better by them. Sarah, there is something I would like to discuss with you”. I turned over really seeking a response.

“Not now. I have somewhere to go. We can talk later”. She hissed loudly and left. I figured she was

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 28.10.2020
ISBN: 978-3-7487-6257-7

Widmung:
This book is dedicated to all women who have proved the popular narrative wrong by reaching out and assisting other women. This is for you.

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