A Love Letter

Dear Future Wife,

I am sorry I’ve wasted away many years we could have been together with a stranger I did not love. 

Forgive me for all the time you’ve spent with abusive men while I’ve been engrossed in endless chatter with a woman whom I did not understand, a mischievous woman I did not trust. 

Please forgive me for all your sleepless nights while I lay next to that cunning woman; singing her lullabies while your biological clock slowly ticked away. 

Oh, foolish man that I am! 

So, how did I find myself in this conundrum, you ask? I will tell you the story.

On one rainy night many years ago, you visited me in a dream. In a vision at night, I gazed at your silhouette as you walked closer towards me. Your skin looked pale as a ghost yet felt soft as silk when I caroused your flesh to see if you were real. You stood as poised as a gazelle sobbing despondently while I looked on in terror. 

You cried out to me for help and asked me to come and rescue you after telling me about your suffering at the hands of many callous men. 
Countless men would occasionally raid home and make way with your possessions. All your precious jewels had been stolen and I noticed that not only had these men not left behind nightmares of their terror but their abuse was also physically visible in the scars all over your body. 

I wondered what I would gain pursuing a quest to find what appeared to me as an empty broken vessel yet you assured me that you had preserved your most important treasure for me and hidden it deep inside your heart; a treasure so precious that a man had died many years ago to get it. That treasure was your love. 

 When I awoke from that night dream, I vowed on my mothers grave to find you and rescue you from your oppressors even if it took my dying breath. 

So for many years, I searched for you, scavenging the coastal shores and scouring the eastern forests in a quest to find you, my soul mate. 

Yet try as I may, I could not find you, and as the days turned into years, I grew lonely and weary in my quest to find you.
Doubt swarmed me like a cloud and I began to ask myself questions.
Was I chasing a fading dream and did you truly exist?

On one of my expeditions, I met Afia. She introduced herself as your sister and offered to help me find you. Her dimpled smile and deep knowledge of the Christian faith convinced me that her intentions were true so I gullibly accepted her offer of help. 

After a lengthy search, she requested that we take a break and rest in her cottage in the forbidden forest. As we approached the door she started murmuring something. She started reciting some strange words. 
At first, I was surprised but decided it was nothing harmless. Maybe she was rehearsing the script to her latest play - Afia was after all was a seasoned actress. Unknowingly she was reciting a love charm and after repeating the charm 3 times I fell on my feet and convulsed. 

After a lengthy seizure, I woke to saw you in her cottage, with similar soft skin but a strangely deeper voice she convinced me she was you. I was overjoyed, I had found my lover, my soulmate. I called my parents, family and friends and announced that my search was finally over. They were all so happy for me cause they had started murmuring their discontent at my lengthy search.

However, not so long after I settled with Afia, I started noticing some strange things about my new found lover. 
She was cold and heartless and only cared about herself. In her mind I was created to serve her, "men are supposed to worship their women", she would say. At night, she would tie a dog chain around my neck and demand that I sing her many lullabies before she would release me to sleep. When I fell seriously ill and nearly died she never stepped foot at the hospital where I was admitted, she would only occasionally call presumably to check if I had died so she could move on with her life. But by God's grace, I survived. 

Oh what an evil woman she was!

After one year of courtship, my enchantress found favor with a couple in another land who were prepared to sponsor her trip to their town. 
I was elated, hurray! My dominatrix was going to leave the forbidden forest and travel to another town. I whispered a gentle sigh of relief after first hearing the news believing she would release me from my suffering before embarking on her journey. 

Oh, how wrong I was!

Before she left she caged me up in a mystic box for several days and released me only after I succumbed to her pleas to buy her a magic ring.
Unbeknownst to me, however, she threw away my ring the very next day, a fact she kept secret until she had reached her destination. 

My dimpled lover left me alone in her little cottage with a phone that had only her number saved. Upon reaching the new town, She would call me daily, to tease and torment me about wanting to fulfill her unrestrained libido with a foreign man.  
While I was trapped in that cottage, unable to escape, she gleefully fulfilled all her debauched cravings with an Igbo man she had met in her new town.

After a little over a year, Afia secretly returned home for a short visit. She carried many gifts to her family but returned to me her lover empty-handed. I was shocked and perplexed at her appearance when I opened the door to welcome her, her body was emaciated, how could someone look so famished after spending a year in that wealthy distant town I asked myself.

Afia told me she returned home because she missed me but I could see beyond her lies. The truth is my dominatrix had grown tired of her Igbo lover and getting increasingly jealous of her many friends back home that were getting married, she secretly whisked herself back home hoping to convince me to fast track our marital plans. 
I assured her that I would stay committed to my pledge to marry her despite her shackles and after a short stay, she returned back to her new town confident that in a few months her wish would be granted and she would legally be allowed to torment me for the remainder of my life.

Afia returned back to the distant town just when autumn had said her goodbyes to the summer sun and as the summer warmth departed and the winter winds blew, her mask one day suddenly fell off and cracked. 

Exposed by the bitter cold she revealed her ravenous tooth. She called me and said, "soap my lover, can give you more joy than I ever can, so marry me and I will give you soap to use to please yourself when I return back to my new town for 3 more years." 

Do you see how cold and heartless she was, my love !

I was not only marrying a deranged soul but her soap as well!

Cornered and afraid, I fasted and prayed for I could now clearly see that my angel of light also borne the devil's horn. The Lord strengthened me as I fasted and emboldened by the fast I resolved in my heart to end my torment. 

I called her on the phone and bellowed though in jest,

“Depart from me vile woman! I rebuke you with the blood of the Lamb. 
Carry your circus to another foolish man in your new town!” 

Immediately, I heard a crackling sound on the phone, Afia shrieked loudly as though set free from a legion of demons and rushed out venomously looking for another victim to satisfy her lecherous cravings. Suddenly, my shackles fell off and I was set free.

After a brief moment of grief upon finally realizing that I had been under a spell all along, I made my way south towards the coast. 

So here I am now, free yet still haunted by your pleas, clothed yet naked without your love, liberated yet still enslaved by my longing of you but as I write this letter gazing at the barren sea, I still hold on to the hope that we will be together one day.

For even though I am now alone, I am happy to have lessened my load. 

I now run with renewed vigor and hope in my search of you because when I finally find you, my love, I know I will finally find my peace.

Written by,

Ekow Aikins