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Her stomach was in knots, she was so nervous she could not dry heave. She wished it was over already and wished she did not have to do this. 

She lay on the floor, wanting the cool cement floor to ground her to the earth. 

Do you need a doctor?

She has flashes of cold hand with rubber gloves, wet gel like substance, harsh lights and buzzing noises. 

No doctors. I am fine. 

I... I just want, I do not want to do it?

You don't have a choice, the voice sounded disappointed. 

Disappointed in her or the situation. It did not matter. She caused it. 

Self pity engulfed her. 

Here chew this, she handed her dry ginger. It will settle your stomach. Maybe you are pregnant? 

The voice sounded hopeful. She hoped not. She could not consciously remember how. She had not been conscious most of the time.

She had found solace, in staring at the grey walls, imprisoned bodily. She found her mind could travel far, away from this place. 

She could almost catch the scent of incense in the bouquet heavy with human excrement and urine. In the dark dingy cell, she could make out shadows that play out what her life had been. 

She remembered as a teenager always running to her "aunt's" house. How they were related was not clear. Her great grandfather was friends with her aunt's grandfather and they had moved from Cameroon together as the Fulani clan dispersed after another tribal war with the farmers. There was nothing new about the farmers and nomadic herders fighting and cleaving each other with machetes and spears. Stealing cows, women, children. Destroying crops, burning huts, poisoning wells. 

No one could tell her the real reason why they had left their village into Nigeria. Her grandmother once told her, I was alive when the white man decided to separate us. Breaking villages and communities. For hundreds of years we were free to go wherever we wanted. You knew you had entered a different village or a different tribe's land. You paid tribute to the "mai unguwa", or "Sarkin gari". So they knew you meant no harm. Knew why you were in their village, who you were visiting and how long you were staying for.

That was how she meet her husband, he was a young friend of her uncle's. Her family moved to Jos Plateau state, while other members of the clan moved to Taraba, Adamawa, Bauchi, Sokoto, Katsina, even as far a Chad and Niger. 

Then one day, they were told the there was a border where they had been none. That they were countrymen with people they shared nothing in common with, not history nor culture and yet they were now strangers with their peoples with whom there was shared language, food and genes. 

The old herding trails closed off, caravan routes shut down. New roads, new border controls, unfamiliar rules. 

She was twelve when she started running away from home. Finding refuge in other families like a magpie. Until she found her favourite aunt. She was unmarried which made her exotic enough to her, a trader would seemed to use the old routes, before the borders and the country lines were drawn to buy and sell her goods. 

The craftsmanship of the wares she sold were exquisite and renowned within the community. Made from animal hide, teeth and horns. The weaving of the cloths and mats, made by groups of the clan women, old and young sat in their family homes. It was electric with bustling noises of craft makers, crying children, huge pots on massive fire wood pyres boiling materials to be used or making food. Sometimes one the byproduct of the other.

Her favourite was the communal eating, "tuwo da miya" in huge trays, thin hands reaching in to eat together.

The thought of eating made her stomach hurl, she dry heaved. The action bringing her back to the present and the discomfort she was trying to dissolve away from. 

She wanted her mind blank, she wanted to feel nothing, hide for a while go inside her brain to find courage within her mental state. 

She breathed shakily and strained to hear the remembered tinkle of bangles, heavy gold, crudely moulded. Her aunt didn't believe in banks. Her wealth was in her property, gold, jewellery, herds of cows and sheep, cloth materials, cooking utensils and a collection of ceramic and aluminium dishes and serving wares.

 "Kinan kaman magi", a cat. Always leaning on people, sit still her step mother use to tell her. Her aunt did not reprimand her if she leaned on her or held her hand or was around her. At least she did not until that faithful day. 

The faithful day it was "Maulid" a holiday celebrating the prophet's birth. It wasn't like other holidays to her childhood mind because not everyone celebrated it and you didn't get new clothes or the sharing of loads of food and sweets. However it was a public holiday a day away from school so that was special enough to her. 

She had heard her aunt was in town, back from one of her many trips. She had snuck out from her step mother's house with her bicycle. As she planned to stay as along as she could without getting caught and her bicycle could cut the trip to minutes. 

She wanted to spend every second she could with her aunt. She knew riding her bike made her a target. There were a group of teenage boys with sticks who attacked her with stones, dirt and sticks. They called her names every time she rode past their patch of the road and sang taunts at her for wearing trousers and riding a bike.

"Biri da wando, magge da hula, 

ashe kinanan, ban sani ba, 

kalle duwawu, kaman kubewa, 

gyara kubewa, abun miya ce"

"Monkey in trousers, cats with hats, 

so you are here, I didn't know that, 

look at your bottom, like okra, 

Okra is better, it is and ingredient for making soup."

It wasn't much of a road, a dirt track between mud houses and open gutters, with heaps of trash and huge pigs and goats eating the litter. 

She knew the boys were jealous of her bike, she had one and they couldn't afford one. It made her different and stand out. Everyone knew girl's were not supposed to be on bikes, it would tear their hymen and "disvirgin" her for her future husband. It was not womanly. 

They didn't know she didn't own the bike. It was her brother's. He had four of them and was never around to ride them. Besides there was only one of him. When would he have time to ride all four. She made sure to ride oldest bike. It was shorter with chipped yellow paint. It was easier for her to manoeuvre, as rode over uneven stones, gutters, mud and dirt. 

It was 40 degrees celsius in the dry sub saharan heat, she would be sweaty and thirsty when she arrived she thought. She would enjoy the cool water from the "randa" the old round clay pot settled on cold wet sand in the coolest part of room shaded away from the sun. There was an after taste of clay that she enjoyed and the coolest most delicious tasting water.

She licked her parched lips in the present. Thinking to herself I will buy myself a "randa" if I ever survive this mess. 

I don't feel well, she told her companion, tomorrow I will make the call.

She could see from  the tightening of her companion's mouth that she had disappointed her. She disappointed a lot of people. Most importantly she disappointed herself. 

She could feel the dark cloud of depression's over cast, and her mind quickly ran away to memories of the past. Of the times when her sadness was simpler, if only she had recognised the simplicity as a gift at the time. 

Assalamu alaikum she has called as she entered the compound. Getting off there bicycle and pulling it over the raised part of the entrance to the compound. She pushed the zinc and wooden pedestrian gate open. 

It was quite in the compound, her aunt's place was normally a hive of activity.  A series of little disparate cottage industries informally organised by her aunt. There was always something being made, packed or produced. 

Assalama alaikum, she looked around for the octogenarians who normally stayed in the outside rooms in the compound. 

Empty, maybe there were sleeping or had not returned to the house since her aunt's last trip. She walked down the narrow alleyway, the compound was a mini maze, with rooms and courtyard's and alleyways within.  

It was typical of the houses in "chikin gari" the old part of town. She left her bicycle by the outside cooking area in one of the courtyards. The place was swept clean of ash and no sign of burnt firewood. 

Maybe there was no one here she thought. Well she was thirsty and she wanted water from her favourite "randa". She didn't know why she enjoyed that water more, it had magical properties to her. Maybe it was because of the graphic design etched on the outside of the old clay pot, primal, cavewoman scrawls, or because it was in the most shaded part of the house under a leafy tree out of place in this arid state. She was hot, sticky and was starting to feel light headed. 

She hadn't eaten anything, she had been in a hurry to see her aunt. She wanted to be first to welcome her back and ask about her adventures. 

She pushed open the curtain covering the doorway, assalama alaikum, she went in. It was empty. Oh well she thought as she walked to the "randa" and lifted the lid made into a mat from woven wheat stalks. She found a metal ladle, which she dipped into the randa and drank fully. 

It was as cool as she remembered it, almost worth the journey alone but not quite. She drank a few more ladles until her stomach felt queasy with too much water and no food. 

She did not want to leave without seeing her aunt. She looked at her old casio plastic watch, she had been gone for more than half an hour. Would her step mother notice? She put the thought out her mind. She was already in trouble she might as well wait for her aunt. 

She walked into the inner room leading to  her aunt's sitting room. Asslama alaikum. Still no answer, she didn't expect one. She was pretty confident she was alone in the compound. She didn't mind. She could explore, but she was tired from the heat and paddling so hard to get here. She tried the door to her aunt's bedroom. 

Her bedroom was twice the size of the sitting room, with a huge four poster metal bed, shelves full of crockery, set of boxes, mirrors, cushions. It was a house by itself she thought. If she had a choice she would never leave this magical place.