Every time I think of it, I feel my heart about to explode inside my chest. I get jitters.
I feel overpowered, and just then I wish I could just cry it away. But even when I do cry, the melodies still remain in my brain like scars. I really wish I had done something to help.
Sophia was the house help that lived with the family next door.
A barren woman's punch bag and an alcoholic's victim of sexual abuse; Sophia had the weight of the world upon her shoulders.
Some afternoons she would sit on the veranda and play magical tunes from her flute. But these songs were not the ones that stuck to my mind. The ones that did, were the tunes she played on those cold quiet nights, around 2am, after her aunty had used a hot pressing iron to press her skin or a razor to cut her.
Sophia's flute told me everything. She played that "nwa enwe nne, nwa enne nna" song, until sadness filled the air.
Today makes it one year she ran away with the flute. she's gone but the tunes still remain.