Flows and Restrictions

When I was in JSS3, I learnt how to do the “hand-blood” trick. It was in fact, Hassan who taught me. You know the one, don’t you?

You take someone’s hand and tell them to make a fist. When they do, you hold the wrist of their hand firmly. In that time, you massage the exposed part of their palm, that fleshy part that is still exposed from that closed fist. You massage again and again, until that fleshy part changes from a red to almost white. With their hand still in the closed fist and your hand still firmly on their wrist, you ask them to open their hands, exposing a palm that is now mostly white, pale. You use your finger to lightly touch their fingers and then quickly remove your hand from their wrist. With that, they immediately feel a sensation and turn to look at you in disbelief and shock, questioning what it was you did to make them feel that burn in their hand. You smirk or even smile in that knowing way, the one that says that you will keep it secret. You know that it is simply the feeling of blood rushing back to their hands. The same one that you held in your power until you were ready to let them, the owner of the hand, feel it again. This is the same thing that Hassan did to me continually. In our friendship, that was how it always was.

I can’t say that it hasn’t always been this way. I struggle to remember a time that I did not feel like he took from me and left me in confusion, and him, in some expression of joy. There was the time when we were 6 that he came to my house and ate both our pieces of meat from our shared plate of rice. Once in one of our holiday classes, when I gave him my answer for member countries of ECOWAS, he answered it, leaving me to face the punishment from Mr. Kosoko. Or even when he took the last seat available on the bus for the excursion to Olumo Rock, when the space was rightfully mine. I wish I didn’t have more examples. But I do. I have more examples of him taking and taking and none of him, giving.

I remember that I played that hand blood game (could you call it a game?) for the most part of that year. I don’t remember me or my classmates being told that it was dangerous thing to do, considering the fact that it involved the flow of blood and its restriction. I remember though that eventually, the playing of the game dwindled and many of us didn’t play that game so much anymore. Maybe people just started speaking up about not wanting to participate anymore. Maybe they insisted on not having anything taken from them. It seems I was the only one who didn’t.

I never spoke to him about it, these takings. We grew up together, you see. Our mothers were essentially neighbours turned sisters. My home was his, and his, mine. It had been that way since we were toddlers up until recently. Puberty was gracious to him in the way it had not been to me. Hassan was tall and dark and handsome. He was one of those people that would walk into a room and you would immediately feel his presence. I would walk behind him, an uglier shadow of him. None of my features could compare to his. Not my flat nose or big lips. Definitely not my lack of presence or my short limbs. None of those. He was THE Hassan and I was just Hassan’s friend. Maybe in those years, I should have spoken up about it. I don’t think that I knew that I could. I just hoped that he would see how hurt I felt afterwards and that he would not do it anymore. And even when it seemed to continue, I hoped that he would realise it but he never did.

Restrictions are not always a good idea. I know that now. I held in the hurt from all those times. Sat on the anger till its hold on me was without power. I would look at him at those times and smile, satisfied that I had “handled” this ill feeling without hurting our friendship. That our friendship was secure. I would enjoy the benefits of being Hassan’s friend. The respect I got from our affiliation was enough for me. I often wondered what he saw in me. I was not interesting to talk to. I didn’t have an “it factor” that people were drawn to. I’d try to talk to people and watch them be bored as I tried to speak to them. But when Hassan came around, there would be an immediate spark in their eyes for him. This was why I stayed so long, it seems. This was maybe why.

He tried to take from me again, Officer. Hajara and I had just broken up. To be fair, she broke up with me. She said I was boring. This wasn’t a shock to me. It was how I saw her and Hassan embracing in front of the cafeteria, that was. She smiled in that way she did when she was excited. In our 5 months together, I had only seen it a few times. And here she was, smiling like that with Hassan. Officer, when I saw it, I felt a burning sensation in me. I began to think of the other things he had done that I never mentioned. It was odd. Even those I had not thought of in years. Everything came to the fore. They kept playing in my head as I placed a pillow over his head when he slept that night. The replays of those incidents kept coming. Scene by scene, I saw it in my mind’s eye. I felt every pain again, afresh as if it just happened to me. I only realised what I had done, when the struggle stopped. Somehow, it reminded me of the hand-blood game he taught me years ago. Having that kind of power in my hands, deciding if air should flow was similiar, yet so different from the game. He wouldn’t be able to ask me how I made that burning sensation happen. I wouldn’t be able to smirk, and he wouldn’t be shocked. He simply wouldn’t be.

I don’t know what happened. Officer, please…if you can just pardon me…I…please…