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Phew, well this is gonna be a long, long, story but I guess it is definitely worth it because, if I do not pour it out here then one day I am gonna pop and spill the beans.I am male, in my mid - thirties, belonging to a middle class indian moderate moslem family. I am the eldest of my siblings and you can say we lived a pretty much normal life. This story is of a family feud running a century and it may bore others but it is the most closest to my heart because I managed to do something that my father, nor my grandfather managed to do. I ended it.My grandfather had two more brothers and all the three brothers, lets call them Mohammed, Esmail and Musa on order of seniority. These three chaps docked at the port of a little African Country from India. They were in their teens, thirsty, dirty and hungry. They were hard working dudes, climbing up the ladder of prosperity with sheer acumen of entrepreneurship and of course networking. They started off small by opening up a tiny and dingy shop selling indian sweets. Nothing special happened, but with the shop they managed to fend for themselves. It was at the dawn of The First World War that they befriended a gallant swiss soldier who took a liking for all the three brothers and he taught them how to make the most delicious swiss bread ever. He was kind enough to share with them that the War would emasculate into global hunger and that bread would become a valued commodity and the ‘next oil’. Of course his views were a bit exaggerated but pretty soon, these brothers became owners of prime properties across the city. Now my grandfather was the middle brother and his elder brother died childless, but not before making a will for his properties to be shared equally among the remaining two brothers and their kin.The readers have to understand that this story is happening in an African country which was colonised up until the sixties. Our Country has been a turmoil of politics with it suffering at the hands of two despots and rampant corruption for a span of fifty years. It was up until barely ten years ago where we changed our constitution for a devolved Government and with it our systems of Justice as well. We introduced the position of Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI) who worked independently and were only answerable to The Head of State. This change brought up about an air of positivity all around the country. Our new beloved DPP ensured that corruption was met with the harshest consequences ever. Many heads rolled, most of them holding high profile positions in the Government. For once, there was trust and faith in the Justice System. Readers must be wondering why I am narrating to you the political dynamics of my country. These dynamics are important to my story as you will find out later.The readers also have to understand that I am talking about a close knit family, we lived in separate houses of course, but the houses were a distance of stone’s throw away from each other. We were very close, very informal and in fact stood up to each other fiercely, hence when Mohammed, the eldest brother died, we, the children of Esmail did not transfer our share to our name. I can understand why my Grandfather did that, I mean, he couldn’t even bear the thought of his kid brother doing anything which could be detrimental to the family. That was our first mistake. I admit it fully. However on Mohammed’s death, truth be told, nothing happened. The grieving was a joint family process, and we informally took over our properties. For a number of years, life went on.Three years after his death, Esmail my grandfather, succumbed as well and died. This is where everything changed from the extreme right of goodness to the extreme left of badness.Three days after his death is when my grand mother found out the most shocking truth concerning the estate of these three brothers.The Estate was under a Wakf deed (trust deed) which stipulated that the eldest person alive (in our case now would be Musa) to be the Administrator of this deed with the rest (the kin of all three brothers) to be the beneficiaries.There may be people who would say such a scenario is not that bad. There are others who will say that this should have been looked into by my Grand father when he was alive. I totally agree but yet again here I remind you that the three brothers grew up together and climbed up the ladder together.On the fourth day of Esmail’s death, Musa, together with around twenty guys came to evict my grandmother and her six children out of her matrimonial home. In an hour, she was turned from a home keeper of the most prominent family in our city to a total destitute with six children to take care of.Our houses, vehicles (we were the select few to own vehicles at that time), businesses, jewellery, everything, was taken away from us. Having nowhere to go she crashed at her father’s house and that became our new residence.My grandmother was one strong woman. She was totally uneducated but had more wisdom that any PHD Holder I have come across my life. She raised her six children on her own totally as her father was indeed old and feeble and was only too glad that his daughter had returned hence could take care of him too.Now let me get back to how Musa managed to do what he did. He could get away with all that purely because my grand mother was illiterate which should show the rest that no matter what, Education is KEY. Education is not just important it is the only way and of course if you feel education is too expensive, then ignorance is a catastrophe.Musa moved swiftly, I later found out, that the day my grandfather died he managed to get fraudulent death certificates for all of Esmail’s kin. At that time the country we resided in had just gotten autonomy. The place itself is a city now but at that time merely could be called a town. He even managed to back date all of the death certificates and further went on to award his wife a fifty year lease for all our properties.Now back to my grandmother, as time flew by, her children grew up and became successful people in their own respective fields. One daughter is a successful dentist, another one is a famous newspaper columnist in our part of the world. Her son dabbled in engineering and has an automobile workshop, while the other three grew up to be an accountant, a real estate marketeer and a footballer in that order. My father being the youngest was the footballer. My grandmother never forgot to mention almost everyday of their lives on the injustices that had happened.Whilst Esmail’s family gradually found its own place in the middle class, Musa’s family tripled it’s ill gotten wealth by investing profusely into real estate, manufacturing and even trading. They became celebrities and untouchable, in short almost royal.Esmail’s children did try a lot to ensure the wrongs inflicted on them were dealt with but Musa’s children bought anyone and anything that came in their way. Lawyers, Judges, public registrars, everybody was bathed in money. Files mysteriously disappeared, lawyers kept on dilly dallying with the case, judges made irrational rulings, there were a few civil court cases and for Esmail’s children nothing went their way and money was always spent with no return nor success coming in.Dejected, they all finally gave up and moved on with their lives. Gradually, they all began to settle down as nuclear families, getting married and having children.When my father turned 25, I was born, two years later my sister and another three years later my kid brother. My father, as I had earlier mentioned, was a professional footballer, played for the local town club, did not earn much, but he also doubled as a football coach and that is where his actual finances came from. He had somehow managed to capture a few contracts from the local schools and colleges and that is how he managed to feed his family. My father was special to everybody, being the youngest he was blatantly and shamelessly pampered. Especially by my grand mother who in fact decided she would spend the rest of her life with him and hence she stayed with us till her death.My bedtime stories did not resemble the adventures of Harry Potter or the stories of Walt Disney. My bedtime stories, from as far as I can remember, were stories of a life we once lived. My grandmother would tell me about our first car, about our huge houses, she would go and on about my grandfather as she loved him and missed him very much. She also dotted on me dearly and at every juncture never failed to tell me that I resembled him more than any of his sons.Pretty soon, she revealed it to me on what had happened after me bombarding her with my questions and curiosity. That was the first time I heard about all this and being a child I could not think much over it but as I grew up, it would always remain at the back of my mind, like a nagging afterthought.Growing up, I would sometimes bump into Musa’s children and grand children. We were all from one community and hence it was inevitable we would meet them at the community get togethers, somebody’s wedding or at somebody’s funeral.I remember once I was with my father who was holding my hand, I was seven or eight years old and we were at a community elder’s funeral and as we were laying the body into the grave, Musa’s son appeared out of nowhere and stood opposite me. I innocently pointed a finger at him and exclaimed at my father “Papa! Look I see the guy who stole our money!” Apart from getting a stern hush from him I also heard muffled laughter all over.I grew up, finished my schooling and got enrolled in a finance college. The years went by fast as I completed my qualification, started working and finally the day came for me to leave the country in respect of a job offer as an expatriate in a neighbouring country. By then, any thought of all that had happened was all but dead.I immersed myself totally in my work, fell in love with a local but fiery and crazy woman in the country I was working in and after a year of courtship our wedding date was set.I went back home, and first talked to my grandmother, showed her my lover’s picture, she took hold of her walking cane and stood up to stand near the window as the sun’s rays hit her wrinkled face and the photograph. She nodded and just remarked in wishing that maybe my wife would be able to convince me into coming back.Approximately, four months into being a now married man, my father called me and informed me of my grandmother’s death. We flew down to pay her our last respects and that is when I first noticed my dad gradually thinning. I will add something here for the readers, I am a very paranoid person, but my paranoia is only towards health, I do not know if there is any term for it (I am not addicted to Doctors) but I am very paranoid.My father was 55 at that time and I have always seen him as this burly, towering figure with strong shoulders and a kind face. I finally convinced him on visiting a Doctor who had diagnosed it as diabetes which was news to all of us because diabetes has not been in the family at all.I insisted on a second opinion, but he would not hear of it, I guess he was relieved that it was something one can actually live with and not something terminal.Whenever I would visit my father, I would find him thinner. It was just a matter of time when his feet swelled up and I actually ended up arguing and raising my voice against him and literally forced him into visiting India for a specialised diagnosis.It was there that the disease showed it’s ugly face in the form of Myelofibrosis. A disease unheard of in my part of the world. It was Terminal indeed. For the laymen like me, Myelofibrosis is a condition where there’s scarring in your bone marrow which causes it to produce immature red blood cells and hence the hemoglobin in your blood stream keeps on diminishing.The Doctors told us that the only way to cure it would be a bone marrow transplant in absence of which he would only be able to survive on blood transfusions and steroids.It was incredible, he began withering away in front of my eyes, his thick white curls were reduced to a bare few strands, his commanding eyes looked lost and abysmal.Technology allows us to carry out a bone marrow transplant by injecting stem cells right into the blood stream, hence it was a quick process with much work post process and hence all we had to do was to gather up on our savings, get a match and that’s it.Since he had a surviving brother, we found a perfect match. For financing the process we also managed to gather the funds comfortably I must say.It was a few days before his operation, my father lay on his hospital bed, it was night, we could hear the Chennai traffic and vehicles honking from the window, when he summoned my mother and myself to his bedside.With dried up lips he asked my mother to give me the keys to his walled in cabinet in their bedroom back home should he not make it.My mother’s eyes widened at this thought and she just buried her face on his chest sobbing uncontrollably.My father, like the star that he is, just smiled and told her that this is the ugly truth of life and she has children to take care of her and he asked her not to worry and that he’s’ optimistic he will return home a healthy man but as a precautionary measure he would like me to first open his cabinet.On the eve of his transplant, my father’s major organs got infected with septicemia, he slipped into a coma and exactly ten hours later, he died.My whole world came crashing down. But I did not cry nor did I lose my mind. Everybody around me fell down into a dark well of crying and sobbing. We all flew back home with his remains and gave him a respectable burial as soon as possible. Musa’s children and grandchildren even attended his funeral. I shook their hands and nodded at them as they trickled away after the funeral.I waited for all our well wishers and guests to leave, my mother with trembling hands gave me the keys to his cabinet. She signaled my sister and kid brother to leave before she left with them closing the door behind them all and leaving me all alone.I swiftly opened his cabinet and found his clothes, old photo albums, trophies he had won as a sportsman, until I came to the last row.Underneath his shirts was a fat box, sealed, and on it he had scribbled “Ali”. Beside it lay a colourful box of Vanilla flavoured Tea.I tore away the neat seal on the fatter box and groped inside it with one hand to remove a black file and what i saw in it changed my life completely.I found court proceedings, hearings, testimonials, title deeds, THE Trust deed and I found the fake death certificates for my father, his siblings and my grandmother. The very last item in the file was a laminated photograph of a man seated on a huge arm chair with one hand on a smoking pipe lodged in his mouth. At his side sat my grandmother. She was gorgeous, smiling deliciously. I looked at the man and felt a cold chill run down my spine. I was looking at myself. Apart from the gatsby hairstyle and oily hair everything else was me. At the back of the photo I found “Mr and Mrs Esmail 2nd June 1919” in faded fountain pen.I walked out of that room a changed man. This was in 2016.The following two years turned out to be like a different realm, an unknown dimension where I had suddenly stepped into. I found myself tearing off the mask of goodness from my face and developed a permanent stare on my face and my jaws’ mechanics caught a biological rust to remain clenched to this very day. I remember once catching a glimpse of myself on the tinted window of my car and I shuddered in reflex. The incidences that I’m now about to tell you will make you cringe in disgust, will make you cry and will make you ask why? But I’m not ashamed of anything, because I felt an unusual sense of peace and tranquility at the end of it all when I watched the last of them writhe in agony and disintegrate against my sheer will.What I next did was life altering. Not just for me but to my wife as well. I would like to point out here that if you marry the right person then nothing is impossible. To say that she’s understanding is an understatement. She is my skin, she is the clothes I wear, she knows what I am thinking without me uttering a word. We can be talking just by looking at each other. Her only concern was that none of it should hamper our quest to become parents in any way. I gave her my word and assurance that it will not.I first sent an Email to my Employer, requesting him for a SKYPE session and the same day in the afternoon I resigned from my work verbally over SKYPE. He was flabbergasted of course, tried to make me re-think on my decision. I told him the truth that it was not a professional decision but rather a personal one and that my family needed me the most at this time. He was disappointed but accepted it like a gentleman in the end and requested me to type out a resignation later and send him a signed and scanned copy over Email. I did as I was told and in a week my dues were wired to my account. I then hired professionals to transport all my stuff to my home country via road, rented a decent house and moved out of my mother’s house.I then drafted a rough family tree for Musa’s lineage and came to find out that he had six sons, two daughters and two grandchildren. Out of his children three sons and a daughter had already died. His grandchildren were still in high school and college. His three sons (Yusuf, Rehman and Hassan) were administering his ill gotten wealth while his daughter (Habiba) was married to our community chairman’s son. I already knew at the back of my mind that to really alter their lives to my liking I will have to be a part of their lives. Hence I staged an occurrence where by Rehman, his eldest son, would find some car trouble after closing business for the day and I would swoop in like a Good Samaritan and hope to assist. Rehman was ten years my senior, he was married with two children and was famous for womanizing. Doctoring his vehicle was out of the question hence it had to be something spontaneous. It also had to be on a stretch of road seldom used by others. I was lucky that Rehman lived in the suburbs and used a dirt road as a short cut. There are a lot of motor bike taxis in my part of the world and I dished out some cash for a couple of them to first map out his way home. When they both agreed that he usually took the same way home i then enticed a street urchin to wait for his vehicle on a certain bend, as soon as the car would pass him he would call me using a cheap cell phone I had gifted him and then I would sprinkle two millimeter stainless steel nails on the dirt road and in his path. I had no panic attacks and no doubts at all that it would work and it did. I heard a couple of tyres bursting as I jogged into the bushes to continue walking till I reached the bend he had driven in from. I pretended walking slowly towards his car to see him already standing outside talking on his cell phone. “Please don’t call for help”, I remember muttering to myself. I stopped near him and smiled as he glanced at me and he nodded in acknowledgment. He was telling somebody not to call him again until the following morning as he was now home. An affair? A debt? I thought to myself. He greeted me and asked me how my mother was doing, we indulged in some idle talk as he squatted to pick up a gleaming nail.“Strange.” He said thoughtfully.“Must have fallen off a construction pick up. They are repairing the pavement down this road.” I replied.“Guess so, let me not keep you here. I’m calling my mechanic. I will walk home.” His house was about five hundred metres away and right after the dirt road on the left.“It’s no trouble at all, my car is parked right behind. Call him and we can wait for him. I can drop you home while he’s changing the tyres?”“If your car’s parked then what are you doing here?” He looked straight into my eyes.I smiled sheepishly and wiggled my tiniest finger to him suggesting a call of nature in the bushes.He grinned and we both walked towards my vehicle I had parked, on the side and just before the bend.The drive to his residence was short and uneventful.“It’s sad about your father, eh?” He remarked as I drove and looked on at the road ahead of me without giving away any emotions.“Yes it is.” I croaked.“I have always wanted to know what do you do for a living?” He asked.“I’m in Finance.”“It’s good. Must be paying well, huh?”“We survive.”“You will have to honk here to alert the gateman.” He quipped as the car came to a halt right at his gate.I did as I was told and heard bolts unlocking and his gate being pushed open.“I insist that you have dinner with us young man.” He declared as he alighted.“No, I possibly cannot give you that trouble, unannounced.”“No trouble at all, just come.” He waved his hand signaling me to follow him. I alighted and took uneasy and awkward steps behind him and stepped into a fully carpeted and cosy living room. I hurriedly took a seat on the nearest couch finding myself alone. I took a deep breath for my nerves. Rehman reappeared with his wife at his side, we exchanged pleasantries as they settled in couches opposite me. Both of them showed genuine interest me, I could see bewilderment in their eyes as the houses of Musa and his kin were a strict no-no to us all and hence I guess they felt some adrenaline seeing Esmail’s grandson seated in their living room. The conversation turned from being pleasant to idle to awkward.“We never expected you to be here, after all, I’m sure you are aware of the history..er..you know what happened.” Rehman quipped.I gave them my humblest smile, “It’s exactly what you call it. History. I wasn’t there neither were you. It doesn’t concern me nor should it you I guess.” I replied in a sincere tone.“I’m glad you feel that way and honestly relieved we broke this ice.” He continued.I looked at his wife, “We have lost years in this feud. Imagine all the constructive things that we could have done together. You guys even missed my wedding.”“We would love to host you two someday.” She bubbled.“We do need some extra brains for sure. Especially now with the Revenue Authority raiding every Tom, Dick and Harry.” Rehman chipped in. The country was facing a cash crunch at that time with the state not being able to meet their collections target of the Annual Budget.“Don’t tell me they visited you too?!” I exclaimed, suddenly sensing the one rope I could use to strangle each and every of Musa’s kin.“Yes actually they did. But my consultant’s in negotiation with them. Think we will have a closure meeting soon with them.”“I deal with the taxman everyday. Believe me they have a target to achieve and will refuse anything else, including kickbacks.” I explained.“You could try to advise us-“, his wife spoke but was interrupted by Rehman and his stern stare.“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, I’m sure our consultant knows what he’s doing.”I looked at them both and shrugged as their maid popped her head in from the kitchen to say dinner was now ready. While we were all eating, I was already planning on calling my point man at the Revenue Authority the following morning and ask him to check their file expeditiously and find out what trouble were they in. Dinner was rather noisy as we were joined in by his children. I learnt that both of them, a son and a daughter were schooling for their ordinary levels.As I walked out of their door that night, Rehman stopped me in my tracks with his hand on my shoulder.“I’m glad we did this today.” He started.“Me too.” I smiled.“You are kind of different. I can’t place it, but you are different from the others in your group.”“You mean family?”“Right..sorry I meant family.”“It’s okay, but granny always told me I’m a ditto copy of grandpa. How different am I?”“That’s true. It’s uncanny. It’s like as if uncle Esmail’s standing here.” He whispered.“When I say different I mean your warmth to us. And why do you have this permanent scowl on your face?” He chuckled.“Please don’t tell your wife but it’s the scent of potpourri in your living room. I hate scents and am allergic to them. I actually wanted to puke but had to hold the bile in.” I whispered back. He laughed, shook my hand and watched me walk to my car and disarm its alarm. I watched him from my rear view mirror still standing and staring at my car.The next day at 8 am I spoke to my contact at the Revenue Authority. I had to use WhatsApp to call as the local cellular service providers could be tapped by the state and all my calls to the Authority were on WhatsApp. By 11 am he returned my call and gave me an update in the minutest details possible.The case was clearly one of tax evasion. My contact also told me that the assessment was final and had been done with the letter being prepared as we spoke. Musa’s kin were about to be slapped USD 300,000 inclusive of penalties and cumulated interest. Everything in their books was under valued. Hence taxes were avoided in workforce (PAYE) trading (VAT) acquisitions (CAPITAL GAINS TAX) and profits (CORPORATE TAX). I did my own calculations and realized that the amount was barely 5% of their net worth. More could be done.By 2 pm I found myself calling my contact again whereby I asked him if it was possible for the file to go missing. The contact was rather jumpy and skeptical stating that the weather was turbulent at the Authority but I finally managed to convince him to misplace the file for two weeks for a handsome fee of course.I had already exchanged numbers with Rehman and now waited for his call. The wait was torture. Suddenly I felt like all my energy had been drained out and I had no meaning in life at all. An entire week passed and Rehman had not called.On the 12th day he called as I was in my Man Cave listening to EMINEM scream away at his mother. I froze completely, watching my phone’s luminous screen. A part of me told me to jump at the chance and answer the call promptly. A more twisted part of me found pleasure in all this and wanted me to let it marinate. The phone suddenly stopped ringing, showing me the missed call pop up. It immediately started ringing again giving away Rehman’s desperation. I picked it up and rasped ecstatically “Hello?”Rehman sighed and responded, “Hello? Salaam alaikum?”“Walaikum salaam! I’m fine! What about you and the family?”“We are all fine thanks. Are you free right now? Can we talk?”“Yes please, tell me? ”“It’s about the Revenue Authority, remember we-““Better we don’t talk about it over the network. Let me call you back on WhatsApp.” I interrupted.“Yes shit! Or better still we could talk in person?” He asked.“I don’t mind that.” I replied. Rehman then went ahead to request my presence at their processing plant for cooking oil at industrial area.I was ushered into the conference room to find Rehman, his two brothers and a third man who I guess was their consultant already seated and engaging in heated arguments.They all hushed up as I neared them confidently and took a seat opposite them. I greeted them noisily with my voice bouncing off the almost empty room. Their replies were restrained and almost robotic. They all looked at me with shameless scrutiny and suspicion.“Okay guys, tell me what’s up?” I spoke and pretended to pan my gaze across the room to fool them I had not noticed the uneasy air all around us.“First, thank you for coming, young man.” Rehman started clearing his throat.“I can’t believe this! You are trusting him?! He’s Esmail’s blood for God’s sake!” Yusuf chipped in incredulously.“Shut up! WILL YOU PLEASE SHUT UP! WE DONT HAVE A CHOICE RIGHT NOW! WE HAVE TRIED EVERYTHING!” Rehman shouted viciously at his brother.“You are committing a grave mistake Rehman. We can’t possibly trust him!” Yusuf argued further.“Well at least I don’t blow it all away in gambling!” Rehman sneered, then glanced at me and shut his eyes in regret.Yusuf. Gambling. “Note that down” I said to myself in my mind.I sported a sheepish look on my face as silence creep-ed into the room briefly.“I’m sorry about that. The actual reason we have called you here is that two weeks ago when we had dinner together you were kind enough to mention you deal with the Revenue Authority a lot?” Rehman spoke slowly but clearly.“Yes. That is correct.” I replied.“How far is your reach on them?” He enquired.“Well, that depends on what your troubles are?” I countered.“We can’t disclose that to you-“ their consultant stammered, speaking for the first time but stopped by Rehman who waved his hand at him.“Get rid of him.” I told myself mentally.“Up until roughly ten days ago everything was going fine. We had even negotiated an amount for the assessment as well as the kickback.” Rehman continued.“I’m sorry but I will need more information than this. What did the assessment entail? With who did you negotiate? And how much was the assessment and the facilitation money?” I replied dryly. They all exchanged glances with each other.“The problem is that for the past ten days or so the only answer we get from all of them is that they can’t find our file and it’s misplaced. We thought they are trying to hint at more so we even upped our offer on the kickback but they still give us the same damn answer.” Rehman explained.“What did the assessment entail?” I asked again.“All taxes.”“Who did you negotiate with?”“The big man himself.”“The commissioner?!” I exclaimed, chuckling.Rehman nodded slowly, smiling wryly.“How much?” I pushed on.“Three hundred thousand dollars on the assessment and another hundred thousand for him.” He replied.“That’s a lot.”“The actual assessment was for nine hundred thousand.”“Hmmm…” I faked a thoughtful look on my face.“I’m afraid I will have to go through your file. Spend a night on it, sleep on it and we can touch base tomorrow?” I continued.Rehman looked at his consultant with a “I told you so” look.“Don’t! Don’t do this Rehman, please. You are bringing in unnecessary publicity into this matter.” The consultant pleaded.Rehman just turned to look at me straight faced and said, “Fine. We touch base tomorrow at eight?”“Let’s make it nine.”He reciprocated with a smile as the consultant walked to where I was seated and handed me a red spring file.I took the file mechanically from his hand and stood up glancing at my watch.“You must be getting late” Rehman quipped and I nodded. We exchanged handshakes and I was led out by the consultant.I looked at my eyes in the rear view mirror of my car as I brought it to a smooth halt in the parking of my residence. My breathing slowly turned raspy and my heart thudded against the walls of my chest as it suddenly dawned on me that what I wanted to do was now a possibility instead of a mere wonderment. I took a deep and vocal breath and announced all my mental notes as I watched myself in the mirror:“Yusuf! Gambling!”“The Consultant! Get rid of him!”“Hassan! The Third brother! Was unusually quiet the entire time! Find out more about him!”I grabbed the spring file from the passenger seat and alighted.I found out that the file was meticulously referenced and cross referenced as I paged through it in the comfort of my man cave. The entire file was photo-stat which meant that the original file was still in the Consultant’s possession.The file, in short, basically evidenced tax evasion amounting to USD 900,000 on the most recent financial year. It gave proofs of undeclared labour, trading and acquisitions. There were many copies of payment vouchers, cross border invoices and ownership agreements. The serene environment of my room was interrupted with clinking footsteps of my wife. She adored anklets and wore them all day. A sure sign of insanity according to my mother. She gracefully placed a thermos of coffee on my study table and stood there watching me with her hands on her child bearing hips.“So you gonna be doing this all day?” She asked. Her African dialect always had a certain sense of air which I found erotically sexy but many others mistook it for arrogance.“I will be done in a couple of hours.” I replied without looking at her. Years of courting her had taught me that ignoring her always made her more needy for me.“Okay, I will do some reading of my own in the bedroom. Once you are done I am going to be needing you and your bad boys all day today.” She responded as she walked out. I lifted my eyes to watch her behind beneath her silk trousers and sighed. I can genuinely make her laugh and her voluptuousness never ceased to distract me. Why do I need revenge? I asked myself.