The Radio Cut Off

It was a dreadful morning. I woke up with dysmenorrhea gnawing at my insides. The pain was so intense I had to call in sick at work. I’d already thrown up twice before 9 a.m. and could barely crawl to the bathroom. When I finally dragged myself to the shower, I realized something worse, I had no pads.

Unusual. I always kept my period bag stacked. Then it hit me — Kehinde. She’d taken the last pack during her visit. My best friend had a habit of collecting “souvenirs” whenever she came around. Lip balms, face wipes, and apparently, pads too. I usually didn’t mind, we were sisters like that. But today, I almost resented her. Almost.

I pushed the thought aside. I had no choice but to get dressed and hobble out for a fresh pack, to survive this wave, or at least, this morning.

The first drugstore was still locked. I muttered a swear under my breath.

"Fu—"

A sharp pain stabbed my belly. The swear never made it out.

I waddled further down the street, desperate. About fifteen blocks later, I spotted another shop with its iron doors wide open. Relief washed over me until I realized there was no one behind the counter. Just a medium-sized radio crackling into the morning air.

I turned to leave.

"Shey you dey look for aunty?" a young voice piped from the neighbouring stall. A girl, no older than twelve, stepped out.

“She say make I tell anybody wey come say she don go house to carry something. She go soon come.”

I didn’t have the strength to argue, or to walk farther. She offered me a low wooden stool, and I took it without thinking. She disappeared back into her stall, leaving me there — belly cramping, legs weak, body aching — sitting in front of a half-empty shop and a radio speaking into the void. Then a tiny, syrupy voice came on air. And just like that, my attention shifted completely, to the radio.

"Yes, I went to jail because of my husband's death" the woman’s voice on the radio said, calm but layered with something deeper.

"Hmm.....you mean you murdered your husband?" the presenter echoed, surprised.

"Well" she said, "he already died....... before he died"

"Ha!"

She paused. The silence on air hung heavy.

"What really happened, Nigerians at home are dying to know?" the presenter asked, filling the pause.

"To answer that well, I'd have to start from the beginning......"

Another long pause followed. Her breath was audible now, like she was reliving every second.

Sensing the heaviness, the presenter broke in, his tone soft.

"In case you're just tuning in, this is Dark Waters on 99.1 FM, the show where people share the toughest moments of their lives. We have Omolara with us, who went to jail for the murder of her husband. Stay with us."

He turned back to her, and gently said,

"Please... you can continue."

She heaved a heavy sigh, and the microphone crackled beneath its weight.

"I got married at sixteen," she began, voice steady but heavy.

"It was payment… a way to settle a debt my father owed after a terrible harvest. My husband was the creditor’s son. He had lost his—"

The radio went static. I leaned in instinctively, but it was no use. I missed that part.

A few seconds later, the signal returned.

"So I became the perfect replacement. A consolation prize. A castaway for a ship that I never wrecked."

Her voice softened again.

"Madam, please move closer to the mic," the presenter urged.

She obeyed. Her voice came back stronger, almost too clear.

"On our nuptial night," she said slowly, "my husband broke my jaw… not my virginity."

A beat of stunned silence followed.

"He didn’t want me. He married me out of duty to his father. The woman he truly loved died in that accident. And I… I was just a misfit. A replacement. A living symbol of everything he lost."

Despite the cramps twisting in my belly and the absence of the shop owner, I couldn’t tear myself away from the radio. Her story pulled me in like a slow-burning fire.

She described her husband as "a perfect man full of imperfections"—grief-warped and broken.

He built her… then broke her. Allowed her to go to school… then stripped her of confidence. He gave her wings… and cut them mid-flight.

"He was an exploding bomb. Always angry, always brooding, always fidgety. I never saw his teeth unless he was bellowing. I never saw his smile. I never saw his light. He was lost… and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find him. He was dead inside, and I couldn’t resuscitate him. Our home never knew the sound of laughter. But we stuck together like spirogyra on damp walls, unwanted, yet unweeded. He blamed me for everything that followed. Said I caged him. That I blocked the air he breathed. He would say, 'Even when I die, you won’t find peace.’ But I endured. I persevered. Until one day… we broke. He broke dead. And my freedom… snapped."

As she exhaled that last line, “Fele fele la ye” hummed quietly through the radio, its haunting melody lacing the silence.

The presenter, voice almost hushed, leaned into into the moment:

"Omolara... please, go on."

Omolara’s voice returned, low but steady.

"My husband died in the early hours of October 5th. His lips were cracked. His tongue had a purplish hue. The veins in his eyes bulged like someone who had wrestled with death in the dark."

It was his younger sister who noticed the signs first. She insisted on an autopsy.

The results? Clonidine overdose. A drug that, when taken in excess, triggers dangerously low blood pressure, seizures… cardiac arrest. It was mine. Prescribed for my anxiety and relentless insomnia, when thoughts became knives and sleep fled my eyes.

We never entertained visitors. No domestic staff. He’d been perfectly healthy the day before. And now? The drug was found in his leftover food. The food I had served. It wasn’t hard to put the pieces together. And I... I had the perfect motive."

Just then, a robotic female voice with an American accent pierced the moment:

"Battery low. Please charge."

The presenter, clearly stunned, cleared his throat.

"Wow. That must have been an incredibly heavy burden. So… is that how you ended up in prison? How long were you sentenced for?"

Omolara scoffed.

"Sentence? I was never sentenced. I was on trial...for eight years. Eight years of rotting in pain, buried in silence. I was forgotten. Not convicted. Not acquitted. Just… left. I took it all in. Like penance, for my father’s debt. For my husband’s pain. But one day, everything changed. On my birthday, I had a visitor. That had never happened before. I was a plague...unwanted. Untouchable. A canker. But she came."

The presenter leaned closer.

"Who was the visi—?"

"Battery low. Please charge."

Omolara pressed on.

"It was my sister-in-law. She brought a letter. One he wrote before he died. It was suicide. A final performance in cruelty. He wanted me to suffer after his death. Said it clearly. He knew what he was doing. And she—his sister—held onto that letter. For eight was years. She only brought it when she thought I'd paid enough. There was—"

"Battery low. Power off."

The radio died.

A voice snapped me out of the trance.

"E kaaro, ma."

It was the shop owner. She apologized for keeping me waiting, but I didn’t flinch. I couldn’t speak. I just raised a finger toward the pink bag of Softcare on the shelf and paid in silence.

The cramps returned. But it was my chest that hurt the most, from the dread of what I’d just heard.

I didn’t even care that the radio cut off.

Sometimes, what haunts the most isn’t our own pain, but the realization that someone out there has suffered more, unjustly, silently, for years. We complain when life feels stagnant, when fulfillment seems so far away. But then you hear a story like hers, someone who spent her youth enduring a sentence she didn’t deserve, serving time for a confession that was never hers.

Oh my... things are happening. I walked home slowly.

My belly clenched with pain.

My mind... blank.

And my heart?

Heavy.

AUTHOR: WANDE

EDITOR: ABDULSALAM SULEMAN ADINOI