BORROWED BEAUTY
EPISODE ONE
Written by tales with barbee
In a quiet village named Krokro. surrounded by red earth roads and tall palm trees, there lived a woman named Chizzy.
Everyone in the village knew her.
Not because she was important.
Not because she was rich.
But because she was unwanted.
Chizzy was thirty years old, unmarried, and childless. In a village where girls married at sixteen and became mothers before twenty, her age alone was already a crime. But age was not her only problem.
Chizzy was very skinny, with long bony arms and narrow shoulders. Her legs were thin like dry sticks. Her face was sharp, her cheekbones too high, her eyes sunken from years of worry. Her skin was rough, cracked by sun and hardship. People whispered that even soap avoided her face.
Women mocked her behind her back.
Men didn’t even bother hiding their disgust.
Whenever Chizzy walked past a group of men, they would fall silent, then burst into laughter once she passed.
“Who will marry that one?” someone would say.
“Even a mad man will reject her,” another would reply.
Some children openly pointed at her and ran away, calling her “Auntie bonga fish.”
Chizzy heard everything.
She always heard everything.
She lived alone in a small mud house at the edge of the village, inherited from her late parents. Her mother died when Chizzy was eighteen. Her father followed two years later. Since then, life had been a long road of loneliness.
Every morning, Chizzy woke up before sunrise. She swept her compound, fetched water from the stream, cooked simple food, and went to the market to sell vegetables. She worked hard, yet she was always poor. Whatever money she made went into feeding herself and fixing the old house.
At night, she slept alone.
No husband’s breathing beside her.
No child’s cry to wake her.
Only silence.
Sometimes she lay on her mat and stared at the roof, wondering what crime she committed in her past life to deserve this kind of punishment.
She prayed. She fasted. She cried. But nothing changed.
In Krokro village, a woman without a husband was seen as incomplete.
During festivals, married women sat together, laughing, discussing their children and husbands. Chizzy always sat alone. No one invited her into their circle.
When someone’s child fell sick, women gathered to pray. Chizzy prayed too, but quietly, far away, as if her presence might contaminate the prayer.
During weddings, she helped cook and wash plates. People thanked her but never looked at her properly.
She had learned how to smile without happiness.
She had learned how to swallow insults.
She had learned how to pretend she didn’t care.
But deep inside, her heart was breaking every single day.
More than anything, Chizzy wanted to be loved. She wanted to be chosen. Just once.
One afternoon, when Chizzy was returning from the market with her basket half empty, she noticed a man walking beside her.
He was tall and well-built, with a confident smile. His clothes were neat, and he smelled like expensive soap. He greeted her politely.
“Good afternoon, my sister.”
Chizzy was shocked.
Men rarely greeted her, let alone walked beside her.
She answered shyly, “Good afternoon.”
They walked together in silence for a while before the man spoke again.
“My name is Titus . I just moved to this village.”
Chizzy nodded, her heart beating fast.
Over the next few days, Titus began to visit her. He came in the evenings, sat on a wooden stool outside her house, and talked to her.
No man had ever done that before.
He told her she was kind.
He said she was hardworking.
He even said she had inner beauty.
Those words alone were enough to make Chizzy feel alive again.
She began to smile more.
She began to dress better.
She began to hope.
Titus slowly gained her trust.
One day, he held her hand.
Chizzy froze.
Her whole body shook.
No man had touched her like that before.
“I want to marry you,” Titus said softly.
Chizzy’s world stopped.
Tears filled her eyes.
She knelt down immediately and thanked God.
She believed her suffering was finally over.
TO BE CONTINUED……
