If ONLY They KNEW Why This TRIPLETS Always Dress in Red Only
The Red Curse of Oama
In the quiet town of Oama, a striking sight turned heads: three identical triplet girls, dressed head to toe in vibrant red. Their smooth, river-stone skin and wide, knowing eyes captivated onlookers, but it was their relentless red attire—wrappers, beads, shoes, and headscarves—that sparked curiosity and unease. At first, the townsfolk thought it was a quirk, perhaps their mother Blessing’s love for the color. But as weeks turned to months and years, the unyielding red became a mystery, then a source of whispers, mockery, and fear.
“Why always red?” the townspeople murmured. Only Mama Aima, the town cloth weaver, dared to ask Blessing directly by the stream one scorching Thursday. “Is red now a uniform in your house?” she teased. Blessing’s calm face belied the depth in her eyes—neither sad nor angry, but heavy with unspoken truth. “I do what I must,” she replied, leading her silent daughters away like shadows trailing a flame. The whispers grew louder.
Blessing hadn’t always been so enigmatic. Once, at 20, she was Oama’s radiant bride, married to Obina, a humble trader who adored her. Their first year brimmed with dreams, but by the third, their childless home echoed with silence. Obina’s mother grew impatient, muttering about Blessing’s failure to bear a child. “You better not let your silence destroy my son’s future,” she snapped. Family whispers turned to pressure: “Obina is young. Let him try someone else.” Though Obina defended Blessing at first, by the fifth year, his warmth faded. He stopped singing, stopped playing with her hair, and slept facing the wall.
Desperate, Blessing sought answers in city hospitals, but tests showed nothing wrong. By the sixth year, the silence in their home was suffocating. Obina’s mother stormed in one evening, accusing Blessing of barrenness. Soon after, Obina brought home Oyoma, a vibrant young woman whose pregnancy within months felt like a knife to Blessing’s heart. The family’s cruel words—“When one tree is dry, another brings fruit”—pushed Blessing to her limit. She packed her clothes, laid their wedding picture face down, and left without a word, returning to her father’s cracked-wall home.
There, her stepmother, Mama Nenna, whom Blessing blamed for her mother’s death, urged her to see a herbalist. “There’s more to this than the eyes can see,” Mama Nenna insisted. Blessing, bitter and distrustful, refused, accusing her of dark intentions. A year later, hope rekindled when Blessing met Etchona, a kind contractor from Enugu. His gentle presence healed her wounds, and within six months, they married quietly. Four months later, Blessing discovered she was pregnant. Overjoyed, she and Etchona prepared for their child, painting rooms and buying baby clothes—many in red, a color Blessing began to favor.
Tragedy struck at seven months when Blessing miscarried. Devastated, she lay on the earth, her wrapper stained, her silent grief shaking her chest. Mama Nenna appeared, sitting beside her without words. This time, Blessing agreed to follow her to a herbalist in Achi, deep in a still forest. The old herbalist, with steady hands and clear eyes, listened to her story. He handed her three white cowry necklaces, declaring, “Your womb has been rejected by the world, but not by spirits.” He instructed her to wear red—wrapper, plate, bedsheet, candle—and, when her babies arrived, to dress them in red daily, with the cowries never removed. “Babies?” Blessing whispered, confused. “I said what I said,” he replied, ending the meeting.
Two months later, Blessing was pregnant again. She followed the herbalist’s instructions meticulously, keeping her pregnancy secret, even from Etchona. At four months, a clinic visit revealed she carried triplets. Overwhelmed with joy and fear, she doubled down on the ritual: red everything, no explanations. When her water broke at seven months, she gave birth at home to three girls—Favor, Amarachi, and Nancy. Each received a cowry necklace, red beads, and red socks, their lives bound to the color from that moment.
The triplets grew like corn after rain, each unique yet inseparable: Favor walked first, Amarachi spoke first, Nancy danced before crawling. Their laughter filled the compound, but their red attire never wavered. The town’s curiosity turned to suspicion—some called it a charm, others a vow with forest spirits. Teachers urged Blessing to let them wear white for sports day, but she refused. “My children wear red,” she said, offering no further explanation.
As the girls reached university, the weight of their red prison grew heavier. Favor lost a job opportunity due to her cowry necklace, deemed against the dress code. Nancy’s art was rejected at a showcase, her red dress and cowry mistaken for a burial symbol. Amarachi, the soft-hearted one, fell in love with Kofi, a Ghanaian who questioned her constant red. “If we’re serious, maybe it’s time to let it go,” he said. That night, Amarachi’s resolve wavered. She donned a navy blue dress, removed her cowry, and stepped outside, feeling free for the first time. But by her tenth step, she collapsed, convulsing, her body betraying her. Despite the hospital’s efforts, Amarachi died, her body fine but her spirit “pulled away,” as a doctor whispered.
In the hospital, Blessing revealed the herbalist’s prophecy: one daughter would remove the red and die, breaking the bond for the others. “She was the gate,” Blessing said, her voice steady but eyes heavy. “She set you both free.” Favor and Nancy, devastated, buried their sister. The red dresses vanished, the cowries sealed in a box. Favor embraced jeans, Nancy dyed her hair, but each year, on Amarachi’s death day, they wore red—not as a curse, but to honor the sister who paid for their freedom.
This tale of Oama weaves love, sacrifice, and the weight of unspoken vows, leaving us to ponder the cost of breaking invisible chains.
