I could have been born and raised in Africa. But my Spirit was in too much of a rush

to be reincarnated. Instead I borrowed the body of a Nigerian woman who was trying 

to escape her life by setting sail to the land of Milk and Honey.

I jumped inside her body by mistake. I thought I saw two lovers

making out in a bed of flowers strewn along the river banks of Oshun. So I

said to myself, here’s the opportunity I’ve just been waiting for. I inhabited her

womb in the hope that this time round I would be a love child.

Last time I was aborted at three months, pierced through the uterus by a

knitting needle. I was the 11th child. The children before me had used up all my

parent’s time and financial resources. And so I vowed this time I would be the

first, conceived out of true love to ensure my survival and wealth.

Unknown to me, this woman had given birth before. She had dumped a girl

aged four onto her relatives who lived in the outskirts of Lagos. Arriving pregnant in

England was most definitely not this Nigerian woman’s plan. However, in my past

life I had learned the reasons why women opted for abortion. So this time I played

dead in the woman’s stomach to avoid termination.  Until one day a

Doctor said: “Sorry Miss Charles it’s not fibroid cysts after all. It’s a 20-week

healthy baby snuggled up inside your womb.”

I could tell from her heartbeat that she resented the fact I had chosen her,

and knew she wanted me out of her body as soon as possible. Her blood was red

with fury and whipped its way through the umbilical cord, as if I was being flogged

to death. I realised then; I had made a blunder. It was not love, which was bringing

me into the world, but hate. She had been a victim of rape.

    

So my impatience got me into trouble, and I’ve been paying for it ever 

since. Should have remained dead until it was my appropriate time to be reborn. But

I was restless. I had been roaming in the ether for hundreds of years, and I thought

it was about time I was reborn. So I could only hope that I was smart enough to

choose a rebirth with the potential to change my lot.

I was cut out before my time, five weeks too early.   I arrived before the

festive season. Aged six weeks I was chucked out into the new year of 1965,

which wasn’t prepared to welcome an unwanted African baby, abandoned on a

harsh English winter’s day.