30/07/2025
February 22, 2015.
A warm Sunday afternoon in Melbourne.
My house—our house—was dressed like a shrine. Black ribbons hung on the gates, photos of me smiling lined the hallway, and a table out front held burning candles, bowls of white flowers, and a framed sign that read:
“In Loving Memory of Our Dear Sister, Mother, Wife—. Sunrise: 1983 – Sunset: 2015”
Sunset?????????????????????
They thought I had set.
But the sun was about to rise—right into their faces.
From across the street, hidden in a rental car with tinted windows, I watched the show. I wasn’t alone. A close friend of mine who knew everything sat in the passenger seat beside me, her hands trembling in her lap.
People were already arriving.
Lots of people.
Church members. Friends. Co-workers. Extended family. Community elders. Women dressed in gele and white lace. Men in crisp black suits. Children clinging to their mothers’ skirts, whispering about “the woman who died far away.”
A choir from our local church began singing softly under a white tent in the yard:
🎶 "A o fi iku s’eru, a o fi iku s’eru… we shall not fear death..." 🎶
And there he was.
Ben.🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
The grieving husband.
Wearing a black agbada. Gold embroidery on the sleeves. Sunglasses hiding eyes that held no real tears. He walked among mourners, clutching tissues, hugging people, shaking his head with deep sighs as if to say, “Life is cruel.”
Cruel?
He was cruelty.
🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑
I heard someone give a short eulogy. A woman I barely knew stood before the crowd and wept dramatically into the microphone.
“She was an angel. She fed us when we were hungry. She sang in the choir like heaven was her audience. She lived well and died too soon…”
I wanted to laugh.
I wanted to scream.
But mostly… I wanted him to look me in the eyes and choke on the lie.
Then came the final moment.
The closing prayer.
“We commend our sister’s soul to eternal peace. May her spirit find rest.”
Rest?
No.
I was just getting started.
At exactly 7:34 p.m., after the last hymn echoed into silence and people started to head to their cars, I stepped out.
I left the rental door open.
My heels clicked across the pavement like gunshots.
Heads turned.
Gasps ripped through the air.
People dropped their food. A woman fainted.
And there he stood—Ben—at the edge of the driveway, his back turned, still chatting with a church elder.
I cleared my throat.
“Beloved husband,” I said loudly, “do I look dead to you?”
He turned slowly.
His face was a full-blown crime scene.
Pale. Ashy. Drenched in sweat.
Eyes wide like he’d just seen a demon rise from hell.
Someone in the crowd screamed. Another shouted “Jesu!”
Some ran. Others froze.
He stumbled back two steps and reached for the gate, as if to flee—only to find two police officers emerging from the shadows.
“Mr. Kalumba,” one of them said. “We need to have a word with you.”
He didn’t move.
Didn’t blink.
“You’re… y-you’re not supposed to be here,” he stammered.
“Neither is my coffin,” I snapped.
Someone in the crowd—maybe a cousin—pulled out their phone and began filming.
The video would later go viral in the Congolese WhatsApp groups:
💥💥 A woman, alive and fuming, storming her own funeral with audio recordings, a police es**rt, and enough fury to set fire to every lie ever spoken in that yard.💥💥
I walked past mourners, past my own framed photo on the memory table.
I took it.
Smashed it on the floor.
And said, “You had a funeral without a body. Here’s your body, Ben. Let’s bury your lies now.”
The crowd was stunned. Some cried out in disbelief. Others backed away in shame.
Ben collapsed to his knees, muttering prayers that were far too late for a man like him.
That night, Melbourne Police took Ben into custody.
And the community? Well, it split in two.
Half were in awe of me.
The other half?
Let’s talk about them in the next episode.
💣💣💣💣💣💣💣💣💣💣💣💣💣💣💣
The morning after I “rose from the dead,” Melbourne woke up with something new to whisper about.
I opened my eyes to sunlight pouring through the curtain of a safe house the police had moved me into—somewhere far from the neighborhood I used to call home. My children were still asleep in the next room, their little bodies curled like commas in their borrowed beds.
I stared at the ceiling.
Alive. Yes.
But something in me had changed.
I wasn’t Noella Kalumba anymore.
I was the widow who walked in.
💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥
📱 “You should’ve stayed dead.”
The messages started that same day.
Anonymous numbers. Blocked callers. Fake social media profiles.
Some called me a liar. Others called me a disgrace. One message read:
“Shame on you. Your husband needed you dead for a reason.”
Another:
“You humiliated a man of God. May you die for real.”
But the worst part?
Some came from people I knew.
People I had hugged. Shared meals with.
People who had called me “sister” in church.
Now, they were calling me witch, traitor, Judas.
Why?
Because I’d dared to survive.
Because I’d reported a respected man—a man of God—to the police.
They didn’t care that he paid to have me murdered.
They only cared that I’d embarrassed him by surviving.
The Congolese community in Melbourne began buzzing like a hornet’s nest.
I was accused of destroying a man’s legacy.
One woman from church cornered me at a grocery store.
“You should have kept quiet and forgiven,” she spat. “Not drag him to police.”
“He tried to KILL me,” I said. “He PAID to bury me alive!”
She waved her hand like I was talking nonsense.
“Even Jesus forgave Judas.”
I stood frozen.
In her mind, I was Judas.
In mine, I was Lazarus.
I didn’t betray anyone.
I just walked out of the grave too soon for their liking.
The real fear didn’t come from words.
It came one night, weeks later, when I returned from work to find the back door of the safe house slightly open.
I hadn’t left it that way.
My children were at school. No one else had access.
I crept in.
Silence. Stillness.
Drawers slightly opened. A shoe missing from under the couch.
No signs of theft. No items taken.
Just the sense that someone had been there—and wanted me to know it.
I called the police.
They came, did their sweep, nodded solemnly.
“Could be intimidation,” one officer said. “Or a warning.”
After that, we were moved again. Farther away. New city. New identities for the kids.
Even my job changed.
I had to shave my hair.
Get a new phone.
Switch churches.
Abandon the community that once embraced me.
But the most painful part?
I couldn’t even visit my own mother’s grave anymore.
I was invisible now.
A ghost haunting a life that was stolen from me.
🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯
🧊 Meanwhile, In Prison…
Ben sat in a concrete cell, serving time for conspiracy to commit my murder.
Nine years.
Not ten.
Not life.
Just nine.
In a decade or less, the man who tried to erase me would be free again—maybe already walking the streets by the time you read this.
I sometimes wonder if he still dreams of finishing the job.
If the next time I open my back door… he’ll be there waiting.
💣💣💣💣💣💣💣💣💣💣💣💣💣💣
Sometimes, the dead leave behind letters.
I brought back a memory card... with hell recorded on it.
It was the last thing they gave me before they dropped me by the roadside like discarded luggage.
A tiny black object.
A memory card.
“This is your insurance,” the shorter hitman muttered, pressing it into my palm.
“Don’t ever lose it.”
At first, I didn’t know what it was.
But when I finally played it, safely tucked into the arms of my pastor’s study with his trembling fingers slipping it into a laptop...
I heard his voice.
My husband's.
Not speaking to me.
But to them.
“Finish it. No mistakes. I don’t want her back here. Ever.”
Then another voice, one of the hitmen:
“You sure? You know this woman well.”
“She’s nobody. Just do it.”
It was as if a thousand nails were driven into my chest.
I hadn’t just imagined it.
It wasn’t a bad dream or a delusion brought on by grief.
He really wanted me dead.
🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀
But that wasn't all.
The memory card had photos. Screenshots.
A money transfer receipt of $7,000 paid to the killers.
Chats.
Text messages.
Dates. Times.
Everything.
Even the timeline of planning going back months—three whole months before the kidnapping.
He hadn’t snapped in the moment.
He’d brewed this like poison tea—quiet, methodical, and patient.
💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥
Two days after the funeral, the police met me in a secure location.
They already had the memory card.
But now, they wanted one more thing.
“We need him to confess… to you. On record.”
I didn’t know if I could do it.
But I had come this far.
So, I called him.
My fingers shook as I dialed his number.
He picked up on the second ring, like he’d been waiting for me.
“Noella…?” he whispered.
Silence.
“You're… alive?”
I wanted to scream.
Cry.
Cuss him into a thousand pieces.
Instead, I calmly said:
“Why, Kalume? Why did you want me dead?”
He exhaled shakily.
“I was afraid… You were going to leave me for another man.”
“So you hired someone to kill me?”
“Yes. But I was weak. I didn’t mean to. Please forgive me.”
The police froze the moment they heard it—a confession.
Live. On tape.
🚫🚫🚫🚫🚫🚫🚫🚫🚫🚫🚫🚫🚫🚫🚫
When he walked into the courtroom weeks later, in an iron-pressed suit and handcuffs, I swear he still tried to look righteous.
His supporters showed up too—half whispering prayers, half throwing me dagger-like stares.
But I didn’t flinch.
When the judge asked if I had evidence, I stood and passed them everything:
The memory card.
The recording.
The payment receipt.
Screenshots of conversations.
The call where he begged for forgiveness after confessing.
It wasn’t a trial.
It was a crushing.
🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
He didn’t cry when the evidence was played.
Not when they read the messages.
Not when the hitmen’s statements were read aloud.
Not even when they described the details of the kidnapping.
But he cried when he realized the judge was unmoved.
Tears of a man who thought he could manipulate justice the way he’d manipulated people.
He was sentenced to nine years in prison.
Not nearly enough, if you ask me.
💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔
They say justice is blind.
But for me, justice had a name.
That tiny black memory card.
And a prayer that the people who tried to bury me would one day realize...
I wasn’t soil. I was seed.
💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥🥂💥💥🥂💥
To be continued....................
Written by Motivation by Adora
