You are an Extension of Art…
A Story by Enitan Ojulari
The Beautiful Archenemy
Just about drinking from the river, it dried up and forever kept me puzzling over the mystery behind its already tasted taste.
Miss Kenneth, only 2 hours left to get her relieved' informed the doctor taking care of mom’s serious ailment, assertedly! As a hot tear of gloom and grief dropped down my eyes onto the pale and almost inert right leg of mom, whose existence had been a true paradigm of melancholy in my life, for it left me wining and dining in a lifetime of agony. Yes. Yes. Adversity in its archetype!
The story heard was that my dad had long died before my birth. So, I didn’t even know who he was, and my mom who should be in a better place to tell me a description of his look and the kind of character, charm, and charisma he possessed was also ignorant of all these.
"I was raped by an unknown villager on my way to the stream, but men hunting in the bush path which I followed, came around to rescue me and bring the perpetrator down at the point of taking to his heels. They never thought of shooting him but he held a dangerous weapon with which he was willing to strike down my saviours and me, so the hunters had no choice but send him home, home to meet his ancestors."
So, I was raised by a single mother in a miserable world. I was only 12 when mom began this serious ailment, I had no idea about taking her to the hospital and I single-handedly took care of her with a herbal concoction, thinking it was an ailment that would disappear in no time, but when it persisted, I had no choice than calling onto our neighbours. She was rushed to the hospital and the neighbours tried raising some cash for her treatment. Mom was admitted on the cash raised, and yes! To attest to the truth, the doctor had also been trying his best to wipe off my tears. It was now two months since she had been lying helplessly on the sick bed. The doctor confessed to having exerted all in his capacity and he knew not what he could do any longer. He resorted to seeking the service of a more competent medical expert and when all advanced tests were being carried out, it was discovered that she was suffering from the sophomore stage of cholera, which was the stage of collapse, as sunken eyes, hollow cheeks, scaphoid abdomen, absent pulse, unrecordable blood pressure, shallow and quick respiration among other symptoms identified with the stage were all she was diagnosed of and as it was, she had only two hours chance of being survived if all requirements could be met up with.
" I exclaimed, facing the doctor that had been there all along.
Looking within me, I knew I have wrecked the doctor both financially and psychologically. So, I knew no amount of my weeping will have him stretch any more helping hand to me. Even if he was willing, the circumstances wouldn’t allow him. A husband and father of three in this Nigeria of a nation.
At the point of knowing the reality, I reminisced about an uncle of mine living some miles away from the hospital. Though mom wouldn’t always allow me to go and complain anything to him for reasons best known to her, that was a different situation for we were already in deep water, and letting mom die was the last thing on my mind at that moment. The miles between the hospital and my uncle’s house equalled only 35mins of drive, though it varied in respect to the means of transportation used and the state of the road, but something within kept on assuring me that I would meet up. So, I calculated meeting up with the 2 hours and I was much optimistic I wouldn’t come empty-handed. I left mom’s sunken eyes and got to my Uncle’s in no time. As assured, Grace was shown to me. So, I was given half of the money with the hope of it getting the doctors into action in the meantime.
My uncle was set to go on a tour when I reached his house, so we couldn’t talk at length, I only got the money and set to go back, but just as I was hoping the gods were kind to me, I concurrently realized that not all natural thing is appealing. Just immediately when I left his presence, this heavy rain began. Damnit! At first, I was hoping to get a bike to beat the time and avoid any hindrance the rain might want to cause the situation, but the more it rained, the less the possibility of getting any ride, still hoping the rain would stop, I set to get it on to the hospital on my foot. With an optimistic mind, I was walking and ran as fast as I could but the rain, instead of dancing to my tune became more threatening as everywhere became dismal, cloudy, and dusky. Trucks, motors, vehicles and everything moving on the road couldn’t be seen anymore by me, as weariness had had my two eyes dimmed and helplessness almost blindfolded me. It was only the Vroom Vroom and hmmmmmm sound of the motors and heavy trucks I could hear, respectively. I knew going on with my trekking was dangerous in such a situation, but the doctor’s voice of 'only 2 hours left to revive her was all ringing in my brains like tinnitus and reechoing in my hearings like the ticktock of a wall clock and so I was pushed to go on, on, on my foot.
In a range of time, I could guess as only 10 mins to the hospital, I knew nothing that happened except myself hearing a big sound of a speedy truck knocking someone down, though I could smell the blood of myself, you know, the kind emitted from slaughtering when raining. And it rained, rained, and continued raining. The reality that my mom’s spirit was standing very next to me was subsequently established in me.
All that happened remained obscure, I only met myself lying on a bed beside a dead woman’s bed, which I was told was mom. But I couldn’t even recollect her face, for I have lost all memories of recovery. When asked by the doctors if I could remember anything, "And it rains, rains and continues raining" was all I kept on reiterating.
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Author
Enitan Ojulari is an aspiring writer and a member of the Hilltop Creative Art Foundation, Lagos chapter. A Mass Communication student at the Ogun State Institute of Technology.
She is a lover of nature and all therein. Enitan is from Kwara State but currently stays with her parents in Ogun State.
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