paradise comes with a Price

Chapter eleven: Epilepsy

Be strong, sometimes not all things fall our ways
_salamatullah

Chapter eleven

It was the 40th day of Baba today and kulthum truly wants to go to katsina but she was sick and stressed out due to her early pregnancy, right now she was on her bed talking with amma through the phone.

“Masa da mukayi order ne ya iso…barin duba (the masa that we ordered has arrived…let me check)” amma said through the phone

“amma ina haleem? (Amma where is haleem) I called his line earlier it wasn’t going) asked kulthum

“They just left with your husband, just now” Amma said picking a warmer from the kitchen

Hammad came? He goes to katsina? She mentally murmured but blurred it out and kept on talking to amma in the phone.

It was on the seventh day of Baba's death that kulthum fainted and went unconscious, she was taken to the hospital and after some tests were pass through  they learned that she was two weeks pregnant. Actually things became tougher for her because she just started with her MSc along with one six months physiotherapy self-paced lesson, and now there is pregnancy on top of them all.

Later on time, after she was done cooking rice and vegetable stew, she began to clean out the plates and spoons she washed few minutes earlier. She was still on it when her phone rang and she kept the small towel on the a plate and ran to her phone.

“Hello” she greeted

“hey, sorry I missed your call something came up and I had to go to katsina beside the point today is also Baba's forty days” he finally fed her curiosity

“Ah…kulthum?” he called and she murmured a hmm standing against a dining chair

“I might be late tonight so don’t wait up for me, okay?”

“But why? Work?”

“well kind of”         “okay sure…safe flight, I love you”

The following day swept with hammad not coming back home and his phone was also off, kulthum couldn’t stay still so she called attahir to check whether everything is good or not, and basically attahir told her that everything is well it’s just that yesterday was cloudy and there is no way for a plane to flew. Still she felt as if something was off but shoved away the doubts and kept on with her daily routine.

It was all awkward and absurd when hammad returned back home in the late evening, he came back but didn’t say a word and kulthum has been asking him multiple of questions, trying to cheer him but he was being a weirdo and acting bossy.

“Babe what’s wrong? Are you mad at something? Did someone did you wrong?” she kept on asking randomly

“I am okay”  he whispered enough for her to hear

The evening goes on like that, lacking dexterity and maladroit, he never see the need to tell her what was wrong and that only made her anxious and restless. And now they were on the bed looking opposite direction, and that was when the bed started to shake.

“Kulthum!!”  he screamed trying to lift her up

“Innalillahi…what have I done?”       “kulthum!...” he kept on yelling her name as if she would get up and answer him

He immediately picked up his phone and called Jonathan to prepare the car. He tried his possible best not to leaped over her and carried her on his arm and descended downstairs hastily, He's been reciting different du'a in the car until they arrived in the Teaching hospital Lagos, if not for the seizure you would say he was the one with epilepsy due to how he was sweating and saying only god knows what.