Hell In A Cell- A Tall Tale

Chasing After The Wind

Everyone hates Sunday morning. Well maybe not everyone, maybe the people I know. There is always a soothing breeze that cools the whole house, making it ice-cold and making you glue to your bed with sleep that feels like sugar on Sundays. That moment while on bed, you are singing melodiously to a song you never knew and can’t write its lyrics and others decides to join you adding bass, tremble and tenor to the tune that is when the unfortunate alarm clock would remember to ring. Everyone would stop singing and start tilting on the bed.

         To us the alarm only informed us that it was about time  to get ready to stand up because if we haven’t heard the opening of the door lock of Mr. and Mrs. Ubong’s room door, we are just getting started. The last time we tried adjusting the alarm time backwards and everyone woke up some minutes past eight. Mr. Ubong (Meshach father) suspected a foul play but with a joint effort, we were able to convince him that the battery of the alarm might have gotten weak. He bought our good but no one was willing to sell another on another occasion.
Chores were done and we drove down to the kingdom hall about two kilometers from home. We got there in time and exchanged pleasantries with other members of the congregation.
       “Oh sister we didn’t see you last Sunday, hope all is well?” Sister Ajetunmobi, a short chubby dark skinned Yoruba woman asked as she stretched her hands towards another sister, opening her mouth wide which made her front teeth show. She had a gap tooth.
“Yes o! My sister, I travelled home, just got back yesterday” the lady she was talking to, a tall skinny women with a baby tied to her back replied holding her hands and looking at her in the eyes as they smiled at each other. Dresses of different tribes and cultures were worn and today Meshach and I had decided to put on Jalamia and jackets like the Hausas.
“Ahn! Ahn! Malam Gandoki and Mr. Shekau” Abel, a thick, average height black boy called with a smile as he untangled the microphone wires at the electronics and bookstand.
“Hope you’ve not come to blow up our place of worship?” he asked jokingly and we all laughed. Meshach wore a black suede jacket on a grey Jalamia, an ash coloured trousers rested on his designers “H” tagged suede shoe and on his head was a suede black cap. His wrist had a golden watch, which matched with his spectacles and the “H” tag.
I wore a black suede jacket on a white Jalamia with a black trouser under on a black shoe. A black cap covered my head and I had a black chain watch on my wrist.
We walked to our sit and eyes from people around stared at us but we looked as though we didn’t notice. It was a custom to shake hands with everyone before the program commenced so we quickly did that after dropping our handbags. The instrumental of our kingdom melodies played in a solo underneath our indistinct voices. When the clock finally ticked nine, one of the elders (the elders were a group of men given the opportunity to lead the congregation) mounted the platform and one of the attendants stoop to adjust the microphone to his mouth level.

“Brothers and sisters welcome to today’s service meeting, we would love you to stand if you can and join in singing song number…”
                                                                      ***
        I returned to the hostel hours later, bidding my cell phone, Mr., Mrs. Ubong goodbye, and thank you for their kind gesture. They decided to drive me down to the hostel, putting my luggage in the car trunk. As we moved, I peeped out of the window checking common places I might not be seeing for the next six months.
       When we finally got to the hostel, Mr. Raymond opened the gate happily waving to us in the car. From a distance, I could see Skabio and Miss Bimbo at the hostel entrance, frowning as they searched the arriving boarders in. Their bags were opened with notes popping out and provisions roughly arranged in sacks and nylon bags. By my side in the car was Big Bro and Meshach while Mr. Ubong drove while his wife sat beside him.

      When we descended from the car, Big Bro said, “You have to behave well and make everyone proud.”  He said as he joined me in packing my stuffs from the car. Meshach had my provisions sack on his hand.
         Last Friday we all went to visit my ailing mom at FMC (Federal Medical Center) Abeokuta. It was a three and a half hour journey and in the car I was in, was Big Bro, Meshach, Brother Ocholo- the man who drove the car, a member of the congregation and a family friend to the Ubongs along with Brother Akinwunmi- the congregation coordinator.
         It was my first time of visiting Abeokuta, even if it was in the same state I lived in. It looked far more fascinating as the capital city of the state than the usual rowdy, dusty and dirty Ota filled with potholes on both major and minor roads that was barely avoidable. As you tried to avoid one, the one you are falling into is worse, making everyone in the car bump up and down. If you aren’t careful you would nod someone else’s head with yours. We managed to get through into heart of Ogun. There were times when all we saw was thick buses and tall trees. Trees that were so tall that you could assume they were touching the clouds and mirages formed ahead of the speeding vehicle.
        Abeokuta looked fascinating than Ota by far. There were so many things I had never seen before in my life that I saw that day hawked or placed on a table for sale.
“That thing that boy is carrying on his head in white-tied nylon is called Wara. It is fried milk. It was my best snack when I was young,” Bro Akinwunmi pointed, making all of us at the back turn to see. He was a tall, slender man with grey hair sprinkled over his head. He had scanty beards and always wore a type of eyeglasses that covered all his eye sockets. We went over a bridge were we saw a part of river Ogun. It looked greenish yellow and narrowed away making it look unending.
        “During raining season, the river can get so full to the extent that it might almost be on the same level with the bridge”  Brother Akinwunmi added, throwing pop-corns into his opened mouth which  he purchased some minutes ago from one of the hawkers that chased moving vehicles. He whistled then a young boy looking barely eight chased our vehicle until he bought the pop corn in exchange for fifty Naira and then we sped off.
                                                                  ***
         Bulldozers, forklifts, tractors and other construction machines and vehicles were busy on the left hand side of the road that led to the gate of the hospital so a red and white cord was tied from one end of the road to another and a board having ‘Road under construction, turn right- Julius Berger’ on it.
We drove right and maneuvered our way to the front gate guarding series of story-buildings with all painted in cream and granites poured on unmarred parts of the routes within the hospital. We parked at the parking lot and after which we headed for the dialysis ward.
       Humans are only valuable when they exist. Once the person dies Mr. or Mrs., Prof or Doctor becomes ‘It’. That was a lesson I learnt when we got there.
      “When would you come and carry it now?” A doctor shouted a woman who looked like a granny whose pregnant daughter who was a professor at the University of Lagos had just died along with her baby during an operation. The old woman with tears in her eyes paced back and forth as we passed her, begging passing Taxi drivers to assist her in carrying the body to a morgue. Immediately I felt sober and wondered what actually is in this life, If a professor could die and all the years of study and use of certificates died with her. She is now someone whom a doctor who might have not achieved one-tenth of what she had in life, is now calling ‘It’. I was sure if she was alive, hale and healthy she would have been angry and boasted, “Who are you? Do you have an idea where I studied? Do you even have a glimpse of where I did my masters?”
She is now someone lying still on a bed. A body now pale and almost as cold as ice.

        I was gripped by fear for my own fate, my loving mom is somewhere in this ward too. As we moved from ward to ward a man suddenly started shouting intensely,
“Jo! Malo! Jo! Durotimi!” (Please, wait, please, wait for me). I peeped as we walked by and noticed he was soliloquizing. Obviously he had an abnormal mental condition. Some minutes after he stopped and later he continued, shouting louder saying some naughty words. He must have led a terrible and reckless life not knowing life had an after plan for him, I wondered as we kept walking on the marble floor and then into a room having just six beds.
       Patients were laid on all with some having drip of blood or liquid food running into their veins.

I walked past the first two beds, the room had a strong smell of antiseptics. I gazed at each person as I walked by and wondered which my mom was because none did look like her. None had a fair skin with a young frame of an average heighted woman. I kept staring at each person closely until a person called me in a faint voice, I could barely hear but the voice was one I recognized.
“I’m here,” the voice added and then I turned to look and after taking a vivid look at a woman at a distant bed close to the wall, she looked like my mum, but…
She was much fatter than I remembered or maybe this isn’t fat, it was like she was swollen. Her legs, hands and body were so big with big bumps all over her skin almost as big at a full-grown pumpkin. Some of the bumps had burst and had turned into bruises all over her skin. My eyes were filled with tears but I remembered I had to hide my feelings from her since I had to act like a husband to her. If there was anyone who could bring joy and put a smile on her face at that moment, It was me, and it would have been so foolish of me to give in to tears while she was there.
        “How is your studies going son?” She struggled to ask, having her usual smile on her face, her eyes were yellowish and a little bulgy, looking like they were about popping out of her sockets.
“It’s fine mom,” I said, holding her hands, trying to force a smile but instead tears ran down my cheeks and I ran out of the room. The people I came with immediately tried to engage her in a discussion so as to reduce the depression or worry I might have caused.

          I ran into the street and stood under a Guava tree where I knelt down and cried the hell out of myself. I couldn’t just believe it’s her I just saw and I couldn’t pretend I could control the sight of her. Meshach ran down the pavement, he looked around for me and when he saw me, he walked down on the carpet grass to where I knelt.
“Why did you have to act like that?”
“You know quite well you were meant to make her happy and strong by your presence and see what you are causing already?” he added kneeling on the grass while he rested a hand on my shoulder. I didn’t answer. My head was buried in between my knees, sobbing loudly.
I raised my head up, my eyes were as fiery as a dragon.
“I couldn’t control myself any longer. I just couldn’t pretend I could. I couldn’t…” I stammered and started crying heavily.
He hugged me and said into my ears,
         “You must control yourself, she is your mom, if you really want her to survive this, you need to be her strength.” he cleaned my tears, stood up and pulled me up.