You Can See Them

1

I feel drained of all my happiness
As I enter my close, the sun seems to dull to a hue of greyish yellow, the sky even duller , I shrug It off and blame it on the weather, thinking it will rain.

It didn't rain

I walk down the small street of houses dragging my suitcase behind me on its wheels, glad to be home after a semester of anatomy books and lecturers from hell.

But something just doesn't seem right, maybe it is the sun looking dead or the skies looking 'deader' if that is even a word.

Or maybe it's because they died. The both of them

I walk around the small bend and finally get to the last house in the close. I smile eager to see my "adopted" grandma and my mum and my dad and my little sister.

The brown house looks even deader than anything I've seen so far but I blame it on the weather and the Grey sun.

I drop my suitcase and knock on the big black gate.

No one answers. I raise up the metal slide and I stick my hand in through the hole to unlock the padlock. It is open. I silently thank God because I don't know where my keys are.

I walk in through the gate, and smile at feeling of being home.
I look down the plot. The compound is empty. There isn't a single car in the compound. Usually there were 4. Our very small house, a boy's quarters, at the back looks deserted and dark and uninviting.

The rectangular duplex in front where "grandma" lives is different. There are no longer doors in the front, but now at the longer side of the rectangle. Another piece of information nags at my brain. Something else is missing. I glance at the part of the duplex closest to our boys quarters. Something keeps picking at my brain that something is wrong.

Something is definitely wrong.

I shrug it off. I decide to do the same ritual I've done for years.

"Grandmaaaaaa" I scream up at the front window on the second floor. There's silence for a minute.

"Eniiiiiiiii is that you?! My dear granddaughter how are you?"

"I'm fine ma!" I scream back.

"Welcome back from school o, I missed you o. Ma so oyinbo si mi mô, mi o gbo English (speak Yoruba to me I don't understand English)." I giggle at that. It is her way of always trying to get my sister and me to speak Yoruba. She spent all her years in London. All her "real" kids are abroad so we all know it is a ruse to get us to be more familiar with our language.

"ENI!!!" A voice shouts excitedly. My mum comes running out of the new door on the longer side of the rectangular house.

Wow she's rarely home. That's a surprise. Where's my sister, I wonder. Where's dad. At least one of his cars should be here.

"Mummy! I missed you, mummy how are you.." we exchange pleasantries and she hugs me and starts leading me back to the door she had just come out from.

"Eni you won't believe it o, guess what, your friend is here, she's staying with us now."

"What fri-" I cut off as I look up to see the person standing in the door way. In her hand was an IV stand. She looked pale. Her hair scanty. Glasses sitting daintily on her beautiful black but pale face. An opaque bag is hangs on the stand and an opaque tube connects it to her wrist.

"Fiyin?" I gasp in disbelief.

"Oh my God fiyin, what are you doing here. How did you- oh my what happened to you-"