A Brighter year,A brighter decade.

 

 

    I am a sixteen year old, okay I have a couple of months left before I am sixteen  but does it matter?

What matters is I am a girl ,I am a teenager, in four years, I will be an adult ,I live in Nigeria. And this is  2020. I am writing this story with my gaunt and lean left hand on this wrinkled paper. ,should I call it a story ? Because I don't have anything else to do.  In fact I have never written a story before. I want to be a Gynaecologist some day. I only read science books, no novels or short stories or plays,those bore me.

    Okay ,what's today's date, 30th ,April , 2020.  Will you read my story? Promise me you will read my story. Even though I am not sure if it is worth telling. Because in Nigeria , voices of people like me are not often heard.  I am young, I am unimportant, my parents are not rich or influential, I am still deemed as naive ,unwise,foolish, what else? Stupid? Enough of ranting. Like I said I don't really know how to write but I guess, I should continue with writing about me.

    Why do I want to be a gynaecologist? My mother was 49 years old when she gave birth to me ,I am the only child she ever gave birth to. She had been married to my father for  twenty years. She tried enough ,Dad tried enough. They prayed ,took drugs ,were swindled ,drank bitter herbal concoctions, they did lots of things to get a child. Mother told me she had to carry a rabbit around with her for seven days. Breakthrough came when mum met the tenth gynaecologist, Mrs Nathaniel. She had just arrived from the United States. And she proffered solutions to mum and Dad. One year later ,people from far and near ( mostly near) gathered in our house's compound,to celebrate my birth. Mum exaggeratedly said that the gifts guests brought were towering to the sky. Everybody was happy. So you see, I want to be a gynaecologist so I can help women like my mother. Babies are cute and adorable and are wonderful gifts from God.  

    I grew up to be a very smart and pretty girl, according to my mother. I don't really think I am pretty, my eyes are too round and big ,and so is my forehead, my lips are too thick, but I like that they are pink. My hair… I don't want to write about my hair… My hair was  so short and thick so I decided to stay on low cut for the rest of my life. There is a gap between my two front incisors, my friend, Victoria thinks it is cute ,but I don't. Oh. Yes. And I am too tall! I am taller than almost all the boys in my class. Which makes me less attractive. Boys like their girls ,small ,shorter than them ,and pretty and not too smart.

According to my seatmate,Gloria. What I don't have in looks ,God has compensated me in brains. Although sometimes I wish I had more beauty than brains,so I could be popular with guys. Where did that come ? I don't care about men, the only man , I care about is my father ,who looks like my   "very older twin brother ". His gene is more dominating than mum's sadly. Mum doesn't look like she is sixty five, she looks like a forty year old , she looks really beautiful. And she has long thick hair that I like to comb. Dad calls her a mermaid sometimes because her hair is too long for a Nigerian woman. 

I wonder if the nurses comb her hair every night like I do. I wonder what she looks like now, would her beauty have detoloraited? 

   I am writing this story ,because I am frustrated, sad, depressed ,angry, bereaved. I don't know how to explain it.

   Last year,coronavirus felt like something distant, something far away. I would only hear of it.  I heard in the news, lot of people were dying in Wuhan, China. I heard a lot of rumors. If you look at a person who is ill  with the virus, you would contract it,that was one of the many rumors. I heard my parents talk casually about it. Then it started spreading, from country to country, Italy ,Japan, Germany, USA. The spread was frightening and so was the death toil. Everyday in the news ,one country after the other kept announcing index cases of coronavirus. Nigeria stood and watched,waiting for the corona virus to come into Nigeria, so they could fight it. I am not insinuating that the government didn't take precautions or anything. But I don't think they took precautions. One day  as Gloria, Victoria and I walked home ,we joked about a lot of things ,including coronavirus. Then we discussed at length ,about it. I remember Victoria said Nigeria was too hot for such a virus to survive in. 

      When the first case was discovered, I had hope ,I believed in my country, I knew we could do it ,just like we fought the Ebola virus.  Few weeks later ,Nigeria was declared free of the virus. I was happy. My life went on as normal, although I tried to follow the precautions I saw daily on TV and the internet. I tried to wash my hands frequently, mother bought a dozen sanitizers, she complained bitterly that the price had doubled. I tried to apply sanitizers frequently too. 

  Cases increased, deaths began to be recorded. I was glad it had been quite contained and there was a positive number of recoveries. I was sure ,I was certain that Nigeria could fight this. Until exams were postponed and my  school closed down until further notice,including all the schools in the state. I was so frustrated. I had to stay home everyday, I don't have any siblings ,so it was boring. Sometimes, Victoria comes over. But then she stopped because her parents were scared and told her to stay put at home. Then the next two weeks, a full lockdown was imposed. Mum went to the market and bought food items and groceries in bulk at outrageous prices. 

  It was really weird to stay indoors all day with my parents. I stayed in my room all day watching TV ,while Dad and Mum stayed in theirs. 

  By midnight, I woke up ,because I slept too early ,right after dinner,which we had at eight o'clock. I walked outside , into the kitchen to grab a cold bottle of water. When I switched on the light, I found mum ,by the fridge drinking water. I almost screamed, because in the first nanosecond I was scared, I guess it was because I was shocked.  

"What are you looking for?", mum asked.

" I just wanted to drink water, I felt thirsty " 

"Oh… I have a really bad headache, so I decided to take paracetamol" 

"Sorry mum", I said ," do you feel better?"

"No,not yet, but I will feel better in the morning"

Mum dropped the glass in the zinc and walked out.  Then I took my own bottle and went back to my room. 

    Is my story making sense ? I guess you are wondering what point I am trying to make. I don't know either, I am just writing. This is starting to feel magical. 

  The next day, mum began to complain about body aches and stayed in her room all day.  So did I, I stayed in my room all day, immediately I was done with breakfast and I washed the dishes. In three days dad and mum were coughing terribly. Mum made ginger and lime mixtures for them both, but it didn't get any better. So Dad decided to call the NCDC.  Mother was against it ,she said ,it was just a cough and it wasn't that serious and not what dad was trying to insinuate. But dad refused anyway. When he first called them , they told him they would get back to him. They didn't get back to him until three days later. During those three days , Dad was paranoid, extra paranoid which I found weird because mother was the paranoid one. He made mum and him stay in their room and never go out. He told me to wear my raincoat anytime I came to give them food. I would wear the raincoat and drop the food at the door. After knocking. 

During those three days ,I was scared ,really scared and I prayed more often. I prayed dad and mum would get better. But they didn't. Dad kept calling and calling on the third day. The official on the phone asked for our address and they took Dad and Mum and I away for testing. I was so scared  because everything felt unusual. The health workers in PPEs invading the house, the nauseating smell of the chemical used to fumigate the house. The weird smell of the ambulances, I was kept in a separate ambulance from mum and dad since I wasn't showing any symptoms. We were tested right in the ambulance. The health worker deeped a swab, ( it looked like a 6 inch cotton bud to me)  into my left nostril. He assured me that it wouldn't really hurt ,as he let the swab go deeper. It was sort of ticklish but also painful in a bearable way. Then he did the same with my right nostril. They had mum and dad stay in the room again, and I went back to my room. All through the day ,I kept praying silently that our results would come back negative. My prayer got answered, but only for me. The next day, Dad got an email, mum and dad were positive, I was negative. That evening ,I cried so hard ,in my room as the health workers who looked like aliens in their PPEs took my parents away. I was told not to step out of my room. The whole place was fumigated. From the window,I told mum bye and she told me her credit card was in her drawer ,she also gave me her password. And dad's too. It should have been a  good thing ,my parents were away ,I had their credit cards ,I had the house all to myself. I can't remember all I did that day. But I remember I cried until I slept. I am crying as I am writing this. I cry everyday, every night. 

       A week later, mum called with an unknown number. At first I didn't want to pick up the call ,but then I did. 

"Hello" ,an unfamiliar voice said.

"Hello" I was curious. 

"Sarah!" Another unfamiliar voice cried. 

"Yes.", the voice sounded elderly, so I added a "ma"

"It is me your mother"

I was stunned,her voice sounded raspy ,frail,and old. Mother's voice was always bubbly,lively, soft but not tiny. This was not her. This couldn't be her. 

"Chinenye! Are you there?" 

"I am" I said and swallowed hard, now I knew she was the one. Only mother and father knew ,my name is Chinenye.  Tears began to stream down my face. I didn't try to stop it. My nose became runny. 

"Mum ,I miss you", I said , I really meant it ,I miss her around ,I miss combing her hair ,I miss being scolded by her. 

" Your father is gone, " mum said in her raspy voice.

"Gone to where?"  

The voice I heard before mum's raspy voice came on. 

"I am sorry, Miss Obaga. Your  father died 6:15AM this morning. I …"

I abruptly cut the call I didn't want to hear any more. 

The TV was on, the newscaster was spurting advice in her friendly voice about precautions to the " deadly coronavirus "

Wash your hands for at least twenty seconds and sanitize your hands with alcohol based sanitizers frequently. Use face masks  you go out. Avoid crowded places. Stay at home. Listen to government approved stations, listen to only things the WHO says. Do not…

What was she smiling about? I was annoyed by the way she smiled as she told the precautionary measures. It was not something to smile about. I am crying ,I am not  smiling. My father just died of the virus. It isn't something to smile about. I hurled my phone at the TV because she kept smiling, but I missed. The phone hit the wall and fell onto the floor. I watched through my blurred vision as the phone fell and hit the floor. My vision was blurred by tears. The screen cracked. The lines of the crack looked like a web. I took four strides and continued smashing the phone with my leg. Until I couldn't take the pain anymore and my leg began to bleed too much. I leaped to my room,I didn't bother to clean off the blood. And then I slept.

   Now you know why I am frustrated and angry. I am alone in this house. I have been alone for five weeks. When I and Victoria held candles side by side last year at church and prayed along with the pastor in the dark. This wasn't what I thought my 2020 would be like. If you check my instagram page, @ Ugly_Sarah.  You would see what I wrote as a caption to my picture, in which I wore a red body hug dress and black sneakers. I felt so pretty in that picture. I wrote, 2020 is the year I get out of secondary school, 2020 is the year I become better, 2020 is the year I take on new adventures. On January 1st I posted  a picture of me when I was nine ,almost ten with the caption, a bright new decade,a bright new year.  Never did I imagine, I would be grieving, alone in this empty house never. My father is dead, maybe my mum is too.

  Wow I have written quite a lot ,never did I imagine I could write this. I have never thought of writing in  my whole life. Maybe ,this is it,my undiscovered inborn talent that Sister Ruth our bible study teacher told me about. Maybe I would have grown to be someone like Buchi Echemeta. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe in my next life. Because I am ending it ,my life , right after I add the last full stop to this story, I don't think  I have any reason to live anymore. In my next life I will write better. In another brighter year in another brighter decade.

                                          ~~~

I am still in the same supposed brighter year,and supposed brightest decade. I am on a hospital bed. A drip has been passed into my veins. The liquid drops slowly. Drop by drop. My back aches,I am tired of lying down. But I don't want to stand up. Because if I do ,mother would leave my hand and I don't want her to stop holding my hand and I don't want her to wake up too.  She is holding my right hand while I write with my left hand and while the drip passes slowly into the throbbing vein on my right hand. Mum came back the next day,she recovered ,she is alive. She found me and the paper lying on the floor , I was almost as lifeless as the paper. Don't ask me what I drank. Mum says it is a miracle I am still alive. I also think it is by a miracle she is still alive.  She gave me the paper and told me I am a wonderful writer. I don't think so. She has been asking me if I still want to study gynecology. Yes I still want to! 

   So I decided to continue my story on this wrinkled paper. While mum sleeps next to me. She has aged in the past weeks she was sick,she is still pretty but not as before. She is lean and gaunt just like me. We haven't talked about Dad. I wanted to ask several questions. But I guess I will let her talk when she wants to probably when I leave this hospital and we start a new life. I might be in the university next year ,and mum will continue to be an accountant. And my story will continue, I will keep writing it ,but not on this wrinkled paper. I should get a journal. 

I look up on the TV, the number of active cases ,death and recoveries are being displayed. Father is part of the 27. I sigh. 

      In another brighter year in another brighter decade, I will be a renowned gynaecologist. Oh. And ,the new 10 year olds won't know what coronavirus is. Us twenty year olds and older would remember and we would smile.