January 14th
2012 10:00am
…Within, the fiery serpent of disease slithered
and slid with languid insouciance while emitting sibilant hisses of triumph. Repulsive scaly, skin glistened and rippled
while swimming in the darkness of her body, through blood, over cells and
organs. It had broken through the puny defenses activated by the prey’s body. A
tiny worm a couple of months ago when it started its destructive expedition, it
had fed, devoured, consumed and wolfed down Shanty’s essence as it burrowed
through her...
Silence
hangs in the room like an oppressive pall of dark clouds. A hush follows the
death knell uttered by the Professor Emeritus of Medicine, “I am sorry but you
only have three more months to live”. I am stunned and tears sting my eyelids
-like a Portuguese Man-of War-, the drops heavy as lead. The alchemy of pain
going on within me crystallized the salty rivers brimming in my eyes into
diamonds of distress and prisms of anguish through which the whole world becomes
hazy and foggy.
Drowning in
the flood of a sorrowful brew of confusion, sobs and weeping, I gasp, “It
cannot be”! After the futility of my last trip to India, the professor is my
last hope. With his vast experience and degrees, he is the best in the United
States; the halo of grey on his head, his quiet dignity and the array of
certificates and awards on his wall all testify to this. I look into his eyes,
way beyond his horn rimmed specs and all I can behold are pools muddied by
hopelessness and despondency. I leave his consulting room numb all over with a
voice screaming in my head, “You are going to die”! This time my father’s
billions cannot save me.
April 10th
2012 8:00pm
...She got wasted while the serpent grew and
grew into an unimaginable size. The serpent’s venomous poison was now
circulating within her core and the last destinations were the lungs and
heart. Another victim was about to bite
the dust...
I lay on
the hospital bed awaiting the grim reapers sickle. All my flesh is gone. I have
become a mass of raggedy bones and would rattle like a toy skeleton if you ever
shook me. I do not look into the mirror anymore because the person I visualize
these days is a stranger I never knew. Every ounce of energy has been leached
out of my body as I await death. My last PCV was rock bottom low. Life has
become an embarrassment, I cannot walk anymore and all my natural calls are
carried out on my bed. The only song I seem to hear these days is the ping of the
life-sustaining machines. For me, the struggle is over, I have stopped
fighting. However, I know I am not ready.
I cannot get it out of my mind that all my technicolour dreams have diminished
into nothingness with the consistency of a mirage in a desert. Life is just not
fair. After graduating with a PHD from Harvard, the whole world awaited me and then
this! I am never going to get married,
have kids, and travel the world like I had always envisaged. My whole body is
racked with despondency and the unfairness of it all. My life had distilled
into a river of tears which recently has gotten desiccated and dried up, a
watering hole in the wilderness that the harsh rays of the sun has sucked life
out of. Snaky tubes feed vital infusions into me with steely fangs...
April 10th
2012 8:00pm
…the daggers of its fangs sank into the soft
core of her lungs. The toxin bathed and saturated her tissues. …
Layi has
come to visit this evening and if I was not in bed, I would have fled for dear
life. She totes the bible more than a guerrilla totes an AK 47. It is commonly
said that religion has been mixed into her staple cassava meal. Her passion for
her religious mania can set the Atlantic ablaze. The only reason I abide her is
that she is about the most loving person you would ever meet in this world.
However, the last thing I want on this earth is her preaching but I am too
tired to protest. Moreover, I have nothing to lose since I have explored every other
option. She leaves after finishing her business (the most heartfelt prayer I have
ever heard, coupled with pouring some Goya olive oil on my head). Surprisingly,
I catch myself saying a heartfelt "amen" to her prayer...
...gliding all the way to the heart, it raised
its head, opened its mouth to reveal mean looking fangs with shimmering gems of
saliva on them. Drops that reflect malevolence and death...
Suddenly I
start wheezing, choking and gasping for breath. The nurse checking my charts
promptly attaches an oxygen mask to my face and calls the doctor. I know
without being told that the end has come. Everything becomes so surreal. A
tunnel appears before me, darker than night and as thick as black congealed
pap. All around I hear the frantic fluttering of the wings of a thousand bats. Fear has paralyzed me. I do not want to die!
... As it was about to strike, a flaming sword
out of nowhere beheaded it with lightening speed. It writhed and flailed in
agony until it disappeared in a puff of smoke…..
In the
midst of all the frenetic happenings in my room, the door opens and a man walks
in, the most beautiful person I have ever seen. From Him emanates living light
(that is the best way I can describe the brilliance that has suffused the room);
blades of sunlight that sliced the darkness into tendrils of nothingness. Everything
and everybody in the ward become shadows in his luminosity. Instinctively I know
He is the one that Layi has always spoken about, the King she had invited to
come and heal me, the Son of God. He is invisible to every other person in the
room as He draws a chair close and touches me. His touch is the gentlest ever.
We have a conversation that makes me know that Layi has always been right while
I am the wrong one, deaf as a door post and more blind than a bat. I cannot
resist His love and I get up and give Him a hug such that I hear His heart
beating out my name.
As I
squeeze Him to the last inch of my life, I feel something strange happening. I
open my eyes to see He has transformed into a being that has no beauty
whatsoever, He has no comeliness that can make me desire Him. I draw back in
horror and astonishment without being able to tear my eyes from His visage. I
notice that He has gone through excruciating punishment. Someone has whipped
him so much that His whole body has ripped flesh hanging down from the ghastly
stripes laid by the whip. Ribbons of hanging skin festooned His broken and
battered form. The grisly bloody garlands cover Him like Lei on the neck of a
Hawaiian visitor. As I gaze, my emotions roil like a mass of agitated eels,
through a spectrum of horror, to shock, to astonishment and finally to worship.
I kneel down and bow…
He changes
back to His original form, carry me to the bed, bless the bread by my bedside
and my water and feeds me (funny, the bread suddenly tastes fresh, crusty and
sweet, my first solid meal in a while). He then sets up a transfusion for me on
a cross shaped infusion stand different from any other I have seen in the
hospital...
April 17th
2012 2pm
I sleep
until 12 noon and wake up feeling very different. The oxygen is off, the
machines have stopped pinging. The doctors and nurses are looking at me with
amazement. The barrage of tests come out negative. I am discharged within a
week. As I walk out of the hospital's glass doors into the sunshine, I remember
the Sun of Righteousness and the healing on His wings. Layi’s words that day
play in my head as I am being driven home……
He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities,
the chastisement of our peace was upon Him and by His stripes we were
healed…………
© 2013 Ekpo Ezechinyere
No comments:
Post a Comment