The first day you notice you've fallen ill, the rest of the house would not care. 'Ugo, steam the meat and make Egusi soup; Aunti Uto, a wan to eat bickit; Ugo, have you seen my phone?' Wait, what? Are these people blind? Maybe you're not being slow enough so you drag your feet but it elicits the Are You Stupid look from your father.
The second day is better. The chores reduce as everyone heard you wheezing throughout the night and walking round with hopes of finding a spot where the acrid smell of mosquito coils did not rent the air. But that wan na your cup of tea.
"Ugo, make my eba."
"Daddy there's spaghetti please."
"Ehn, oyibo food. Warm that Egusi soup. It's eba I want to eat. Serve me now now."
You cluck and move to make his meal. These people are lucky you're not a spirit-child, you'd have just laid down and begun to foam at the mouth. Let's see how they'll ask you to cook food but for where?
Day three is the day you wish the symptoms would go away. This is not just panic attacks or claustrophobia. You're sick but it's not Corona, the symptoms you checked on your online course says so, plus you do not have a fever. Not like it's the business of your cousins or brother. You're nicknamed _Coro-Coro.
Knock knock.
"Aunty Coro-Coro ," the voice at your room door says before it giggles.
"Borrow us your phone"
You want to walk to the door, smack his head (it's your brother, you know his voice) and school him on the use of 'lend' and 'borrow' but you too can't remember which is which. You settle for cussing.
Your head there, you hear! My friend vamoose and tell everybody not to think of entering my room."
You cluck and hiss. The sound is drawn and deep. Annoying devils. That you're ill and sapped is eating at you. Na wa to sickness sha. Oga no no way, e miss road. Naim he land for your quarter. E get as e be.
***
oza. verb.
[Ogbia for sitting over a pot of boiling leaves to inhale its steam.]
If only your Grandmother had not been married off at 13 and lived in your century, she'd have been a doctor. Ahn ahn! Wild mint leaves, pawpaw leaves, lemon rind, everything!
As she drapes the thickest blankets and wrappas over you, you swear you can hear Dr Chris' voice.
" Life is fickle. We're all traders at the market of life. Everyone does their buying and selling. When they're done, they go home."
Chai! What if you really were stuck in a market only to realize you had lost your mother's money and had to go home early? Tufia! Isami! Not my mother's child.
Your claustrophobia is kicking in. You're sweating. You swear you can see Dr Chris and his gesticulations that keep you entranced. He's swinging his hands like a pendulum in motion as he describes life as ups and downs, ebbs and tides. On God, if this was the last thing you remembered before meeting your maker, make e be. E get why.
You allow the heat clog your ears. Loud noises quieten. Little sounds like the trickling of water in the bathroom and the sound of a spoon scratching the insides of some pot far away become sharper. Is this what dying felt like? You'll ask Abba Kyari if you both ended up in same place.
But...
Like Christ kicking against the grave and bouncing out, Off-white, skin as radiant as one who went abroad for the holidays, Senior man, Captain of the sailing ship of men-Who-Never-Die-Again, you see light busting through.
Oya, go and bathe before the sweat dries on your body . It's your Grandma.
Sickness na bastard.
Comments