Munachi

|Chapter 20|

(Third Person Perspective)

"No! Please don't! Help!" Muna screams on her bed, cowering to a corner, wanting to get away from an invisible being.

Two nurses rushes towards her bed. "Ma'am are you okay?" one asks, her hand resting on Muna's shoulder.

Muna shoot up, looking around behind the nurses. "Is he gone? Is the man gone?" she asks.

The two nurses exchanges quizzical look. "Which man?" the other nurse asks.

"He was right there." Muna points forward towards the entrance. "H-He was coming for me. He wants to kill me. He wants to kill me." She grab one of the nurses using her body as a shield. "Tell him to go away! Tell him to leave me alone!"

Muna keep seeing this imaginary man for almost three days. She's seen by other patients smiling and then conversing with the unseen. By the fourth day, the hospital management decided that Muna needs MRI (a medical name for brain scan) Her behavior has become so erratic that it's obvious she's on the verge of madness.

Her case is made worse by the fact that no one has come to search for her so far. Several attempts by the medical team in the hospital to get Muna to give her address failed. She gave two fake addresses. It could not be ascertained whether that is due to her current mental condition or her usual habit of concealing things.

Muna refuses to eat the entire day. She talks to no one. She keep mute and sometimes mutters to herself. While the ward is humming and cutleries clattering against plates, she's sitting on her bed gazing into space. Moment on, while muttering to herself, she rises from her bed, heading straight towards the entrance doors.

She walks through the door unnoticed and stand for a while. A couple of people passes her by. Two nurses wheels an empty bed through the doorway, chatting.
The evening breeze is cool and also inviting. Muna feels light somewhat. The wound in her back is no longer sore and stinging. Her head seems lighten, too. She's muttering to herself still. Sometimes she seems she's quietly arguing with an unseen companion.

Muna heads for the deserted staircase to her right. She descends purposefully and in no time, she's alighting unto a small field. People move around the field but no one notices her. As if she's under the guidance of an unseen companion, she makes for the hospital gate. She walks through unnoticed as the guard on duty has drifted off to sleep.

♣♣♣

Been two days since Muna walked out of the hospital unnoticed. She'd walk the streets and eaten nothing until this morning at the Central Market. She enters a make shift restaurant and sit in the midst of the people without uttering a single word. After about ten minutes of sitting and waiting, she gets up ready to leave. Just then, a woman with a little girl comes to the table with a plate of food.

Muna watches as the woman sets the food on the table, whispers something in her daughter's ear and walks away to get a drink. Before the woman returns, Muna has help herself to the plate of food, leaving the child in tears. That causes commotion that nearly led to being beaten by the woman before someone comes to her rescue.

She offers no apology or any reasonable explanation for her act before departing. She hang around the market area walking aimlessly until the night falls.
The moon is nearly full, and the stairs twinkles at their brightest. But there exits no zeal or inspiration to savor the night.

It's nearly midnight when Muna strolls into some random street in Lagos. She walks by unnoticed to the front of a dishevelled building and lay down on its cold floor gazing at the star-studded sky above.

Some peace seem to envelope her and she heaves a sigh. And in a moment, her eyes quietly shut as she mutters to herself many incomprehensible words. But just as she's drifting away into slumber, the following words are meaningful:

"Don't wake me up, Nate. I'm very tired."

♣♣♣

It has been exactly one full year since Muna left the hospital. It rained all night until dawn. Ten a.m, the weather is dark and gloomy. The sun seem trapped behind the dark clouds. The rain appears imminent. The market is bustling with sellers and buyers despite the cold and the wetness.

She's right in the heart of the market. Her gown, obviously oversize hiding her seductive hips and curves. Her arms with scars from wounds received from unsympathetic people who felt aggrieved by her insane attitudes.
In spite of the warnings from the market men and women, Muna wouldn't stop coming to the place and begging for food.

This market day, she's standing in front of a fat woman frying beans cakes. (akara) Her right hand outstretches. The woman ignores her. Muna stands adamantly watching the beans cakes on the open fire.

"Go away!" shouts the woman. "Are you sent to ruin my market? Shoo!"

Muna looks away. The woman begins packing the well-fried cakes from the fire into a big tray. A couple of buyers approaches the woman's stand. She sells them, and even a couple of more people joins them.

Muna looks at them. She moves closer undetected and slip her hands into the container grabbing three beans cakes. The woman screams but it's too late. Muna takes to her heels. The buyers as well departs. The woman, agitated, takes a stick and starts off after her, infuriated.

Muna, already eating the cakes, stumbles into people who also falls. The woman is able to strike her once. But the second strike lands on another woman who takes offence. Commotion breaks out. Muna falls but wangles her way through the crowd.
Children in the market are also caught entangled in the commotion. They hung on Muna's trail until she gets to a road. On this particular road Muna's run over by a car.