Running Away Solves Everything

Tomilola

Havillah hospital is not even distant from the house. Something like ten minutes with a keke and you’re there, plus the surrounding is very okay. Ornamentals, here and there and not even a litter. It’s good and odd, but that’s not why I’m here. I’m here for Rotimi and Màámi and that’s where my heart should be, so when I rush into the building, I walk over to the receptionist without dragging my feet. “Have you seen… em…. Sorry, has em… Rotimi Adefuye been admitted here? He’s my brother.” I add, “Please.”

My face is dark and tattered and I know I my tiredness is all over my body, so I try to look as smart as I can right now, by not slouching over the receptionist's high marble desk. I’m also very confused and I hope she pities me. I pity myself.

She doesn’t even check a register, but she responds after a cursory look at me. “Oh, yes!” Her response is louder than I expect it to be and it shocks me, but then she opens a hard cover book just on her desk and after scrolling her finger on it, says, “Ward three A.” I don’t even wait for her to give me directions, but she does anyways, “Straight down!” I think she stood from her sit to yell that. I don’t even look back, but I could give her a full-body description; dark, slim and beautiful, wears glasses and wears heels every blessed day to feel tall. I can’t tell if she was nice, pitiful or just following protocol. Anyway, I got what I wanted.

My heart runs to the ward, but my feet don’t. The hospital walls are all painted white and there are flower pots in every hall. It’s just too decorated and neat.

A nurse passes by wearing her red scrubs and pushing a silver trolley and I greet, “Good morning Ma. Am I on the right way to Ward three A?”

She is fair and has her hair curled and twisted. “Dear, that’s in the accidents unit.” I glance at her stomach as she speaks and I know she’s in a family way. “Straight down. Then go to your right.” She even offers to show me the way, but I won’t let her.

“I’ll find my way,” I say. “Thank you.”

There’s a label, Accident’s Unit in a white plaque at the beginning of the new hallway and also a new smell I perceive. Like rotten egg or spoilt meat. Ward one A is the first door at the right, Ward two A is adjacent to it and Ward three A is two five steps ahead. Before I open the door to Ward three A without knocking, I hear shouts from the other end, that is, Ward four A.

“Nwachukwu, ha pum aka! E gee gbum!” The female voice sounds weary, old and like she’s in a lot of pain. “Jesus! Ndi nso!” Then, I turn the knob and the door opens.

It’s when the door fully opens that I notice I’m wearing slippers, almost the bathroom kind. The first thing I hear is someone coughing and the first thing I see is thick blood on the head and in the eyes of the patient closest to the door. I’m not irritated or disgusted but I think I’m feeling the pain he’s feeling. I keep saying that even though I feel vomit dancing in my throat. I’m glad there is a political campaign wrapper covering his chest, because with the loud and coarse way he breathes, I don’t want to know what’s there. There are four beds, but three patients all looking like they were involved in a car accident; wounds in particular places and the white gauze too. With this, I don’t even know whose case is worst. Theirs or Timi's. The man farthest from the door is almost as grey as Mummy and he has a transparent bag beneath him filled with urine. It’s more orange than yellow, and no matter how bad I want to pinch my nose even though I don’t smell anything, I can’t, because I’m afraid of how that will make me look in the eyes of the family he’s surrounded by.