Running Away Solves Everything

Elvis

I don’t understand what prompted Emelie to interrupt his mum earlier to say, “Children die in beaches” but I made sure to pinch him as he said that.

“But why?” He whispered to me like he had done nothing wrong.

“Does that make sense to you?” When I told him this, I expected him to stop. Well, to shut up his dirty mouth and eat his food.

Spoiler alert. He didn’t. “As they are swept away by the sea.” Jesus! I exclaimed inside. This friend of mine has serious problems, but I am even more surprised when the people who are older than him in his house didn’t say anything and his baby laughed.

* * * *

“Elvis, it’s your mum.” Ezinne says to me, disturbing my sleep on the couch.

I yawn and rub my eyes, sitting up straight, and stretching. She is looking at me with wide, white, impatient eyes, hurrying me without saying a word. Emelie’s legs are on the headrest of the couch next to me and his breathing is just slightly quieter than a snore. I don’t know why she doesn’t wake him up too, but then she says, “Your mum is at the gate.” And now, I’m wide awake, but still tired.

“Oh. Thanks.” I droopily put my things together.

Mrs. Onuoha is at the dining table, wearing glasses, reading something from a laptop, and I go to her with the motive of just greeting her. “Thank you Ma. Good night.”

Because I came too close, she wraps me in her arms, and says, “Goodnight son.” Then, I run out of the door, and to the gate where my mum is. With Vivs sleeping at the back. Peaceful like never before.

“How was it?” I sense tiredness in Mum’s voice. She has bags under her eyes and her smile as she asks this question is almost too fake.

It, she says. What is 'it'?

“Good. Let’s go home.” 

You have captured. My heart, consumed... My mum always listens to church music as she drives, saying it soothes her, or rather, “Praising God everywhere I go helps me.” This song I know, so I sing along with the man leading the choir.

9:52 pm, the clock in the car reads, when we’re almost home, and I realize that I have never been out by this time in my life, so I say exactly that quietly. “Wow. I’ve never seen this time in this car before,” I smile with a sluggish gaze.

“We’re already at home.” I can see too much red in mum’s eyes as she looks at me, so I guess that statement bugged her.

My eyes open and close, but I still manage to say, “sorry, Mum.”

I thought we were at the house when I slept off, but on opening my eyes, I realize we are almost at the estate gate.

Before I ask her what’s going on, she notices I’m awake and says she wants to buy some things. At ten pm? I am as lazy as a bag of rice when my mum says, “Sleep back. You’ll be at home when we wake up.” With eyes half-open, I see Vivs at the back, and her chubby cheeks, puffing up and reducing, as she begins to snore louder. Gradually, I fall asleep for the third time this night.

Then the tyres make this high-pitched sound.

It’s like they’ve stopped rotating, instead something’s pushing the car from behind, causing us to still be moving. I look back to see if that could be possible, but the night is so dark that I don’t see a thing. I can’t even see the smoke coming from the front of the car, but I smell it, and it doesn’t help to hear my mum screaming as the car is moving much faster than usual. Vivian is awake too, and she’s screaming, “M-mom! M-mom!” and I don’t even know what’s going on. We are on a road I don’t recognize, in a situation I’ve never been in, and as the car stops in the middle of nowhere, we all bash our heads on the platforms in front of us. Mum has her head on the steering wheel, showing no atom of life, so I shiver.

Unlike me, Vivian is screaming, and trying to let herself to the front to unbuckle mum from her seat belt, but she can’t, because of her own seatbelt. The back doors are on Child’s lock, so however hard she tried, she couldn’t even open them.

I increased the tension of this situation when I started to breathe like an old man with no teeth. I am looking for my inhaler in my trolley, but it’s not there. I figured there would be one in my mum’s purse, but as I pull it out and press it, nothing comes out. I shake it and press the nozzle again, but nothing. All I hear are Vivs' shouts and the croaking sound of frogs in the bushy area we found ourselves in before everything becomes black.