Running Away Solves Everything

Chapter 7- Ekene

“Where’s the lady you came with?”

And as I turn around, Tomi's out of sight.

The nurse asks a different question this time, as she directs me into the infirmary. “Do you know any one who’s related to them?” She looks at my blank face, trying to make do of what she sees, and wondering if I was old enough to understand all what she said. “The woman and the boy are insentient… ermm… not awake.” After she said insentient, she waved her clear eyeballs from left to right at the ceiling waiting for me to answer and scouring for a basic way to put it. I didn’t know the meaning, but she could as well have informed the entire hospital at the top of her voice. This boy doesn’t know the meaning of insentient! I’m so disgusted when she begins to break her words down, making me feel like a toddler. Like, what was she feeling like? You’re a nurse! And probably from the way her scrubs differ from the other nurses' she could have just been an intern. Imagine, you’re not even a nurse yet! “The girl… is a-wake, but she has… au-tism… ermm… we can’t…” I knew the meaning of autism and she had to know that, plus the fact that she shouldn’t say 'she has autism' like it was a disease.

“I know what it means,” I say. “I know communicating with her would be difficult.” 

I transform my fear into rage when she calls Ekene a good boy. Good boy?! For what? Knowing the meaning of autism? “Do you know…” I wouldn’t let her complete any more sentences.

“Ya. She’s my mum’s close friend. I will call my mum now.” And as I do just that, I consider that’s the right thing. But sitting on the bed Elvis is laid on, without being attended to, I wonder, Is this how these people were going to leave them on beds if they didn’t know someone was going to claim them? I would use the word 'claim' because they just treated them like lost dogs whether they knew it or not. I know I killed someone and all, but I was beginning to feel all of that wasn’t even my fault at all. Whether it’s said or not, he was a police officer that had raped a girl and choked on his own cigarette. All I did was push it in, and that was probably God interfering. If an officer of the law could be out there breaking the law, then our entire system was in peril. Who knows how many more ‘officers of the law' were out there scribbling on Nigeria's body of rules and regulations?

As soon as my mum picks the call, her “Who is this?” over the phone is so vibrant, I’d already known she wasn’t asleep.

I want to talk, but I don’t. The fact that the call was placed on the infirmary receptionist’s landline was just an added advantage. I dump the phone on the hands of the nurse-to-be. That’s the woman’s friend, I mouth, waiting for her to talk to the phone. She has the phone to her ear and she is staring at my weary face, her words in construction.

“Good evening, Madam. This is from Ultimate Cherry Specialist Hospital,” she speaks.

“Mhmm! Your friend,” Now, she’s slow. “Your friend, Mrs. Ajua and her children were involved in a minor accident?... Yes, they’re okay.” She nods, “Just the girl is conscious… Mhmm… Be here as quick as possible… Thank you ma’am.” Then, she dropped the telephone and hurried her legs to the ward were Mummy Vivian and her children were.

Vivian couldn’t lie on the bed, talk less of sleeping. Elvis' breathing is so silent, I don’t want to think he’s almost gone, and their mum’s bed clouds my eye with so much red, and till my mum walks in, that’s all I see.

“Aruma!” she screams, running in, and dropping her bag just on the bed she’s laid on. Aruma? What tribe is that? “Come and start something now!” The words are like Siamese siblings as mum call the attention of the hospital staff to do something quickly. She doesn’t make this about me and I’m relieved. Relieved, because I didn’t have any pretexts, but here I was staring at her caring eyes, ashamed of myself for what I couldn’t tell her. I knew Ezinne was at home taking care of Emelie and Ebuka, and oh boy, did the heavens just bomb me with another thing to be ashamed of?

The family would be okay, the doctor said, but I couldn’t help thinking further, Why were they there? And how could that have happened? If Elvis was there, then somehow, his mum had picked him up from our place and taken him. But after that, wouldn’t it be to head home? But again, why Ekene? Why all these questions? Why are you stressing? Why are you popping paracetamol for another man’s headaches?