this is a very short story. Hope you'll enjoy it.

To Ymodulus; thanks for your honest/sharing disposition in the business section. apparently we both have the same DOB!!





Tobechukwu have finally died.


His face was lined with straight and jagged cuts -that where now a light shade of pink. The slight contortion of his face, that appeared to be a smile when I came into his room, was plastered on my mind’s eyes. Both his eyes were swollen, but the right eye was shut tight. His well carved and handsome features gone, a bandage tied around his head. My once upon a time beautifully handsome brother was now –more or less- a shadow of himself.

“kedu,” he had said to me, His voice barely a whisper. I didn’t reply, I just reached for his hands but he winced in pain and withdrew it. I muttered ‘sorry’ but I doubt if he actually heard. A nurse came by and adjusted the drip and gave him an injection.
“Painkillers” the nurse had explained.

“He might not make it through the night” the doctor had said to mum. “It would be a miracle if he did. But we will do the best we can”

His best turned out to be telling the nurse to alert him if anything came up. He then entered his vehicle and fled the hospital that oozed of death. And tobechukwu my brother -whom we usually called Tobi- died without proper medical attention, because the doctor wasn’t qualified enough to operate and the qualified ones were too busy quarreling with federal government over bonuses and retirement age.

Tobi’s face was peaceful in death as if he had gotten what he had always wanted. As if he had gotten the perfect Christmas gift. Mum had pleaded with him to stay alive. She had cried and screamed at him to stay with us, but it had no effect on him. My brother, Tobi, wanted to die. Strangely, I have no tears to shed for him. I try to but the tears refused to come.

I’ve never really understood death. It sounded far off and a little distance. Maybe because I haven’t lost any one close to me until now. I had often wondered why people cry and row themselves in sorry at the death of a loved one. Was it because they will miss the dead person? Or because of the uncertainty of the person’s fate after death? I wanted to cry for my brother. To scream and roll on the floor –as mum was now doing. But I couldn’t. Slowly I began to realize how it felt to lose somebody you know to death. I now understood the tears and the heart ache. And the inexplicable reason that often pushed people to hysterics. Absent mindedly I rowed my wheelchair away, towards the nurse’s work table.

Dad sat alone on the bench at the left side of the long corridor. He rested his head on the green sterile wall of the hospital, his eye fixed on the ceiling, his fingers drumming a mindless tone on the wooden bench. He had barely said a word since he arrived at the hospital two hours ago. His eyes had darken when the nurse told us that Tobi had died. He had slapped his palm on his cleanly shaved head, folded his arms on his chest and grunted –a deep but weak grunt.

“Chi m, my god. Why me” he had muttered over and over again. He stooped low as if someone had kicked him in the stomach and with great effort he rose and steered himself to the bench where he now sat desolate and alone.


It’s funny how death draws us all together. How we realize how important a person is to us once the person is dead. I thought Dad would have sighed in happiness that Tobi was dead. That he would have embraced the nurse and promised her paradise for bringing him the news of his son’s demise. But he hadn’t. Instead, he slumped on the bench and cried like a baby.

Mum wagged her finger widely in his face, coursing and threatening him. The nurses held her back but she fought them off.
“You killed my son. God will punish” she chanted over and over as she struggled to free her hands which the nurses was restraining. I wondered what she would do if her hands were free. Would she slap Dad with her long manicured fingers that were fragile like the handle of a tea cup? Maybe she would hit him with her slipper. But I feared that her hand would break from the impact. Even in sorrow, her face was perfectly lined. Her features well chiseled like an artist masterpiece. Her black weave plastered on her face, wet from her tears and her lips seductively red. Her loose flowing gown wrapped her petite body structure perfectly. Never had sorrow looked so beautiful.

Dad had never said a good thing about Tobi. He would often criticized Tobi and compares him to mgbankwomma the village beauty who dirt never touched. They would argue and shout at each other. It would all end with a thunderous slap landing on Tobi’s check and Dad storming out of the house in anger. It soon became part of our lives. The violence and the hate, the crying and the shouting. But never would I have believed that Tobi would take his own life.

Very emotional.. Is that the end?

MhizEnkay:
Very emotional.. Is that the end?

no its not, I will post the remaining soon. stay tuned and thanks for reading

I squeezed the note tightly, till it was nothing but a paper ball. For the years he had spent on earth were now gone like a powder blown into the air. His life summarized by a piece of paper. His story nothing more but another ‘have been story’.

“hmmmm” I sighed.
Like a thread or a single broom, we snap when our life had run its course, and then like a harmattan dust we are gone. Snap. Just like that. While alive, we appear to be larger than life and even immune to death and suffering. The ignorance of how fickle our existence is, have made us pompous and unbelievably arrogant to think that we control our fate. The joy of ignorance!

My thoughts were broken by mum’s shout. It had taken a new dimension. Instead of the mad raving and gnawing of her hair, she was now running down the long corridor. Her fragile bare feet making a mild ‘pata, pata’ sound. The nurse who had given my dead brother the injection raced after her. Behind them was a large buxom woman in a white shirt and white skirt. From the bits I’ve heard since I came to the hospital, the buxom woman was the chief nurse. Her jaws were strongly set, square and undeniably masculine. The signs of anger on her face did nothing to alleviate her plain unattractive face, instead it pronounced her plainness.
“Get that woman out of this hospital now” she barked “is she the first person to lose her child. Doesn’t she know that there are other patients here? Or does she want the living to join the dead before their time?”

Mum stopped running. Maybe because she heard the meanness and threat in the chief nurse’s voice or because she had realized that her theatrics was attracting little attention. How typical.
Like every human being, I love my mother but am not sure between the two of us, who truly is handicapped. Wrapped up in her own little world, she had ignored everything and everyone even her suicidal son and her crippled daughter. She had leaned on a man who furnished her with jewelry, that he could hardly afford, and who took out his frustration on their son -now dead. Her protests were weak and barely audible whilst her son and her husband battled. She would grab Dad by the hand and plead with him to stop, but like a mosquito, dad will fling her away. For the subsequent days, she would lie around the house and douse herself with medication simply because she was pushed down.

The extent of her life –even mine- bordered at the low fence of our compound.
In my young eye, I have come to see marriage as bondage. I have often heard of women who braved the brutish nature of the world and found a way to fend for themselves and their family. But I have never seen nor experienced it. Dad kept his wife the way a man would keep his favorite car. He bought her gifts weekly and in return mum kept herself beautiful, well primed and hopelessly loyal. Strangely, I was yet to see or feel a connection between them. It wasn’t love that held them together, of that I was sure. Whatever it was was probably deeper than I could ever comprehend.

From the corner of my eyes, I caught sight of the nurse who had given my brother the injection approach. She pulled out a chair from the work table. She looked at me and smiled a weak smile with an obvious note of pity. I smiled back and looked away. I wondered what it felt like to be surrounded by death, sickness and so much misery, like this nurse here, who probably had seen countless people die.

“Excuse me, ma,” a male voice was saying. He was standing in front of the nurse’s table and partially blocking my view of the nurse. He had a tape recorder in his hand and a pen jolted out from the tip of his trouser pocket. Behind him was another man, who was shorter than the first. They both looked tired but excited as if they had somehow stumbled across the Holy Grail.

“Yes what can I do for you?” the nurse answered in a distracted manner.
“Good evening. My name is Desmond. Am a reporter from the daily news. This is my colleague from this day newspaper” the man said pointing at the other man behind. The second man wiped his hand across his bald head and cleaned the sweat on his oversized shirt that was tucked haphazardly into his trousers. His large stomach protruded out as if it was a weak extension of his body.


“Good evening,” the This day reporter said. “My name is Seun”

“Ah! good evening. Welcome.” The nurse replied.

From what I could see of her face, I saw a look of self importance creep over her face. She dropped the pen she was writing with and focused her attention at the two reporters.

“Thank you,” Desmond said. “We got a report that a student was brought in here. Apparently he had attempted suicide. What his status now?”

“Yes, yes that’s true. But its hospital policy not to disclose such information,” the nurse said, obviously pained that she wasn’t going to appear on the front page of a national daily gossiping her heart out.

“You can give us a quote, anonymously of course. We promise not to name you as a source”


“I don’t know; I could get in a lot of trouble for just talking to you. This na my first job since I graduate from school six years ago and I no wan loose am, abeg,” the nurse was saying.

“We understand ma. But don’t bother about anyone finding out about. We won't even name you. It’s a promise,” seeing the obstinate look on the nurse face, the reporter reached into his shirt pocket and took out a one thousand naira note. He looked around, bent low and handed it to the nurse. “Take this and buy malt. I know how stressful this job can be. My mother was a nurse,” Desmond said in a low voice which I could barely hear.

The nurse smiled. Looked around and quickly tucked the bill into the breast pocket of her white shirt. She pointed at two chairs in front of her and signaled for the two reporters to sit.

Money has a way of shutting down a person’s common sense and gossip has a way making them blind. Though I was sitting a couple of feet away from the nurse, she had failed to take cognizance of my presence. Thanks to a the almighty naira

Satisfied with the reporters sitting position, the nurse proceeded to talk about Tobi, my brother. I looked away willing my brain to shut down and my legs to stand up. Sadly neither happened and I sat in my wheelchair, like I’ve been doing for fifteen years now, and listened to the nurse kill my brother for a second time.

“they brought the boy here around 6pm. His entire body was covered in blood and his two legs were broken, I think his left arm was broken too. You know that over head pedestrian bridge in front of the polytechnic…. Apparently, he jumped from there and a huge trailer knocked him into thy kingdom come.” the nurse said. I could hear her snapping her fingers.

“Any idea why he had jumped,” another voice asked. I presume it must be the second reporter.

“I don’t know ooooh. But I heard that he was one of those boys that like other boys. Infact this is not the first time they are rushing him to this hospital. The last time he came, he had numerous lacerations all over his body and even machete wounds. Apparently he was flogged with machete.” Here her voice increased a bit as if she was angry, “I don’t understand children of nowadays, ehh. You send your child to school to study instead he goes there and become homo. Even the ones that beat him no try at all. But I don’t blame them sha. What is a full blooded young man looking for in the body of a fellow man? You need to see this boy, very handsome and fair and muscular. I think is from their home training. Bad parents! See his mother there, behind me. The slim, beautiful woman in blue ankara gown.”

“The light skin woman?” desmond asked

“Yes that’s her. She has been crying and disturbing the whole hospital as if she didn’t know that her son’s eyes the follow man nyash like magnet. I heard her husband is very rich, that’s why me I’ve been very caring towards them oh, so that when they leave these hospital they won’t forget me. I need as many connections as possible and I hear that the man is well connected to Abuja. But seriously eh, if that boy was my son, i'll use cane and flog that nonsense out of him. If you want to know more about his mental state or whatever, ask his sister.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s the girl sitting on the wheel chair behind you. I think she had polio or something. I hope she didn’t hear what I said to you people?”

lucentbeauty, Slap1, SugaryBelle, Hassan85, Ifude,
heemah,LyndaRoyce,
meeteemzy, edwife, vblinks, Ummuja,
A.J Gold, Ngraced, Adegoke623,
ADDUKY, Kingphilip, Divepen, Lanicky,
Toykathy, Jasmine 2013, chariepet,
Jeffrey James, Xtarxhyne, Queenxstar,
Beevann, mamaav, orirebaby, ijbeauty,
gorgeousnogo, Ice4jez, bawelat,
Diamonddamsel, epathra, demgirls,
Oluchikeh, tosinmoxy, Cpblessed,
gracile, harmless Phil, Akejujoe,
pwettyolly, miss universe, Iolite,
Ethel307, hnkan, Jjrhymez, Gudsyd,
joizy, winninght, ashtonpicky245,
teecute, eniodun26, Temmytayo20, seyi
Jayden, kkjoy, princeAdepoju, radiance,
vonn, lilipet, Orikinla , zeb04, Sweetcarrot,
princessusan, paradise163, Abuklaw,
iphie17, mariammi, Jaymomma,
Babyzai, Cscl4G, Christabel, Lahrra, ishilove,
prettymisi, Hyfe, jiteshell, molarawaju,
benibank, science4me,

emeka94:
lucentbeauty, Slap1, SugaryBelle, Hassan85, Ifude,
heemah,LyndaRoyce,
meeteemzy, edwife, vblinks, Ummuja,
A.J Gold, Ngraced, Adegoke623,
ADDUKY, Kingphilip, Divepen, Lanicky,
Toykathy, Jasmine 2013, chariepet,
Jeffrey James, Xtarxhyne, Queenxstar,
Beevann, mamaav, orirebaby, ijbeauty,
gorgeousnogo, Ice4jez, bawelat,
Diamonddamsel, epathra, demgirls,
Oluchikeh, tosinmoxy, Cpblessed,
gracile, harmless Phil, Akejujoe,
pwettyolly, miss universe, Iolite,
Ethel307, hnkan, Jjrhymez, Gudsyd,
joizy, winninght, ashtonpicky245,
teecute, eniodun26, Temmytayo20, seyi
Jayden, kkjoy, princeAdepoju, radiance,
vonn, lilipet, Orikinla , zeb04, Sweetcarrot,
princessusan, paradise163, Abuklaw,
iphie17, mariammi, Jaymomma,
Babyzai, Cscl4G, Christabel, Lahrra,
prettymisi, Hyfe, jiteshell, molarawaju,
benibank, science4me,

I'm honoured.

you're just one good writer. This is nice. Keep the updates flowing

vonn:

I'm honoured.

you are welcome.

Plaitex:
you're just one good writer. This is nice. Keep the updates flowing

thanks dear.

I looked up and our eyes meet. At that moment I hated her like I've never hated another before. a deep urge to kill, to draw blood, hopefully hers, arose in me. She looked away sharply and started arranging the papers on her desk. The reporters approached me:

“Excuse me miss…” desmond started to say.

I turned my chair towards the exit.
The darkness outside seem to be reaching for me, Calling my name in a dry monotonous hum –that wasn’t welcoming hum or consoling, Instead it was loaded with accusations. I could almost hear it saying
‘You killed your brother, even before he died. You killed him more than the nurse did.’
And it was true.

This morning I, and a million other people, had liked a post on facebook, posted by a celebrity:

‘Death to all gays. They are worst than pigs and deserve an eternal holiday in hell;’ the post had read.

I liked and commented. I wished my brother and thousand others like him death and pain.
He is dead and I am stuck with that feeling. Self hate. A feeling I will have for the rest of my live. It now made sense to me, that popular saying; don’t judge until you walk half a mile in another’s shoes.


I stopped as I reached the exit. I looked at the rumpled piece of paper in my hand; Tobi’s last words. I could open it and live with the pain of it forever or I could crumble it more and throw it into the dustbin of ignorance. But I honestly don’t want to consider the latter option, I wanted to read it. Mayhap I could find one of his witting and silly remarks inside or something else to hold onto for eternity. Something I could remember and smile.

‘In life I was an out caste for being who I didn’t want to be. In death, am afraid, that you wouldn’t want me’ the note read.

For the first time that evening I cried. Not just because my brother was dead but because he had lived a short and unhappy life and I never noticed. No one in his family noticed. Nobody cared.
I felt a hand on the handle of my chair.
“Nne, let us go” I heard dad say.

Tobi would soon become a feed for worms, like we all will be someday, but his came a lot sooner.