(Continued from the previous part)



Image result for hd picture of a homeless mother and her young girl

Kim after her mother's death.


At 1PM the girl was discharged from the clinic. Mr. Smith asked her if she knew her mother’s number but she said no. She gave him the name of her school and he was able to locate the school through google maps after fifty minutes of driving and turning from one slum to the other. The said school was a wooden structure with about three rooms, separated with planks. There were more than thirty students in each tiny room such that there was barely enough place to sit them. Above all, there was a strong overpowering smell that wafted up from the gutters nearby. This was in sharp contrast with the schools his children attended.



He spoke briefly with her class teacher who told him that the girl, whom he later knew as Kim was on scholarship because of her exceptional academic excellence. He gave the teacher some amount of money to buy all the necessary things for the girl, most especially food and cloths. He gave the teacher his number so that she could call him if the girl needed anything then he left.



As he drove to the other part of the town where his wife’s chains of shops were located, he felt light headed and happy. He had not felt that way for years and he enjoyed the heavenly feeling that comes with doing something good and worthwhile for other people.



KIM.

April 1992.

Three months after the incident, Kim and her mother were sent packing from the place they lived because they were unable to pay the rent for several years. The real owner of the house had been very kind to them while he was alive. He had never bothered to disturb them about paying instead, he always told her mother to pay when she has the money. But the landlord had died one rainy evening and his only son had taken over the ownership of the house. It was rumoured that he was happy that his father died.



He was a Rehoboam, he made life harder for the tenants and among the people to be evicted first were Kim and her mother. So this made them to be living with her mother’s sister who has a room in an old crumbling house on the Lagos mainland.



One Tuesday morning in April, Kim and her mother were going to her employers’ house and she was telling Kim all the things she would do when she gets there. At the time, the schools were on second term break. The sky suddenly became clouded with pregnant clouds. The sun was conquered and her lights were snuffed out quickly by the darkening clouds. Winds whipped up all sort of debris that littered the streets and flew them through the air like kites. Motorists and pedestrians quickened their paces in order to outrun the impending rain. Her mother urged her to quicken her pace, wishing and hoping that they would be able to make it to her working place before the rains begin.



Just as if the rain knew their intention and didn’t want to be defeated, it began in a torrential downpour and within seconds, all the people still on the streets were drenched to the bones and the dirty yellow Lagos buses were washed clean from their eternal filth. There was nowhere to duck from the merciless rain, all the houses and the shops beside the road had no facade that could offer shelters from the pelting rain, so her mother held her hand tighter and urged her through the rain.

“Mummy, I want to pee!” Kim shouted through the deafening noise of the rain but her mother didn’t hear so she had to shout louder.

“Pee on yourself, it doesn’t matter anyways, we are drenched already” her mother said distractedly.



Tentatively, Kim began to pee on herself and the warm salty liquid was heavenly against the chilling waters of the rains. She mused at the fact that her mother who used to scold her for bed-wetting in her sleeps when she was younger was the one telling her to pee on herself now.



At the junction where they were supposed to turn towards the estates where her employers lived, her mother stopped abruptly, a yellow bus zoomed past in a hurry, bathing them with the brownish dirty flood. Kim wanted to start raining abuses on the irresponsible bus driver but her mother told her not to. “One day” her mother said “you too will buy a car and will accidentally splash water on people. People will rain abuses on you too and some will even curse you but they will be powerless against you if you don’t do it now that others are doing it to you”

“Okay mum” Kim said.



Her mother looked right and left to confirm that no vehicle was coming from both sides though it was very hard to see because the visibility was very poor and the rains blurred their visions.

“Let’s go now!” her mother said and crossed the road.

Kim was slow to respond immediately and by the time she began walking after her mother, a car had emerged from a side street and hit her mother, the collision separated their hands and sent both of them flying in different directions. Kim was stunned from the impact but she was able to stand after staying few moments on the ground. Whoever drove the car didn’t wait; he or she sped off down the adjacent street.

“Mum?” Kim ran towards the place where her mother lay sprawled on the streets, lifeless. “Mum, muuummm!”



Her screams brought people from the surrounding houses and streets into the rains and soon, the place was filled with people despite the rains. After several minutes of fruitless effort at waking her mother, the good Samaritans decided to take her to the hospital and an incoming car was stopped and forced to carry Kim and her lifeless mother to the nearest hospital. They were followed by two old women, who cried all the way to the hospital.



At the hospital, nurses and orderlies brought a stretcher on which she was wheeled into an emergency room. The trio was made to wait at the reception. Less than two minutes later, the doctor in charge came out with his stethoscope on his neck. He beckoned to one of the women and the two of them conversed silently. Somewhere in the middle of their conversation, the woman shouted but she quickly put herself under control after stealing a glance at Kim. After few more seconds of their conversation, the doctor walked into a ward and the woman came back to where they were standing.

“How was it, ako abi abo?” the other woman asked.

“Abo, she kicked the bucket” the other woman said sadly.

“Eemo! Yeepa!” the other woman said tragically.

Though Kim didn’t understand anything about their coded conversation but from the tone of their voices and body languages, she knew that something serious had happened to her mother. She began to cry. The women quickly placated her and told her that her mother was okay.

“Then I want to see her now!”

“I’m afraid you cannot do that right now, she is not strong enough to see anyone now. By the way, where is your house and how can we reach your father?”

“My dad is dead” Kim said

“What?!” The women shouted in unison.

“Iru ki leleyi o!” What sort of calamity is this? The older one lamented. Soon, she began to sing a dirge in a sonorous voice. All these brought tears to Kim’s face again and she began to cry.... READ MORE..... https:///32VH233