THE GAME & THE GIFT.

"The vision of a champion is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion, when nobody else is looking.”
Mia Hamm

I should have been among the Ghanian national team now.

Chamba health Centre my foot!
As if that's what I want, rolling his eyes.

Doctor Kacely's mind is always filled with football, football players and some of their famous quotes and everything that has to do with the game.

The lucky thing was that he was one of those children that don't need to read but they know so much already.

He was very brilliant.

He always pass his exams in flying colours even as all he does in his spare time is play football.

He was one of those who retain any thing they see or hear, their minds work like a mirror.

He was still reflecting on all the attributes of a good player when a nurse came to call him.

On his way to the labour room with the nurse, his remembered one qoute by a well known football player.

"'The secret is to believe in your dreams; in your potential that you can be like your star, keep searching, keep believing and don’t lose faith in yourself"
Neymar

Well , as regards football, I am just a bloody fan now, he thought, deflated, thanks to my dad.

Doctor kacely just got back into his office. He was returning from the delivery room where he went to check the woman that just delivered.

The mother inlaw had left.

She had to.

Her presence was no longer required.

'What just happened now'.

He could have just lost another mother and baby.

Just like that?

Oh my God!.

Are these so called diabolic people even for real?

Like seriously?

This was the most disturbing thing he had witnessed in all of his career as a doctor.

When his father forced him to
go to the university to study medicine,

He was deeply upset.

In fact he was very angry.

All he ever wanted was to be a footballer.

He just wanted to play on the field. amongst other field men like himself.

He loves to stay fit and run the expanse. He loves the feel of the wind on his face. He loves the adrenaline rush that comes with the crowd roaring noices.

Then those screams from the fans and supporters.

It goes straight to the head and the hearts pumps to it's beats

Then the body is moved to do more.

For Godsakes,

I had the the technique.
The ball control.
The dribbling skills.
The passing accuracy.
The body control

I had the game intelligence
The spatial awareness.
The tactical knowledge.
The risk assessment

I had the physical fitness.
The endurance.
The Balance and coordination.
The Speed, Strength and power.

My mind set was ready for heavens sakes.
I had the compassion,
The composure
The mental strength
I was coacheable
And I was self motivated

Mennnn, It would have been heavenly to play football professionally, but no!
You must read medicine and become a doctor ! Tiannn!.

'Here I am, stuck in this medics work', he smirked.

In Chamba health Centre, Ghana.

Pathetic!

He disliked his father for taking this dream from his grasps. I think detest is another good word. What he feels for him mostly is strong resentments.

But earlier today, when he got in to that labour room with the nurse they sent to call him; and they had showed him a woman said to have been in labour for 4 days!

He suddenly felt a tiny paradigm shift from his fixation with the field game, especially as the supernatural events unfolded right before his eyes.

First he saw a woman seated by the labouring woman, holding her hand.

A woman crying with as much pains as the heavily pregnant woman was.

This woman In labour has lost so much strength, yet she is not dialating at all.

Not even one tiny inch.

The delivery process for the baby to pass through easy is said to be progressive, when the labouring woman is dialating and has dilated up to at least 10 inches.

Meanwhile her blood pressure is hitting the roof!.

She can't be operated upon in this state, first the pressure has to be regulated while at the same time ensuring the baby is not distressed.

That was when he saw it.

Something really dark and foreboding surrounding the woman's bed.

It was a evil presence.

This must be in direct reference to the non readiness of the woman's body for delivery, he thought speedily.

The intent must be to harm both mother and baby.

Their reason was not known to him, but the devil was on ground to prevent the success of this delivery process.

"Mama", he said, "come outside , let me talk to you".

"How are you to my patient"? Doctor Kacely asked, once they were outside.

"She is my daughter in-law", mama responded, still genuinely teary eyed and miserable.

"Okay mama, Please leave her side for now, let's see how we can help her.

Mama made to protest
Doctor was firm in his request.

So she had to stay outside on the corridor.

Doctor kacely went back inside to check the woman, she was direly in pains and very weak, dying.

He checked her again, her cervix was firmly closed this time around.
He placed his palm on her tummy

and unconsciously looked up;

That was when he saw a revelation.

On the camera that shows everything going on in the hospital, he happened to have looked specifically at the one showing the lobby of the labour ward where he just left the elderly mother in-law.

Mama tightened her headtie for a while and also tightened the aşó ofi (traditional/ native beige and white cloth) tied around her stomach.

The strange thing he noticed from those two actions were the tightening of the labouring woman's tummy and her cries of excruciatiing pains.

His patient was screaming death!

"my head, my baby, my stomach"
"Doctor, I am dying"

Her definite request came after.

"Help me".
"Help me".

"Madam, you are not dialating at all and your blood pressure is too high to open you up for surgery".

He told the nurses to start praying for her again.

Then he walked out with purposeful strides, straight to mama.

His face was as hard as stone.

First he yanked off her headtie and then the native wrapper around her stomach.

Then mama fell to the ground and started shouting.

"She must pay! She must pay!
She will not deliver safely.
She is very wicked to me, she beats me and tells lies on me. She tells my son that i say bad things to her and It is all lies", lies upon lies, she must die!

He simply told the hospital security to stay with mama, he shook his head at her and he walked away.

His mind was blank now, he has a patient to save.

Back in the labour room, the nurses were shouting,

"Doctor! Doctor"!

"She is ready, she just opened up suddenly". The nurse explained together. excited.

"Wheel her to the delivery room then", he said, feeling a deep sense of relief and gratitude.

She delivered the baby without as much as one tear.

A beautiful baby boy, and the mother was able and healthy.

When he went back to the lobby to get mama, he saw that mama was quiet and looking morose, even older than how he had seen her earlier.

"come with me ma", he held her hand, she walked slowly beside him.

He walked her to the private visitor's room.

"Sit down ma", he said

Mama lowered her self to the seat ever so slowly, shamefully.

"Mama, so should I tell you your main reason for what you did? Or you will tell me by your self?".

He was seated by her side now and yet his mind did not go to football.

She was looking at her feet.

"Do you know that if you ever try to hurt her again, you will die? You only caught her in her weakest moments and you tied her down".
"How do you trample beat down a dying human? Yet you know delivering a child is as hard as dying in itself?

I ask you again mama, "why did you really do it?

Silence.

And more silence.

"Mama, you have evil membership!".

That was when she looked up and started speaking.

"Yes, I do. I belong".

She started rambling on in repeat statements.

"This cult I belong, for many years I have escaped donating humans to it becuase I was their queen. I just relinquished my position not long ago and now the rotation got to me. It came my turn to make my human donation. I have to donate the person I like most in the world. She is my most prized human as they had assured me".

"Doctor, they proved it to me".

"They showed me that I love her more than my son. I found this out when I took my son for the donation and they refused outrightly, they said I love my son's wife even more than i love my own son. I still couldn't beleive It my self. They said I am ready to live with her for the rest of my days becuase of how she cares for me like I am her real mother. They insisted that they only want that which will give me the greatest plans and sorrow. They gave me the ultimatum as her delivery day. I have been crying all through her pregnancy, sometimes she catches. me crying and it makes her very sad, she starts to cry also. While she prays for the whole house;

"I cry because I know that if I don't kill her, I will have just seven more days to live."

The doctor, he sighed.

As the scenario painted had him overwhelmed.

One interesting thing about Doctor Kacely is that he sees clearly. Introspectives and retrospectives. This was ever since he was a little boy of five.

Hence the main reason the father insisted he should read medicine so as to help his patients to stay alive as much as possible, knowing how wicked the world we live.

Doctor Kacely has helped several patients in his medical practice.

Yet he had always seen himself on the field of play ever since he was seven years old, this was why he is so sure he was derailed.

His ultimate love is still the most sexy field game ever, Football.

DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction and any resemblance with any persons, living or dead, or events, real or imagined, are purely coincidental.