LarrySun:
THE JOURNEY TO A THOUSAND FLASH

Flash 22: Coma

To Doctor Olufemi Onasanya

It was 1958 and Chinu was only eight years old when it happened. His older brother, Somto, had caused everything - but nobody knew, not even Somto himself did.

The family was taking a holiday trip when a little butterfly perched on the window beside Somto - the only person in the car who noticed the insect. He clapped his hands and the butterfly flew away. The action was immediately forgotten and the journey continued in earnest.

The little butterfly with beautiful wings flew away innocently, but its movement disrupted the pattern of a murder of crows. Due to this disruption, the birds - scores of them - changed their destination and travelled due east. This little, teeny-tiny change altered a subtle law guiding the thread of fate. The crows were not supposed to travel east - west was the pattern. But because a child somewhere had clapped his hand, the planet, for a brief moment, rotated anticlockwise - but nobody knew, no one suspected anything amiss, except, perhaps, the flying creatures.

The birds flew in an alternate course. While they flew, the flapping of their wings caused the change in weather a few miles away from the travelling family.

***

The wife of a major was at home expecting her husband's return when the cloud suddenly turned dark. The woman became worried about her husband - Major Dauda suffered from pneumonia. He was allergic to cold; it would be another serious problem if her husband was drenched by the rain; a situation he was often a victim of. She broke into her husband's room and picked up the walkie-talkie. She knew she was not supposed to use the walkie-talkie, but she needed to warn her husband about the rain.

She switched it on.

***

Major Dauda was taking his mistress to a hotel. His wife at home knew nothing about this, and he planned to keep it that way. After thirty-five years of marriage, he felt that he needed to sample another woman, a much younger woman. He had sworn on a stack of Bibles that he would never cheat on her - but with a beautiful girl beside him in the car, his vow seemed like a distant memory.

But when his walkie-talkie suddenly buzzed from the glove compartment, Major Dauda twitched in fright. He had not expected it to buzz; the other pair was locked away in his room.

He searched through his glove compartment for the walkie-talkie. All it took was the few seconds - the few seconds he looked away from the road.

"Look out!" his mistress screamed.

But it was too late. In his search for the walkie-talkie, he had driven to the opposite lane. He collided head-on with another car, a car that contained a family of four.

The army officer and his mistress died instantly. Little Chinu's parents and his brother survived unscathed, but Chinu was not so lucky - he went into coma.

***

It is 2020 and Chinu is now seventy years old.

He had been in coma for sixty-two years. His parents had died in 1990. His brother, Somto, died ten years ago. When Chinu went into coma, he had been transported from one hospital to the other over the years.

When the Civil War broke out in 1967, Chinu's parents managed to move him from the eastern part of the country to the west, an action that further stretched the thread of life, making it taut, tangling it - but the thread refused to break. Chinu's recovery, just like the destination of the crows, was in the east, not the west. By transporting him further away from home, the thread of fate was pulled thin, but life remained elastic.

Dozens of doctors had tried to revive Chinu but had failed; they all eventually outdied the boy. Doctors came and left, but the hospitals remained.

Although Chinu was in a coma, his body never stopped growing as he aged. He attained puberty under coma - he grew his first beards, his first moustache, his first pubic hair. He became a man without even knowing.

Doctors had advised Chinu's parents to pull the plug on him, but the distraught parents would never hear of it. They were wealthy enough. They didn't mind paying for the time; no matter how long it would take, they were ready to pay. Chinu's family was not ready to give up on him. Before they passed away thirty years ago, Chinu's parents had placed a fortune in trust for his sustainance.

Somto had taken charge of his brother's situation after their parents passed away. By then, he was already married and had a grown-up son. By the time Somto died in 2010, his family already owned a hospital in Lagos. It was in this family hospital that Chinu finally woke up after sixty-two years of coma.

Chinu's body had shrunken with age, his hair had turned grey, some of them were already falling out on their own before they were shaved. The only part of his body that didn't grow old were his eyes. They were still the eyes of that eight-year-old boy of 1958.

When he opened his eyes, the first person he saw watching over him was a young woman of about nineteen years old. The woman smiled at him and said, "Welcome back to the land of the living."

Chino was confused. He didn't understand what was going on. Indeed, he didn't understand where he was. He was a child in an old man's body. It was too much for someone with an eight-year-old memory to comprehend.

"Where is mama?" he asked. Apparently, his voice had not changed much too - probably because he had not said a single word in sixty-two years. "Where is papa?" He stared at the nurse. "Who are you?"

"My name is Nene," said the girl.

"Where's Somto?"

"That's grandpa," said the girl smiling. "He has been dead for long."

"Dead?" Chinu was confused. He looked around him. He saw his own body and began to cry. He was crying like a child he really was.

Nene was confused. She left the ward to inform her father that grand-uncle had finally woken up. It was an unbelievable moment as Ifeanyi, the son of Somto, rushed to the ward. Tears filled his eyes as he saw his uncle stare back at him with innocent eyes.

"Who are you?" Chinu asked. "Why am I here?"

Doctor Ifeanyi knew enough to understand that his uncle didn't have the psychological capability to comprehend the situation. It would take a while - a long while. A psychologist would have to be employed. A great deal of work would need to be done on Chinu's mind.

***

A few months later after series of psychological assessment and analysis, the psychologist believed that Chinu had already had a little grasp of the situation, of reality. But his assessments were not entirely correct. It was another reality that formed in the old man's mind. Chinu did not believe all that had been said to him, but he pretended to understand.

In his mind, Chinu believed his family lived in the east, in his hometown. He demanded to be taken home.

"Maybe that's the closure he needs," the psychologist had told Doctor Ifeanyi.

And so Doctor Ifeanyi decided to take Chinu to their hometown in the east. The family still had their old mansion there. One weekend, the family - Doctor Ifeanyi, his wife, Nene, Chika and Chinu - packed themselves in an SUV and began the trip. Chika, the youngest member of the family, was particularly over-excited.

Halfway home, Kelechi noticed a little butterfly on the window beside him. He smiled and clapped his hands. The butterfly flew away and the journey continued in earnest.

The boy didn't know that he had just set in motion a series of events. The little butterfly would disrupt the movement of a parliament of owls that would change their course and travel due west. The owls were not supposed to travel west - east was the pattern.

But whether this action was meant to create further chaos, or to repair the one already created sixty-two years ago, only nature - and destiny predetermined by infinite probabilities - would tell.

©Larry Sun, September 2020