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.

LIFE SOLUTIONS.

Enitan was crying bitterly

'Someone had upset my baby girl', Morayo fumed.

"What's wrong" she had asked her teenage daughter.

The next statement that came out of her daughter's mouth sank her hearts to the undergrounds.

"Aunty Bejide said you are not my mother, she said you found me inside the bush".

"Oh God" she exclaimed!

Sometimes she wished she could silence her only sister.

Bejide is a very loose mouth runner.

She had always wanted to tell Enitan about this story.

In fact she had been pinning to do it.

Sometimes she wishes Bejide was not her sister.

This saga of telling Enitan where she was originally from has been on ever since Enitan was as little as 3 years old.

Enitan is thirteen years old now.

Thanks to Bejide, Morayo knew she will barely get a good night sleep today.

'She has a story to tell now', she thought tiredly.

Many years ago.

Morayo was driving home from work.

Her work was with a popular conglomerate.

They were mainly known for their production, distribution and wholesaling of fast moving consumable goods.

She was the regional sales coordinator of Lagos Island & Epe Environs.

She was recently divorced after having been married for seven years with no child.

Her husband having insisted on wanting his own children, could not imagine staying on in the marriage when the doctor had finally disclosed their last findings.

Morayo's uterus was inverted, positioned in such a way that she cannot not ever get pregnant through the conventional way.

He was devastated and was not even ready in the least for any hospital assisted processes.

So they went their separate ways.

The love did not survive the blow.

She was not ready for a repeat, so she had stayed single.

This day, she was driving out from Epe township when it happened. She was stopped by some police men at their checkpoint.

They had asked for her car papers. while she was responding to the officer on her driving side.

The one on her left side had opened her front passenger seat side and sat beside her.

He had swiftly placed something like a white handkerchief on her nose.

That was all she remembered.

She woke to find her self inside a very big expanse of wooded lands.

The huge trees were extremely tall,

but that was about it.

No birds flying high in view

No land animals walking past.

Just the tall trees

Her head ached

Her eyes hurts badly

Her stomach was rumbling

She recalled that she was going to have dinner when she gets home.

So she tried to take in everything happening around her.

There were so many people in view, multitudes actually.

They were sitting on the floor like her, some still fast alseep, some just waking up and looking disoriented.

Men, women, old, middle aged, young, very young and even babies.

The realisation suddenly hit her.

'We were all kidnapped one way or another and brought here'.

Jeez! Whatever for?

While her mind was racing its marathon, her head pounded faster as her eyes continued to look around.

At the farthest side she noted several more of the hefty men incharge of the large group on the expanse.

They all had wrapped around their waist, red and black clothes, with plain black head ties.

A teary eyed, local looking, but overly dejected woman spoke from beside her, crying still,

"I am a single mother, my husband died from car accident five months before I delivered my baby.

These people here are ritualist, I don't know how I got so unlucky", she lamented.

"Please ma, hold my baby for me. I want to go and urinate in the bush".

So she held the baby, and as the woman got up on shaky legs , with paralysing fear written all over her tiny worn frame;

She had made to speak, to ask permission, but one of the fierce looking ritualists threw her a knife, it landed on her chest and she fell down in one swoop.

The woman untinated on her body as she dragged her self slowly to Morayo, then she whispered

" If you survive from here, my baby is yours, please keep her safe and care for her like she is yours. May God almighty keep and protect you from this harrowing death."

She breathed her last.

That was when she confirmed fully that she had somehow found her self in a human slaughter field.

Everyone was being wrapped in red clothings, even the young.

It looked unbelievable to her that the woman dead on the ground in front of her was just talking to her right now, and that she had just given her, a baby of about three months old to carry while she go take a pee.

Morayo peed on her self instead, in utter panick and at the enormity of her situation.

She continued praying as she has been with all her heart the moment she realised the weight of the evil she was surrounded with.

She looked inside the baby bag of the dead woman, she found the baby's food, diapers and an ankara wrapper with the strong slimmer native wrapper, the one to hold the softer one it in place if there is need to back the baby.

In an urgent protective instinct, she had quickly put the baby on her back and secured her in place.

Then she placed her palm on the eyes of the dead woman to shut the lids.

And so it went on and on, that the hefty guards came and took each person cladded in red, one after the other to the main man under the Iroko tree.

He will recite an incantation and then behead them in one slice of his dagger.

The heads were kept to one side and the bodies were heaped on each other on the other side.

When she saw what was happening.
She looked around some more, and she told her self a saying she had seen in one of her horror novels.

"What do you say to the God of death?
Not today", she whispered.

She resolved strongly to live.

And it came to pass that when it came to her turn.

Knelt in front of the man

The man under the Iroko tree did a double take.

Then again and again because now she backed a baby.

Suddenly he got up and took Morayo by her hand and had dragged her to the back of the tree so as to make some enquiries from her.

He was smiling as he noticed that she had seen and realised that he was the police man that had collected her car papers earlier at the fake police check point.

She did not waste time at all in her reflex.

She did not think too.

She didn't have the luxury of time to.

She also didn't let the ritualist say anything.

All the man felt was some warm liquid gushing out of his gashed neck.

The several fleeting looks that played across the man's face,

Shock,

Realisation,

and then pure pain before he fell to the ground stone dead.

Morayo had carefully removed the medium knife thrown at the baby's mother's chest and kept same inside the folded parts of the front of her wrapper.

**
Earlier that week, to make sure his co ritualists do not turn on him, he had made an oath with all of them including the hefty guards working with them.

It was such that if anything happens to him, and he dies, everyone one of them will drop dead along with him.

Such was the jazzed up bond they weaved.

This was how Morayo saved over half of the masses scheduled for brutal rituals on this faithful day.

Only a few of them knew for sure what had liberated them.

Most didn't.

It didn't matter.

Everyone had ran out of the woods in different directions.

With her chubby blessing tied behind her back, Morayo ran as fast as her tired feet could carry her.

Her heart was beating heavily on her chest, she was scared stiff.

**

Back to present day.

She sent Bejide out of her house, she didn't care where she goes.

She was tired of a sister that likes to inflict only pains and misery on others.

She then told Enitan the actual story as much as she could tell it to her thirteen years old daughter.

Enitan held her mother tightly and she cried bitterly.

They both did.

She cried for her dead mother and then for the lives of the multitudes that were beheaded in the bush on the said day.

She was mostly grateful for the courage of her mother now, as her faith in the woods that day could have been worse off.

Morayo cried mainly becuase a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

She did marry again;

Yeah, she did.

When she met a man that didn't care if she could have children or not.

He was sterile himself and it had equally broken his own previous marriage.

So they have both known real life marital pains and heart breaks.

Their courtship and subsequent marriage was built on solid foundation of love with no expectations whatsoever.

They had resolved that If they want more children, they will adopt same.

As an only child, opportune too.
She knows the real meaning of faith, grace and luck.

'I have a mum and dad that loves me like life it self', Enitan feels life couldn't be better to her than it already is.

All I have to be is good.

When she prays at night;
She prays for God to ease all the pains in the hearts of people.

She prays that God helps the poor to find helpers.

Then she prays that God should please get rid of all the bad people in the world, but most especially ritualists.

THE END.

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

In Bristol, UK, this young man of about 35 years old always had a beautiful life with his wife.

It has been tales of love and grace.

All he feels for her is undiluted love, warmth and happiness.

Love so overpowering and genuine.

They do not have children yet.

But she is heavy with their first baby now.

When their child is born. He will love him, her, them with the same ferocity.

He has been so blessed, he smiled, she massages his neck and back at will.

He loves it.

Sometimes he lies awake, watching her sleep. she is gorgeous.

"I will guide and protect her with my life". He pledges.

Their marriage is now five years.
He got married to her when he was thirty years, she was twenty one years old at the time.

He had know her since he was twelve years old and she was three.

The British government made sure they were trained with equal skills even as they have nine years difference between them.

They are originally from Tehran, Iran.
During the Iraq-iran war;
“First Gulf War" or "Holy defence" The Persian rebelion: as called among the Iranians which began on 22nd of September 1980, the time Iraq invaded Iran.

At the height of it all.

This young boy of about 12 years old had ran away from being recruited to carry a bomb to detonate at the Jahan square.

This beautiful busy square full of innocent peoople going about their days work which was to provide for their daily needs.

He couldnt imagine the horror.

In his mind, he wants to make to get to some kind of safety, any safety, anything strong enough to protect him and get him out of this godforsaken place.

In his short life, all he ever knew was strife, struggles and hostilities.

His parents and his two other sisters were killed in cold blood, they were so sure that if they got rid of his entire family, he will be ready to join the movement and be a matyr.

His eyes had seen so much, such that could have made him ruthless,wicked amd mean. But then how does that make him different from the ones that rained down the terror on his land.

The kind of hell he had seen in his young life made him so shrewd, guarded and sad.

The war here is not fought with the grey swords, here there are no combining of swords with the dance, it is not those hand-to-hand combat moves for a ferocious battle.

No, not at all!

In Iran, they shoot everything that moves, young old or cripple.

Bombs & grenades are thrown at will.

Things are blows up

People are blown up

Place are shredded to pieces

Settlements are levelled.

This was the life he knew.

His late elder sisters were brilliant and so witty, he just couldn't understand thos kind of existence, such that cut life's so short before it's prime.

Sometime in school, he felt he could tell by looking at the faces of his friend, the ones that already is with the terrorist, ready to give their life to blow places up.

Their faces gave nothing away.

All while he ran, he dodged and docked away from flying bullets all above his head.

Shattered houses, maimed bodies and lifelessness in his front and behind him.

Bullets nearly touching him.

His clothes are torn in shreds.

It was a hopeless place, this land.

That was when he saw it.

No, he saw her.

A little bundle huddled up at one corner of the street.

Covered

Alive.

But shaking visibly.

Probably praying for a miracle

Or,

Waiting for the bullet to hit.

Then he went closer and lifted the ivory coloured hijab.

There she was, one of the most beautiful little human he had ever laid his eye upon.

She was holding her hands to both her ears, little hands trying to block the loud battle sounds away.

Eyes tightly shut.

Still shaking

She looked up at him

With the strangest of eyes

Blue and green little streams filled with brimming tears.

A tiny being of just about three years old.

Without much of a thought, he scooped her up and continued his mad run towards God knows where.

While they fled, several bullet escaped his ears by threads.

They hid under a tent like shed for some time,she asked for water.

He looked around. She does look patched.

He looked around the tent once again and saw some cartons of sealed bottled water, plastic bottles, easy luck.
He took one plastic bottle in a hurry, and opened it to quench her thirst.

That was when he noticed that she hand no shoes on her feet.

After a while, he wrapped her up in the him a and scooped her up once again, they started their run for their dear life.

His legs were tired, he arms ache now, his head was pounding in rhythm to the fast beating of his heart, but he couldn't stop running.

Too much is at stake.

He then came accross this tall white man who had two cameras hanging from his chest.

Though he was recording with his pocket camera.

He was heavily built, with blond hair, his eyes were hazel, and he looked tanned like he has spent so long in the sun.

The man stopped them and had asked him what he had in his arms.

"My little sister", he responded.

She is all I have.

Every one else is dead.

They killed them , all of of them, our dad, our mum and our elder sisters.

The reporter is a British citizen from Bristol.

He was really sad and empathic towards them, the little sister was still shaking and full of fear.

He can't possibly leave them now, knowing he could have helped them, they have survived this long and had made it this far.

He swung into action and taken them with him, they broke in to a mad run again, and this time, they head straight for the British embassy.

There, the young boy and his precious little sister were flown out of Iran, straight to the united Kingdom, Bristol to be precise.

Being that they are both minors.

They need full care and attention.

The British Government had provided for them in the form of a home with carers.

The photographer was made one of their guardians.

They also had social workers who come in every other day to check in on their well being.

They enrolled them in school.

They trained them in all ways children should be.

Their general well being was well handled.

With all privileges.

The nights were fitful for her.

She always had nightmares about her parents. She sees them at a distance calling unto her and her mum crying bitterly.

His own nights were full of insomnia and flash blacks of how he had escaped them, the men that already strapped on the bombs on his body.

How he had removed it half way and broke it to a mad run.
He head starting kind once again with all the thoughts about Iran and the Satanic War.

By the time he graduated from the university at age 22, having trained to be a surgeon.

He was already a skilled pianists, a Finanacial analyst and a guitarist.

He was also a good chef.

She was just 13 years old and in High school. Year 3.

The young boys in her school can not get over her looks.

She does look amazingly eastern, with beautiful eyes and a nose pointed yet rounded at the tip.

She didn't forget though, nothing skipped her.

She always tells him

"I remember", she says

"You carried me from the war, the death.The bad people bombing the whole place. You are my brother, but you are not only my brother, you are my angel, my saviour.You kept me alive."

"I do remember my dad and my mum.

They seem so distant now but I remember them.

I do.

When he became 25 years old, she was 16 years old.

She fights all his female friends, all.

He fights all his own male friends that as much as look at her.

They tell him, "she has got the most unusual eyes, one blue and the other green."

He ignores them, just angry that they even looked long enough to have noticed her amazing eyes.

She is breathtakingly beautiful.

It was real war for him to have or keep any of his girlfriends.

She messes up everything.

She will cause a rift that will finally lead to their breakup.

There were many more break ups.

It was all becuase she loved her brother genuinely.

She had always imagined him instead as her own husband, not just a boyfriend.

She couldn't see her life outside of him.

'All those stupid girls think they can come and take aways my jewel' she frowns.

When she was 20 years old, he was 29years old.

At this age, she was a computer guru.

She was also an excellent chef just like himself, she had bagged several skills too.

At this time , they both came to a conclusion that they will like to be together forever, more than siblings they agreed.

They took a trip to the embassy.

He finally told them their full story.

As he ran across the street of Iran on the faithful day they were rescued.

"I was fleeing from being used as a terrorist to bomb the Naqsh-e Jahan square".

"I only ran into the reporter who saved us, after I had first rescued my little sister from the streets of Iran where she was huddled up in a corner covered with an hijab".

"She is not my sister by blood,
But all we had was each other"

Their guardians were genuinely surprised at the full story about their rescue years ago.

They granted them permission to date and court each other openly if that is their wish as they are not related by blood.

It was a match made in heaven.

They already knew each other like the palm of their hands anyways.

They had always lived together as brother and sister.

This will just be a little dynamics change to become husband and wife.

All their friends couldn't believe it at first, they shocked most of them as they did live as siblings for many years.

Everything seem to make more sense now to some of his ex girlfriend.
I mean what kind sister is always at logger heads with her brother's fake friends and intimate friends.

So much seem clearer now.

Sometimes, their home country Iran flashes through her mind., that point when she unconsciously transports herself back into the mind of her child self.

Her parents were gunned down just some minutes before he rescued her.

She had gone in to an uncompleted building to uninate, while her mum shouts in for her to hurry up.

Then of a sudden, she didn't hear her voice anymore.

When she came out, she had seen both her parents on the ground, in a pool of their blood.

They were not moving, she couldn't believe her little eyes, she touched both of them for a while before she had walked forward a bit and then huddled down in the street corner in panic and despair waiting for the bullet to hit her.

The war in Iran ended on 20th August 1988, when Iran accepted the UN-brokered ceasefire.

Iraq wanted to replace Iran as the dominant Persian Gulf state, and was worried the 1979 Iranian revolution would lead Iraq's Shi'ite majority to rebel against the Ba'athist government.

Children in Iran suffer so much neglect and abuse.

Having lost their parents most of them eat for the dustbin and they don't get to go to school.

10,000 children die in Iran yearly.
Over 39,000 children are living in abject poverty.Child labour is a norm in Iran.

Back in Bristol, our wonderful couple had a baby boy.The atmosphere was that of pure joy and love.

They are both diplomats in the making.

The British government consider them not just their state children, but they consider them their wonderful gifts.

Having them both alive at all, married and now procreating in itself is enough grace.

THE END.

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