₦airaland Forum

NB: A female friend of mine told me this story. I think everybody should read it, those who should, should learn

HER STORY.

Growing up in the type of neighbourhood Ebuka did was probably what got him killed. Our neighbourhood was pretty rough, everywhere stank of poverty. The poverty was reflected in the way gutters, overflowing with black smelly water gushed into the path leading to someone's very doorsteps. Everyone lived in a one room apartment around here so no one stayed indoors that much - how could you, the old table-fans people used were so old that it ended up blowing hot air onto someone rather than blowing it off. The streets were always lively - unclad children chasing themselves around a pile of decaying rubbish close to their window. women pushing dirty b_reasts into their latest kid's mouth while another one who is barely one and half struggles for his own turn to suck from the same breast.

That was the kind of neighbourhood we lived in.

Everybody went to the old government schools somewhere across town but just few continued schooling after sitting for their first WAEC. Most always didn't make their first sitting.
When my widowed mother first found out my brother had started smoking weed, he was just in SS3. it wasn't much of a surprise though, in a street where sixteen year old girls already had an active sex life it was almost like my mother had been waiting for it to happen. In a way she thought my brother would never start doing weed; he was gentle, far too quiet even and usually kept to his own. What my mother didn't know was that he sold weed too. So when SARS, a special force police unit in Enugu, started looking for him - that was when my mother became shocked to her marrows. She loved the boy blindly, we were just two siblings - my brother and I. My brother was like her hope.
"He will fight your father's brothers for the injustice they did us when your father died." She always told me. Although she was just a petty trader, She had been saving for his University education.
"You brother will study medicine". She always said.
So when SARS showed up and he had to escape through a back window, my mother was hugely disappointed.
"So this is how you want to kill me!" She had screamed at him three weeks after he returned from hiding out in the village till the heat died down.
My brother, always never saying much, just apologised and left the house.
Soon we forgot it ever happened.
Till rumour started flying around in my street. I remembered hearing it first from my best friend, Ogechi (Talkative).
"I heard your brother is now a hit man for his cult".
Ogechi had a mad crush for my brother so she had made it her duty to always know anything and everything about him. I had quarrelled with her for two weeks after that.
We didn't believe the stories - my mother and I, Ebuka was too gentle for that.

Till one day...

There was this playing ground in front of our house, every sunday guys came there to play football. I remember doing laundries just in front of the door, my brother was playing football in the field. Occasionally I would look up to admire one of the boys I had a crush on who was also playing.
I guess I was the first to see them, about four boys slowly entered the field from different directions.
My brother and a few other boys on the field, who I guess were also in his fraternity, saw the boys and I noticed an expression of terror cross their faces, they had obviously recognised them.
Then I saw the boys who had just entered the field pull guns. People started running. My brother made to escape and ended up running into one of the boys - at this point I was screaming wildly. The first bullet caught him on his arm, he screamed - pushed the guy who had shot him and turned towards another direction. He took the next bullet in his legs. He screamed out in pain, tears were running down his face now. Blood gushed out from his wounds but he still managed to drag his body across the field, determined to escape.
Then the next bullet went straight to his head, exploding and scattering his brain around the play ground.
One of the guys just calmly walked up to him, and using an axe, butchered his head into pieces.

Thanks

The story you are about to read is inspired by real life events. A tribute to my ex, may her soul rest in peace. This is her story; the same way she would have written it and in her own words.

The story begins...

Hi. My name is Chinwe, I'm 21 and in three days time...I will be dead.

At least that's what the doctors say.

Alright; I will explain.

I have blood cancer; the monster normally comes in four stages - I'm presently in the last stage. Lol; don't worry praying for me - I won't survive it; Cancer doesn't have a cure...yet.
While I wait for death I decided to scribble my story on my old dirty diary; silly egg headed Czar, Lol; I know the sweet mumu will tell my story one day and I don't want him adding things that will embarrass me. So I have told him that whatever story he tells about me should come from my diary.
Alright enough of this long talk; let me begin my story.

I grew up in the slumps; like deep inside the slumps. You know, those kinda streets that had houses with windows that you can open to lend some other person in the next compound a packet of matches through his own window.
Between the windows ran an overflowing gutter that I had always suspected was linked to a 'suckerway' somewhere around.
Outside the windows my 'street guys', almost every evening, converge to smoke. So anytime we didn't have dinner we just had to make do with the think smell of indian hemp that filtered in through the window into our shabby one room apartment. The smell was so thick at times that I suspected we got as high as the guys smoking the real thing outside.

I'm talking too much story; back to me...

I remember the first time my blood cancer symptoms showed. I felt dizzy and got tired so often that my mum started looking at me suspiciously.
"I told you to stop seeing that Czar guy" she told me " if it turns out you are pregnant your father will have your neck".
Me - pregnant? I haven't even kissed the guy yet.
Alright, maybe twice...but there was no way I was pregnant. Not unless Angel Gabriel had showed up without me knowing. The thing was my mother had this phobia that I was going to get pregnant someday before I get married. She had every reason to be; our street was that 'babyish'. Like, tennagers getting pregnant two weeks after the first signs of developing boobs showed. Yeah, it was that bad. Sometimes I suspected that dropping a live cobra on my mother's laps will not cause as much hysteria as telling her I had been put in the family way. So when I saw my period that month, she heaved a sigh of relief and went to Ejiofor - the street's chemist who didn't even finish primary six and asked him to 'mix' some malaria drugs for me.
We all thought it was just malaria; till one day...

I collapsed...

The day I collapsed for the first time, my mum predictably rushed me to Ejiofor's shop. The chemist had a spare room behind his shop which doubled as both a consulting room and a ward, sort of.
Later I had been told he gave my unconscious body one long look and for once admitted the illness was above him. That scared the hell out of my mum; everyone knew how "brave" Ejiofor was around sick people - he rarely admitted anything was above him rather, he would always grab a syringe like some sort of ninja and pour in some liquid from the nearest bottle he could grab from the old rotting cupboard in the corner of his shop.
That evening, thanks to Papa Okey the cab driver who lived a compound away from ours, I was given a free ride to UNTH Enugu. The next morning I woke up to see my parents staring down at me with mournful looks like a judge had just announced I was going to be hanged.
Nothing ever rattled my father; so one look at his face and the first thought that came to my head was: What's that look for, who did a train run over?
What my mum did next was the most creepy thing I would ever witness in my life, lol, in my short life sha - I saw streams of tears run down her face and her shoulders shake with such uncontrollable emotions but still, no sound came from her.
You see, in my family, emotions embarrass the purgatory out of us - my mum could blush to the root of her hairs if anyone of us hugged her. Crying in front of me was a milestone you guys will never really understand.
Next, she threw the next shock wave - she hugged me. That was when I knew things were really serious.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
My mother looked at me; her eyes misting over and filled with a mixture of pity and heartache. She looked at my Father.
"Where are we going to get 10 million naira from?" She asked him.
"10 million, for what?" I asked, looking from my father to my mother and back to my Father.
Trust my father - Mr. Africa most blunt. He looked at me.
"You have to be flown abroad; you are dying. They say it's cancer. Blood cancer. The advanced stage. We hadn't noticed it on time".
There was pity in his eyes too but he was doing a good job hiding it.
At that moment, everything stopped then started spinning very fast.
I borrowed one of the nurses phone and called Czar at about 5pm that same day - cried for 1 hour 30 minutes with someone's airtime. I checked the time myself (Laffs). Czar just listened and I just cried - I had such huge dreams, I wanted to be a fashion designer. I wanted to take my parents away from the slumps. I had always been lost in thoughts sometimes, day dreaming how I was going to shock my parents into hugging me when I bought them a house.
Well, I got my wish - at least my mother had hugged me (Laffs). She had hugged me not because I had bought a house for her but because I was dying (Life can be ironical).

2 YEARS LATER.
CZAR's words...

Chinwe's last days would always be clear in my head; she died very painfully. I remember watching her gradual decline from a the very pretty girl I had fallen for to a frail skinny dying 21 year old. Her parents had never raised the money; they tried but they just couldn't raise it. I watched Chinwe, a day before she died, struggling for breath in a ward at UNTH. The management were getting irritated; it was either her parents fly her to india for treatment or took her home to die...They were that blunt.
That evening, a day before she died, I visited her at the hospital. She had looked at me then smiled weakly and threw one of her usual jokes.
"Czar darling". She told me. "No more boobs to stare at abi?".
My eyes misted.
"You know I have never stared at your boobs. Staring at your pretty face had never allowed me to take my gaze lower".
She laughed, her voice shaking from the effort.
"Yeah, Face watching is your hobby. Onye asi".
I went to her and held her hands.
Tears slowly started running down her face.
"I'm dying. You know, don't you?"
"You won't die". I told her. "You won't".
She smiled.
"Mr wash" she laughed weakly. "I will die, soon"
Tears ran down her face more as she continued...
"I want to die; my parents can't afford the chemotherapy and I'm being turn to pieces inside every single day. Each day I pray it would be my last day. I live in agony"...

I have to end the story here; sorry it is too abrupt. the memories are too painful. She gave me her dairy that day.

The next day she died...

RIP Chinwe Ewerobi... I don't really think any other girl can be like you to me - ever. Go well.