Azed S2 E10

Azed S2 E10

EPISODE 10: LOVE WANTINTIN

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When I blanked out in Temi’s room, I
was so weak from the loss of blood
that I could barely move, and I was in
so much pain that I thought I would
die. As I got better, I realized that my
recovery was not so much dependent
on my willpower or the medical
attention and antibiotics as it was on
my nurse. For the critical week where
I oscillated between living and dying,
she sat beside me and held my hands,
wiping the sweat off my head as I
gasped and groaned in my infection-
induced delirium. She fed me and
popped painkillers into my mouth like
candy and pumped me full of fluids.
On the day my fever broke, I had
opened my eyes to find her dozing off
on a chair with my hands in her lap.
“Temi?”
She jerked awake, the smile that broke
out on her face masking the tiredness
and bags beneath her eyes.
“Ope o. You don wake.
“Wetin happen? Why am I in your
room? Why am I on your bed? And
most importantly, why does it feel like
I’m naked under this sheet?”
She chuckled. “True true you don’t
remember ni sha.”
I shook my head.
“Well, Baba said you will not
remember everything, so…”
“Who’s Baba?”
“Hahaha. The story is long. Let me get
you pure water and then I’ll tell you
the story. Ok?”
I nodded.
“Oh, by the way, you owe me 3
bedsheets. You don stain my bed finish
with this your red blood wey no gree
wash commot,” she said as she walked
away.
When my throat was properly
lubricated and I was able to sit up in
bed, she brought me up to speed. I had
rediscovered the scars and aching
muscles and with them had come some
memory, and she filled in the gaps,
her eyes alternating between emotions
as she narrated. I saw in her eyes the
fear and panic as she ran out looking
for help, the unease as she walked
down dark streets looking for the
house she was directed to, and the
shock when she realized that the man
who would help remove the pellets
from my body was a wizened old man
with bad breath and a fondness for
burukutu and alligator pepper. Tears
threatened to overwhelm her as she
described standing over me holding a
lantern in shaky hands as the old man
worked his magic, praying that my
pale, unmoving form was not rigor
mortis but only unconsciousness. Her
widened eyes told of her panic and
helplessness as my fever steadily rose,
and I could swear I saw a tear in the
corner of her eyes when she started
talking about how she stayed awake
almost nonstop for the first 2 nights I
was ill, sponging me down and
changing the sheets. By the time she
moved on to how she had to change
my sweat and blood-soaked clothes,
there was a twinkle in her eye, and a
burning sensation started at the base
of my neck and quickly spread up my
the rest of my face. She completed her
story at the point at which I woke up
and jerked her from sleep, and by that
point, I was so overwhelmed I could
barely speak.My thoughts were muddled in my
head. I had only seen Temi a few times
after that day at her mother’s store.
She was fun to talk to, and I had
discovered that she had an endless
stream of anecdotes and jokes to tell,
but I had never thought of her like my
girlfriend. When I came to her room,
it was because she lived alone, and she
worked as a pharmacist’s assistant. It
was a spur of the moment decision-
like a baby instinctively knows who to
trust and play with, I knew I was safe
with her and she would not betray me.
I wasn’t expecting her to go so far out
of her way and expose herself to such
great danger and expense, but as I lay
in her bed, I was grateful she did.
How do you thank someone who saved
your life and watched over you at
great personal expense and risk? What
do you give to express your gratitude?
How do you express the many
emotions roiling inside you at the
realization that without this person,
you would be dead or permanently
disabled or, even worse, in prison?
There are times in life when words are
not enough. This was one of them.
I cleared my throat and lubricated my
vocal cords, willing them out of their
inoperativeness and restoring them to
usefulness. My bilateral
supplementary motor area, left
posterior frontal gyrus, left insula,
primary motor cortex and temporal
cortex kicked into gear and came
alive, pushing information down the
nerves in my body and towards my
chest and face. My lungs inflated and
diverted air past the glottis in my
larynx and up my vocal tract, and my
lips synced with my brain and
contorted to form the words that
carried all the weight of the emotion
that was eating at me.
“Thank you.”
Temi smiled at me and looked quickly
at the floor, embarrassed at all the
emotion on my face.
“You’re welcome. Na small thing.”
“It is something. I know how much
danger I put you in, I know how much
wahala I for bring on top your your
head. Thank you. You did not have to,
yet you did. I’m very grateful. I no go
ever forget this. ”
“I didn’t do anything special. What
was I to do? Let you bleed all over my
floor? I did what any human being
with a heart would have don……….hey!
why you dey cry? ”
My ducts had betrayed me, and a thin
line of tears ran down my face. I
sniffled and wiped them off with the
back of my hand, stretching my lips in
a smile and turning to face Temi.
“I’m not crying. Dust entered my eye.”
“O jebi. Afi dust nikan.”
“Thank you.”
“E don do now. Oya come and sleep
and build your strength back. We’ll
talk when you wake. I dey here, no
fear. Me sef, I have questions too.
Poko. Fadeke. Kassy. Akeem. About the
scars on your back. And about how
you managed to get shot. So sleep and
build your strength. I’ll be here. Oya,
come dey sleep.”