SCARED…. by Mide Benedict

I got out of bed and with a strange question on my mind I began to wonder what must have dropped on my roof, accompanied with a very banging sound. It was as if a bomb was thrown at me, and which I, with my hand, had caught and had also foolishly placed very close to one of my ears, resulting into a Kabuuming sound and a rest-in-peace atmosphere. 

Anyway, to contemplate in emptiness and cluelessness is a mad scenario, which I knew quite well. And equally, I knew I was nothing near being mad or trying to be mad. Hence I decided to go find out what had made the alarming sound. After getting hold of my shirt and a short, I stuck my feet into a pair of footwear arranged alongside my shoes, and went outside the building, like an Aare-onan-kakanfo heading for a war.

There was a ladder, a very long one, with length matching with the building’s height. It was laid to rest on the soil at the other wing of the house. It had few missing steps, like two to three or so, but that was my only hope of getting to the roof. Without a choice to turn to, I went to where the ladder was laid and I carried it, lifting it from the middle to create a balance between the two sides, so as not to injure myself with it. 

Getting to my window which was facing my bed directly, if looked from inside, I planted the ladder there, making it rest against the roof of the building in a slant manner, since I wouldn’t want to land on my back then get it broken like the story of the tortoise and its shell. I got on the ladder and holding it with much grip and firmness, I progressed from one ladder step to another. And most especially, I avoided the ones that could doom my mission.

Soon, I got to the end of the ladder and was able to see the roof top very clearly. I scanned through the roof, looking for the imaginary object that got me to that position in the first place and I found it with utmost ease and surprise.
The object was very easy to detect as it was the biggest I’ve ever seen all my life. I got back to the ground to get a stick, as it was far beyond the reach of my hand, so I could use the stick to pull it a little closer to me, until my hand could finally reach for it. Getting back after fetching a stick, I climbed back the ladder, repeating the same process all again. I used the stick to do the job and within few blinks of the eye, I was down the ladder with the huge bat in my hand. 

As the thought of having a breakfast with it swum through my mind, the thought of the disaster that has struck the country started opening doors in my heart too. The disease was very deadly, so they said. In fact, I had seen pictures of persons infected and how they turned after the virus became mature in them.  So many, as well as me were scared of becoming a victim, because it’s easily spread through contact with infected animals and the body fluid of severe patients. Why I even considered it more compelling to dispose it was that the main carrier of the disease was the flying animal I was holding in my hand; a fruit bat!

‘Nothing do me, joh!’ I thought aloud with mush conviction. ‘If the thing wan catch me sef, he no fit. Sebi yesterday, I chop ten pieces of bitter kola and dem tell me say e dey kill the disease sharp sharp. So me go just roast am chop ni jere’.   

I walked back into the house, and after going through the path with two rooms opposite each other (for I wasn’t the only one living in the building) I got into the kitchen. The two rooms I passed were occupied by two men, one at the left and the other at the right. We were close friends and shared most things in common. Giving them a share of the meat was sure, as they would do if it were to be any of them that found it. I prepared the meat and cut some for myself to eat, while I kept the reaming for them, as they were not around that morning.

I went into my room with mine and after eating it up, I laid on my bed, though I didn’t sleep. I was just there, thinking of where I could go to, as it was a Saturday morning. After deciding where to go, I took my bathe and went out of the house, actually to watch a football match at a viewing centre.
When I got back home, I found out that the cut of meat I left in the kitchen was still as I left it, untouched. That only meant one thing; none of my neighbours had come home and it was evening already. The urge of finishing it up hung unto my throat so much that I soon cleared the meat and dumped the bones into the dust-bin.

Two days later, while I was still in bed, stretching my legs and hands off sleep, I felt a pain in my throat as I tried swallowing up the spit that had balled itself in my mouth. I first thought it was a fish bone which must have got itself stuck in my throat the previous night while eating I went out late in the night to get a plate of pepper-soup. So water was the next option. I rose up from bed, but not without expressing a little headache which had first appeared in the middle of the night. I couldn’t get up from bed in the night to take two tablets of paracetamol, because of the weakness that had overshadowed my muscles and the sleep that was guarding my eyes. But when it was morning, I had no choice but to get up and use the drug and most especially to stop my slightly increased body temperature. I walked down to the kitchen and gulped down two tablets of paracetamol.

After taking the drug, which gave me an aftermath bitter taste in my mouth, a knock came on my door, but I was not willing to go and get it, so I shouted ‘who is that’ from the kitchen and the voice of a man reverberated, ‘come and open the door, big-headed chicken.’ It was Charles, a friend of mine from the street next to mine. He mostly visited me in the morning, which I had frowned at him about, but he had refused to yield to it, instead, he repeated his, ‘big-headed-chicken’ sort of greeting. ‘So it’s you that want to break my door open, ehn? Sha open the door, it’s not locked and bring your big head inside.’ I replied. He opened the door and came to meet me in the kitchen. We exchanged pleasantries and soon, we began to talk of what has been happening around.

‘Have you heard of the disaster happening here and there?’

‘Which one, because recently, we’ve been experiencing series of troubles everywhere?’ I replied.

‘The recent one that has been killing so many’

‘You mean Ebola?’

 ‘Yes, that devil of a viral disease. It has killed so many people and yet no cure has been found.’

‘No cure? But I heard bitter kola can cure it and moreover, I have recently been feeding on bitter kola for some days now and I’m very positive about its works.

‘See you’, Charles said, ‘your chicken head has pecked on lies like corns too well’. He smiled then continued. ‘Ebola has no cure, so stop deceiving yourself.’

‘Wait a minute. What do you mean by that? If it is as you say, that means the tendency of being infected is still 100%!’ I was becoming more tensed. I knew what has started happening to me were signs of that dreaded disease. I was frightened. My mind immediately drew back to the bat I ate two days ago. I shivered, my heart thumping at the pace of a trouble mind.  First I didn’t want to die, second, I had shook Charles in the hand and that means if I had the infection, he was already infected too. Charles began to notice the confusion in my eyes. Thinking I was bothered about the previous question I asked, about Ebola becoming hundred 100% contagious, he instantly spoke out.

‘Your heart is pounding already’. He giggled. ‘It’s not 100% contagious as far you trend carefully, staying away from all the possible contacts with the disease.’ He paused then continued.
‘And make sure you stay away from all those avocado pear-like ladies for now. And when you notice anyone or yourself suffering from similar symptoms, you should run with your legs touching your head to report the case. I gave a dropping smile and swallowed a ball of spit which gave me some pricking pain that made me recall the presence of my sour throat. How would I tell him I ate a bat, a dead one which I knew not what killed it, except that it landed atop my roof. How would I tell him that right now I had developed a fever, how would I tell him to run to the hospital with his legs touching his heads to report my case, so they could come test whether or not I was positive, and how would I remind him that as he came inside, he shook my hand, and he must have stuck it in his nose to remove some hardened mucus probably blocking his nostrils.

‘You look very disturbed.’ He said. ‘What’s wrong?

‘Nothing.’ I replied, but after displaying his inquisitive nature, I finally gave in and told him the truth. He was very scared, even more than I was. I noticed how his eyes were gradually turning red and how his mouth was gradually becoming ajar. For some minutes he was looking at me, without speaking, but after a while, he spoke.

‘Let’s go to the hospital for a test.’

‘You mean right now?’ 

‘Of course, get dressed and let’s go before it’s too late. If we are free of the disease, then we are free to come back home’

‘Okay’.

I dragged my feet and went into my room to put on something very simple. When I came back, I found him washing his hand intensely with soup, so I signalled to him to inform him of my readiness and we left the house for the hospital which was very close by. 
When we arrived at the hospital, we beckoned unto a nurse who was making a call outside the hospital and told her everything. The nurse instructed us to wait outside and went in to call the doctor. It was the doctor that then took us to a different wing of the hospital where we were tested. I was first tested for malaria, then typhoid and cholera. We waited for the test results and when it finally came out, Charles was negative but mine came out positive.

Charles was very lucky he knew how to avoid the disease. It was after the test that I discovered that washing one’s hand could get rid of the virus from gaining entrance into the body through contact. I didn’t know, but he knew. All I knew was that bitter kola could cure the disease, and which was totally a lie. Moreover, Charles only touched me when the sickness was still at its teething stage. As I later learnt from the doctor who was heading the unit of the Epidemic Outbreak Division (EOD) that he was more likely to even be free from the disease, as it only becomes contagious when mature. 

When explaining the possible ways I could have contacted the disease from the dead fruit bat, I was told that even the dead could cause death. That means the fluid from the dead bat could also transmit the disease from the bat to a human. Hence, the chance of me getting the disease from either the eating of the dead bat or the contact which the bat had with my hand, which I must have plonked into my mouth, as I was addicted to eating my nails, was very apparent.

I was taken to a more isolated part of the hospital to stop any other form of contact with outsiders, so the spread of the disease could be impeded. Though some of my friends came around and waved at me from a very far place, which was like a window from another building. I had told them not to come visit me through a phone conversation I had with one of them, but they insisted, therefore I had no choice but to agree with them, but not without the doctor’s advice not to let them come near me, since the love I have for them could only be expressed if I let them continue living without contacting the disease. I told them not to fight over the burying of my body, but to leave it all to the hospital to handle, as even my corpse, if not properly buried, could cause the spread of the disease.

Days later, I began to experience some other symptoms of the disease, such as bleeding, extreme weakness of my muscles, along with stomach pains. But I didn’t give up, I knew one day, even if I had died then, as it was now more than a week since I contacted the disease, I knew the disease would one day be eradicated. At least I was there when smallpox was exterminated. Though it’s painful, but what else can I say to myself but to pray to God that I may rest in perfect peace. Amen.