MILLIPEDE CHASING
Text Copyright © Ada Uzoije 2014
All Rights Reserved
This story is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
PART FOURTEEN
In his haste Emenanjo looked back briefly and saw the pastor praying out loud and waving the Bible at him. In his trail the crowd spilled from the church door with faces contorted in rage. He dodged the sticks, the stones and the belt dancing in the air toward him. A sickening feeling filled him as he ran.
How would they ever understand his desperation? Tears quickly trickled from his eyes, rolling down his cheeks in the warm breeze. He could not believe he was crying. Emenanjo was crying! He thought he was made of iron. Since Okafor passed away he had been wanting to cry. For four days now, from the day Okafor passed away, he felt the need to weep, but he couldn’t find his tears. Being called a thief and being treated like scum now shook him to assess his bad situation.
At once he looked at how he was dressed and he noticed his dirty tattered clothing and the stench on his skin, and suddenly he hated himself. He could not believe that he had let himself go to become some empty shell of a man with no self-respect. He smelled and looked like a common gutter rat. All this consideration of his condition made him abandon his concentration on the road ahead and without realising it, he started slowing down, making the people in pursuit of him rapidly close in on him. Emenanjo wept and wept with his eyes closed as he ran. The heartbreak in him was powerful and depressing, overpowering him, no matter how tough he thought he was. He was wrong! He was never made of iron. On the contrary, he was just a man of flesh and bones, living in a hypocritical world that he was losing the fight to survive in.
Okafor is gone! Emenanjo felt all alone, and now he was once and for all convinced that there was no GOD! God was wicked, in his opinion. Wicked!
The pastor leading the chase had his moment as he was just a few feet from Emenanjo, as he stretched his hand to grab the young man’s shirt. Emenanjo saw something profound in his way, crossing in front of him. He screamed “No!” as he leapt to keep himself from stepping on a passing millipede, crossing the narrow pathway just in front of his fast feet. This caused the pastor to lose his balance and as he stumbled his foot came down, stepping on the millipede with his left foot before falling on the ground. He met the sidewalk with a mighty thud of dust as the thief raced out ahead of him, not watching where he was going either.
The pastor could not avoid the wormy creature in his way. Crushed instantly, the millipede was dead. Emenanjo was not that fortunate as, in his lack of attention, he ran right into a black Jeep with full force. He ran out in front of the car because of his caring attempt to spare the little millipede from the weight of his foot. The car hit Emenanjo, sending him sprawling a few feet away from where the breathless and exhausted pastor was lying. Emenanjo lay flat on his back in the road, disoriented for a few seconds. All the people in pursuit of the thief stopped running and bent over with their hands on their knees, catching their breath.
Now everyone in the street, who did not even notice the young man before, all stood witness to the accident. Now they paid attention.
A middle-aged woman dressed in traditional Igbo attire rushed out from the back seat of the Jeep. She was accompanied by a man wearing traditional attire with a fashionable walking stick, who took his time to emerge from the shelter of the car. He stood and held the car door, watching the ordeal. He saw at a distance how her expression changed suddenly as she lifted the young man’s head to see if he was injured. She saw the blood on her hands and shouted to her husband for help. Emenanjo had suffered a grave wound on the back of his neck and head and was bleeding. It appeared that he would not survive. The woman’s husband in turn shouted for their driver to come and assist them in taking the victim to the nearby hospital. As they lifted Emenanjo, the bundle of cash fell out of his jeans. The lying pastor saw this and he quickly forced his way through the gathering crowd to pick up the money. Everyone stared at him with dismay but he was too selfish to care. Now he could look forward to taking the next day off to recover from today’s marathon.
*****
Long hygienic corridors ushered doctors and nurses from ward to ward. In the lobby at the Reception desk a few beautiful ferns adorned the entrance where patients were admitted. Against the walls there were several posters, and here and there visitors would be standing, waiting to see their loved ones. Some of the patients were healthy enough to walk in the hallways, while others were under observation for more serious ailments. Men and women were kept in separate wards, and each ward had its own staff attending to it. It was a private hospital, mainly for the privileged upper class and among the sick patients lay Emenanjo, the poorest of them all. He had been in coma for an entire day, but he was making a quick recovery. Four days after the accident, he sat on his bed chatting to the doctor.
“You’re telling me I don’t have to pay anything?” he asked in the warm atmosphere of the room, decorated with flowery curtains and light green bedding.
“No,” replied the doctor, folding his hands while standing and looking at the quiet man who suddenly became very talkative.
“Just like that, this couple just paid for my bill? Are you sure they paid for my medical bill?” Emenanjo thought, it was unbelievable. He had been begging for kindness to come since his friend died but it never came and now, suddenly, it appeared from nowhere.
“Yes! And now you are free to go home. Here is your prescription for a month,” the doctor took the plastic bag containing the medicine from one of his nurses who had walked in. He gave the bag of medicine to Emenanjo.
Emenanjo bit his lower lip with unease as he contemplated on how much he would have to pay for these drugs. “How much?” he asked.
“How much what?” the doctor asked confused.
“How much for the tablets?” Emenanjo asked again.
“The couple paid for the bill. They gave me their number to ring them for any of your medical expenses,” the doctor said, confused that the young man could not understand something so simple.
“Please, give me their number; I need to thank them,” Emenanjo said but he still struggled to smile. Everything that had been happening to him was tragic. Now he was in a very fancy hospital where everything was light and neatly in its place. Then he remembered his friend’s body still unburied and the hefty bill he still had to pay to the mortuary.
“My advice, thank them in person. They don’t live far from here, they told me. I think they will be happy to see you, even if you go today. I will go and ring them,” the doctor spoke wisely with a smile to comfort the confused patient.
“Thank you!” Emenanjo said and got up from the bed. He started packing the clean spare clothing the couple had also brought for him.
*****
“My name is Emenanjo,” he said to the pretty, well-dressed middle-aged woman sitting in front of him with her husband. Next to them sat their twin sons, thirteen years of age. He entered the large house and could not believe how luxurious it was. Emenanjo ran his eyes over the spacious lounge, noting a fine wooden indoor bar to his left. It had two lines of tumbler glasses hanging festively above the counter where three bar stools stood uniformly next to one another. Looking upward from the bar he noticed a collection of assorted wines from behind the transparent glass doors and shelves.
The couches looked new and were draped with fancy embroidered material. Beneath his feet was cool marble flooring which made the room look instantly bigger. The curtains were drawn open to let in the sun, making for a jovial atmosphere throughout the house. In the light of the big windows the marble floors had a white sheen, so smooth and polished that it reflected the window.
Emenanjo was happy to meet this couple who had showered him with kindness. They were really friendly and delighted to see him. Next to Okafor, he could not remember anyone ever being this happy to see him. Everything was heavenly here, even the fact that the house had air conditioning to keep them cool in the heat. Only wealthy people could have this luxury and he felt privileged to be sitting here. To show them his gratitude he was dressed in the clothing they had left at the hospital for him. After a nice hot shower and a while in front of the mirror to look his best, he now looked well groomed with his new pants and shirt, finished off with brown leather sandals.
“Emenanjo!” I love that name. “Where are your parents from?” the woman asked, as she sat down next to her husband.
“From Aba,” Emenanjo answered kindly. He looked at the twins and noted that they had eyes the shape of almonds, much like his own, and they were slender and athletic. He guessed they had to be good runners too.
“Which village? Your ancestors? That’s what my wife wants to know. Aba is a town, everybody living here are all from different villages. So which of these villages did you come from?” the woman’s husband asked, helping to clarify the question to their guest.
“I am an orphan,” he said, looking at how the patterns ran entwined on the marble while his chin pointed down. He expected the smiling family to suddenly dislike him or think less of his stature in society as most people did.
“They are probably going to ask me to leave their home and never come back again,” he imagined.
“Orphan?” the man asked him, and his wife remained quiet while thoroughly scrutinizing the polite young man.
“I never knew my parents, but all I was told by the governess looking after my orphanage was that my parents were from Aba. She heard that my mother had abandoned me at a clinic before running away. She was very young,” Emenanjo said in recollection of the story, suddenly realising that he had never told anyone, and kept this information secret even from Okafor. Maybe Okafor’s death had suddenly released a part of him he had hidden for a long time – that part of him that still thought of his birth parents and if they were alive or dead.
“Is that all you know about your mother?” the man’s wife, who had been quiet for a while, suddenly asked with a serious tone. She seemed genuinely concerned for the poor orphan.
“Yes, madam,” Emenanjo replied sorrowfully.
“How old were you when she abandoned you?” she asked.
“Two days old,” Emenanjo said, wishing the lady would stop asking him any more questions.
“What was the name of the clinic?” the woman continued asking, as if she was hunting for facts.
“I don’t know. My birth certificate accidentally got burnt when I was three and it never got replaced, so all important information about me was lost.”
He drank down the Maltina drink their housekeeper served him and slipped his hand around the meat pie she brought with it. It was delicious, sating his hungry stomach.
“How old are you?” she asked. Her husband tried to discourage her from asking more by placing his hand lightly on her with a look of negation, “Why are you asking all these questions? You are making our guest uncomfortable, dear.”
The woman turned her head toward her husband, “Darling, please just let me ask these questions,” she begged with a smile, but in her eyes he noticed tiny tears.
“I am 21,” Emenanjo said, and the woman held her hand to her chest in fascination.
“21!” the woman raised her voice and rose from her seat. Her face suddenly became tense, her brow stretching in upset. Her husband saw the panic on her face. “What is wrong?” he asked.
“You are sure you can’t remember anything said about your mother? Nothing at all?” the emotional lady asked with urgency.
“Nothing!” Emenanjo said as he looked right at the teenage twins who stared at him like two cats staring at a mouse.
“Where can I find this Governess who told you about your mother? Maybe she can tell me more about you?” the woman said, now wanting to make formal enquiries.
“What is going on? Why do you want to visit his old orphanage?” the husband asked her. He held his wife’s hand against him.
Then Emenanjo remembered something. “I have something from my mother! It’s at my place.”
“What is it?” the woman now demanded to know. She shuffled her feet in anticipation.
“A piece of paper, where she wrote the name the doctor should name me before she ran away,” Emenanjo exclaimed. Her eyes grew wide and her lips quivered as the tears welled up.
“Ooooooooooowhh! I can’t believe this! You are my son! You are my long-lost son!” Chibukem exclaimed in astonishment as she placed both hands on her chest and stared at the son she had lied to her family about; the son she told them died at birth. The lies she fed them!
“What?” Chima, her husband, and Emenanjo said jointly together. Father and son looked at each other in utter disbelief as joy filled their hearts.
“Okafor! Millipede!” Emenanjo said and broke into tears as he remembered the image of the dead millipede lying obliterated on the ground on that fateful day that he bumped into his parents’ car.
This story is dedicated to true friendships, to those special friends who see us true during our lightest and darkest hours. When our families are out of the picture, friends can become the best thing money can’t buy.
Thanks to everyone that have read Millipede Chasing, from Part 1 to the Final Part.
IGBOLAND – NIGERIA.
Millipede Chasing will be available for purchase in e-book and paperback in November, 2014.
