I Lived to Die...

 

Happy Sunday lovely people! I hope y'all went to your various places of worship today. If you didn't for whatever reasons, I prayed for you but please don't fail next time.

Today is a day of rest right? So we intend to just sit back and read interesting short stories or poems while sipping on a glass of wine, juice, zobo or kunu, anyone wey u wan sip, have fun!

Here's a short story from one of our beautiful writers...yea we have lovely people who will help make this place more interesting and fun with their God given talents of writing, we will also put into good use, our God given eyes of reading, there will also be room for good and mature critics, as well as the weirdos' point of view(my zone). So here it is from Amaka... read below....

I LIVED TO DIE

THIS HAPPENED ten years ago. It was a story I heard from the lips of my surrogate mother after curiosity almost killed me about why I was the way I was. I wasn’t there but I believed her because she would never lie to me; had never! It took her long before she could tell me this; same time for me to process the information, embrace who I was and live a normal life. I suppose you should know this part of my life so you could understand why my life was so complicated when I was here… Yes!

Like I said before, I was too young to know what was happening so I would tell the tale exactly as I gathered from my source. Without being sentimentally dishonest, I can’t say if I felt pains or not. I may have for the harm was pronounced on me afterwards; up till this very moment, even as I put this down in my secret book. It must have been a very tough decision for the woman; it took her up to six months to finally make up her mind about me. And even when she was on the verge, her conscience wouldn’t let her stand firm on it. She kept having double minds from the beginning till it was over. Sorry…ALMOST over. Her name was well hidden from me for reasons I didn’t bother myself about: what I didn’t know wouldn’t kill me __Better off this way! She was supposed to be my biological mother and since I didn’t know her name, I would go with the word ‘mother’. No one had the right to judge her; not even me and I held nothing against her, even in my peaceful box where I should be by the time you will get hold of the tale of my life from this secret book of mine, because it was a choice she made in a very hard way. I was never the type who condemned people without knowing the reason behind their actions and as long as I lived, I loved her as the woman whom I attached myself to for the little time she gave me… 
In Hillside Clinic and maternity, Lagos; ‘Mother’ was conveyed on a stretcher to the theatre. One of the nurses was quick to record some words in a long note as soon as they made the entry. Her pupils were inspected by the operating doctor and he asked her some questions which she answered accurately showing she was fully aware. ‘Mother’ requested to be left like that; she might have been scared…or curious to know how it would go. The first nurse had left by now, leaving only the doctor and the other nurse who removed her clothe and shaved the hairs off her body. She watched as the doctor pulled his gloves from the chest of drawers beside the bed. He put them on and asked. ‘You wrote of a self administered anti-pregnant concoction in the forms you filled, do you mind telling me what exactly?’

‘It’s petrol mixed with salt. I gathered its effective and I tried it in the seventh week…’

‘That’s all I want to know.’ Doctor’s Adam’s apple popped as he swallowed saliva. ‘It’s up to six months now’.

‘Mother’ nodded.

His gaze turned to the ultra sound screen. The first image of me was there; clear as crystal. It looked like a real picture, thanks to technology. My innocent face had developed mouth, ears, tongue, eyebrows and eye lashes which lapped against my lower lid with no plans of its own. I couldn’t open my eyes nor lift an eyelid yet because my optical nerve fibers were extremely delicate; I guess I needed more time before I would learn to perform those. There were minute hairs on my body and head. Likewise I had developed arteries, organs and vessels in preparation for my life on earth. My heart could beat at this point though it was just a hundred and twenty beats per minute and there was blood circulation through the vessels to my body parts. I won’t forget to mention I had blood cells; white to be precise so typically liver, spleen and lymph nodes were present in me. I had almost grown to a full human for my brain had fully formed inside my skull, my muscles had lengthened, the sex organs in adults had appeared on me, vocal chords had emerged and I could taste ‘Mother’s meals. The doctor and the nurse knew all this; ‘Mother’ must have seen me on the screen as well for she flinched. I could say probably that was when she started having doubts on whether to continue with it. The only steady heart there was of Doctor’s. The nurse who assisted in holding my mother’s abdomen did so with quailing hands…It was her first time with such procedure, I gathered.

Guided by the object in the screen, the man set fully into action. He used a long needle to inject a hypertonic saline solution through Mother’s uterine wall into the sac where I curled up, sucking my thumb. There was enough amniotic fluid in my little house and this contaminating liquid mixed up with it. I need not tell you how corrosive this salt solution was on me; it burned my skin in a cruel way. He would have injected more except for ‘Mother’s allergic reaction to it, obviously she was affected in some way like me. As defenseless as I was, I found it hard to run from the impending danger. My only luck was that I didn’t remove the thumb on my lips otherwise I would have swallowed a large amount of the poison.

I would like to slow down at this point else you would miss an important part of this story. I was a twin which basically meant we were two inside ‘Mother’. She was confused when she saw two babies on the screen; she had to go ahead all the same. And even if she had tried to speak out, the doctor was too mean to give her a chance. The brusque man hardly smiled. To him a signed deal remained that way; he rarely went back on it. My younger sibling bore the brunt of the process. She inhaled most of it…I too was finding it hard to hold on…

Within a span of four hours__ four excruciating hours, I found myself in the birth canal from where I was pushed out of ‘mother’s body by a strong force. My surrogate mother put it this way,

‘Labour set in and the woman; your mother gave birth to a half-dead baby.’

I did not move and to the doctor, it looked like I had given up breath. For the forty seconds he looked at me, I seemed lifeless. He was a thorough man; wanted to be absolutely certain and he could have beaten me on the head (as was his way) except my sister was on the way too. She had been propelled through the birth canal, her fontanelles fitted perfectly through the narrow canal and the doctor saw her head crown. The man flung me carelessly into the nurse’s arm as he went for her. I dared to say we had taken the doctor by surprise, arriving earlier than he expected. I was most lucky because the doctor wasn’t as rough on me as he was on her. He drew her on the head impatiently as opposed to the delicate way a new born was meant to be handled; taking extra caution not to injure ‘Mother’ in the process. Like me, she was all slippery and very much alive. Her scalp was badly bruised; her skin shrivelled. Her breathing had slowed immensely by now.

‘Discard it!’ the doctor barked at the nurse. ‘Why are you still standing there?’

HE WAS RIGHT! The woman had bent her head to watch me closely. She flinched when she noticed my tiny fingers moved. My eyelids equally struggled to open. From the corners of my mouth, a salivary-like liquid dripped down. The tender skin of mine had turned red and my left palm suffered a permanent disfigurement; curved inside and very stiff. Perplexed; she had watched me till the man’s voice jerked her into action. Not wanting the man to know the recent development as pertaining to my being alive, she turned her back to him instantly and walked towards the door hurriedly.

Once her hand was on the door knob, she heard a sound on the right to where she faced. Her head went to the direction of the noise to behold the abortus. Her head was crushed; that was all she could see from the distance as she made a hasty exit. The man had flung her the same way he did to me except hers was on the wall from where she dropped roughly down to the floor. My narrator doubted if she was still alive and even if she was, she would in no distant time bid forever goodbye to the world she came so close to living in. she was left at that corner to die in a pool of her blood…   

I had not known why this nurse saved my life. I believe she would tell me someday. I knew she would, in her own convenience. I was informed I weighed six ounces and my size was five and half inches.  This woman went against the clinic’s rule to save my life. She was my surrogate mother; the woman I called mom. Instead of burying me at the backyard of the building as was their method; she shielded me from cold with a thick scarf from her handbag. It was in that same bag she hid me till she left the premises. There was no indication I would live yet she took me to a private hospital for treatment while hoping fervently that I would pull through. I should have been blind; my skin should have been burnt to lifelessness…I was supposed to be dead and forgotten but somehow I managed to have a feel of what life was.

My childhood days were not all that awesome yet I enjoyed each breath I took in. I had a tough time growing up especially in my toddler years. I found it so hard to walk even after the age of three. It took a lot of gentle pushes with the help of a wooden walker to see me staggering.
 I fought to live…

Mom’s reason for taking me into her care was not far-fetched. She needed a child but she had no womb where they could grow. She saw an opportunity and took it; an act which I was grateful for. The chance she gave me was what kept me going and though I felt like dying sooner; knowing she was there for me made me feel differently.

Victory Peters was my name; a twin abortion survivor.

Though I had little time to stay in the shores of this earth as my health was failing me (the doctors we went to said I haven’t got much time to live), my last wish was to see ‘Mother’ and kiss her ‘goodbye’. I still love her and she would always be my mother despite the choice she made. If it was the last task I would perform, I needed her to know she has been forgiven…

Amaka Ebolue

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