You wouldn’t Believe It
As a self appraised yet voluntary vigilante, keeping watch of my house and environs wasn’t novel to me. I often kept watch from the comfort of my bed and once I heard the sound of people hitting metals to the ground from the paid vigilante boys, I knew it was time to change shift. Sleeping late was a norm for me and today wasn’t any different. I had stayed up watching the man without gravity on Netflix but my eyes begged me to close them as if to inform me there was drama looming and we (my body parts that are) needed to be ready. I finally succumbed to sleep.
One hour into this sweet sleep of dreaming about nonsense or maybe how nice it would be to be cuddled up and the sheer reality that I am still this single, I heard my name. At first, I jumped out of bed to grab the anointing oil my mom placed by my headrest when she visited for Christmas, I whispered psalm23 just so I didn’t have to disturb the neighbours.
“Blood of Jesus! I bind every spirit calling me at 3:20 am”. I heard the voice again. “Somebody! Anybody. HELP!”
I recognized that voice. It was Folake, my neighbour. Her brother had been battling with a medical condition for about 2 years and once in every odd time of the year, he has a seizure. I was accustomed to this episode but tonight would change our lives. Maybe forever.
Kunle had had 4 seizures in the space of 30 minutes and the struggle to get him into the car by his sister, brother and elderly father was what made her call for help.
I stormed out to knock on the door of every other member of my household. We all dashed towards the sound of her panic. Folake turned to us, gripped with apprehension. Her eyes agonized for fear that she might lose him. If eyes could speak, hers would have said: “don’t watch me. Do something. Kunle must not die”!
We all, like minions, without an ounce of knowledge on how to stabilize a patient having a seizure, wore our invisible capes ready to save the world like the guardians of the galaxy-but this was an inexperienced all-female mission ready to save a lad.
Two slim ladies, Mercy and Anu less than half the size of this lad pulled him on both hands, one manning each hand as they tried to make him lay steady in the back seat of the Mercedes. One of the two ladies fell in the gutter behind her when she realized she was pulling someone two times her body weight but like all superheroes, she vaulted onto the pavement towards the car to continue her mission.
At that point, Moyo who was an auxiliary doctor of physiotherapy, who came to stay with us for her American ‘Jaapa’ Visa interview had sprung into action. Simultaneously hitting his chest while rubbing his head. At this point, all I could do was beckon to him for a response as proof of life while I helped raise his legs towards the window. Which now as I think in hindsight, I must have pushed his already aching leg like a bag of rice too heavy for me to carry. Once we got him into the car, Folake zoomed off and we drove behind.
Not until we arrived at the hospital and the doctors had stabilized him did we realize we were all off in appearance. Some people had been staring at us rather oddly but we paid no attention to it.
Once we noticed Kunle was in the safe zone, we became cognizant as to why people stared at us with discontent. Anu was putting on one pair of slippers while her other leg was coated with murky water from the gutter she fell into. Moyo had only a shirt reaching a little below her buttocks with nothing underneath as sleepwear, while I had the left sleeve of my nightie dangling towards my arm while my left breast was on full display. We both looked at the ridiculousness of our embarrassing situations with imperturbable pride, walked towards the car in silence- a silence almost loud enough to hear each other’s thoughts. Immediately we dashed into the car, we all heaved a sigh-not just for the relief that our patient was in recovery but for the fact that we actually felt like superheroes who made it to the end game. Underdressed. After all, which superhero have you seen come out of battle looking well kept? Exactly. NONE!
