Bodies….darkness….light….darkness again….voices…a human’s face. Or was it an alien’s?
FRANK drifted in and out of consciousness. One moment he could hear voices in the distance, and then a human eye bore into his. The next moment there was nothing but a blinding darkness. The next moment he opened his eyes, there was a light—an illuminating stray of light which appeared as though it were been shown from God’s own torchlight. Am I in heaven? This can only be heaven!
Darkness…light.
He jolted awake suddenly, his eyes springing to life. Then he saw the light—the one he’d mistaken for a light which shown directly from Heaven—it shown from a small torchlight which the doctor held. For a brief moment as he’d hovered the thin line between consciousness and unconsciousness, he’d actually conceived the idea that the stray of light would lead him to Heaven. But no! There is no heaven, just a doctor’s torchlight!
‘Where am I?’ he’d wanted to ask but his own words reverberated in his throat, unable to come out. He felt light and heavy at the same time. His head ached agonizingly. It was as though there was fire in his head. A searing pain coursed through him. He lay on the bed, unable to raise his head or talk as he took inventory of his surroundings. A tanned man in white robe edged closer to him.
Where the hell am I? Where is this place? Why are a lot of people screaming in agony? Are they also like me? A barrage of questions assaulted his already frail mind as the doctor sat beside him and whispered some words. The doctor was so close to him yet so far away—his words barely registered on his mind—it was like listening to the whispers of a long lost ancestor. What is he saying? And then he heard it, eerily the man’s lips weren’t moving, but he heard what he’d said earlier. Why was he now hearing something the man in the white robe had said about a minute ago?
“Mr. Frank welcome back. I’m afraid you are not in the position to talk right now. Do not force your body to do anything it doesn’t want to do. You’ve suffered severe injuries but I promise to save you.”
Save me? Who the hell are you, God? Tell me what the hell happened to me!
As he struggled to air his frustrations, he heard the distant screaming of someone who was, from the sound of it, very much in pain. Probably going through twice what he was suffering. Yet again the primal question of all accosted his mind. The doctor had advised him to stop forcing his body to do things it wasn’t ready to do but how could he stop himself from asking the most important questions on his mind? Didn’t the doctor understand the pain he was going through?
Had he any idea what volume of fire was coursing through his system? He only wanted to know what the hell happened! Then his greatest fear struck again—he was swept by the suffocating darkness again. More than anything, he wanted the doctor’s light but there was nothing. Just pristine darkness.
*
Frank awoke to the sound of chaos. Everywhere around him doctors shouted instructions from various rooms. Nurses ran helter-skelter with whatever the doctors needed. It reminded him of a movie he’d seen about the world wars. How doctors were swamped with so many patients that they barely had time for every patient. But certainly this couldn’t supersede what he’d seen in the movie. In the movie, doctors had had to make split-second decisions as to which patients to salvage and which ones could not be salvaged. Had it come to that already? Why had the doctor left him suddenly to attend to another patient? Was he part of those he’d call ‘fey?’
But most importantly the desire to know how he’d gotten mixed up in the company of old and frail people who writhed in pain and eventually gave in to the finality of life—death—burnt in him like sulphur. What happened? With the passing of every minute, that question grew more and more important. And of course there were other questions nagging at him but he didn’t want to be a pertinent patient. The doctors appeared to have a lot on their hands. He’d wait it out even though he doubted he could hold on for a long time. He knew it was only a matter of time until he defied the doctor’s orders to “stay calm and not do anything out of the ordinary” and did something uncharacteristic. He’d looked the part like a patient every doctor would want—an understanding and educated patient who didn’t batter their doctor with a hodgepodge of questions. But for how long could he play the part when a sickening curiosity had taken a toll on him?
The room in which he lay was heavy with an almost asphyxiating smell of various drugs. The air in the room was equally rife with a hotness and a muskiness which were only present in hospitals. The patients who lay on both ends of his bed writhed in pain occasionally. The patient to his right was almost as tall as he was and bandaged all over. The one to his left was an old woman with sunken eyes and the look of someone whose thoughts were otherworldly. He doubted the old woman even knew where she was. She stared at the ceiling absentmindedly as though there were something utterly captivating about it. Occasionally she’d stare at him, her eyes searching, confused and above all, lost.
He had no doubt that he was in a hospital facility but what he couldn’t quite understand was why he was there and where the facility was located?
Unsettlingly since he’d awoken to consciousness he’d yet to hear any sound of cars making their way into the hospital. Every activity was eerily confined to the hospital. Through his window, he stared at a large expanse of greenery which lay in an almost ghoulish silence. The whole place felt like a facility which had been stowed away from the city. Was he about to be turned into a lab rat? Was the old woman on some meds which rendered her absentminded and unsuspecting of her surroundings? Why was the patient to his right bandaged all over, and why hadn’t he moved since he’d woken up? He needed answers!
And then as if nature had decided to give him answers, a doctor who appeared to be in his late forties walked through the door. He had the eyes of a villain, and the muscles of an athlete—which were a frightening combination considering the fact that Frank suspected wherever he was, was probably unknown to the public. If the need arose for him to escape, he couldn’t take on the doctor. He’d lose.
He felt his body go fear-stricken as the doctor sauntered towards him. Sitting on a chair which sat on Frank’s bedside, the doctor smiled at the latter and said, in a professional voice.
“Ah Mr. Frank you are finally awake. I knew it was only a matter of time.”
Frank feigned a cough and said hoarsely, “Thank you very much doctor, now can you tell me what I need to know?”
The doctor shifted uncomfortably as though he least expected Frank to be so hostile. He’d thought Frank would be pleased by the fact that he had done everything to save him when he was on the fringes of death. But then again he couldn’t blame him because he had no idea what had happened. He always thought the need to know what happened was irrelevant once a solution had been found but it appeared his patient would be more than happy to give him a lecture about how wrong he was. So he ventured.
“Ah! Of course. You deserve to know what happened. But might I add that you may not like what I am about to tell you. However as your doctor I’d advice you take it lightly and not let it bother you too much otherwise there could be health complications which may be very—“
“Doctor, please tell me,” Frank cut him off.
A foreign ruddiness was growing on his face but he shooed it away as quickly as it had surfaced. He glared at the doctor, making him shift uncomfortably again. He thought he was being such a baby. Maybe he could square off with him after all. But it hasn’t gotten to that, has it?
“Oh yes. Of course. How do I say this…you—errm—well you were in an accident,” the doctor said abruptly. From the look on the doctor’s face, Frank could tell the story ran deeper than that. But the doctor didn’t want to tell him more. Why?
Frank feigned a cough to which the doctor adviced he was better off sleeping again until he was perfectly fine. But there is no such thing as perfect health, is there? Frank always thought you could only be as fit as everybody else…with shades of sickness lingering on about in your body. The human body can’t be perfectly healthy…that is just a fallacy.
“An accident? When did this happen? Doc why don’t you tell me everything? I beg of you,” Frank said keeping his voice as emotionless as possible.
The doctor’s face dropped. It was as if he was about to deliver a news which he feared would rip Frank into two unfixable parts. But Frank’s adrenaline was beginning to rise. His face grew into a ruddy and ghoulish apparition. It was as though the doctor’s reluctance to tell him what happened to him had turned him into a completely different person. He’d been transmogrified.
“Mr. Frank you were in an accident with your wife and kid—a young boy—who both passed I’m afraid. You had gone to gone to Melcom to shop and then tragedy struck. There was a collapse—I mean the entire building collapsed and—well—your—wife and child were caught in the rubble—part of fourteen immediate deaths There were dozens of causalities.”
The doctor’s unannounced poignancy had taken Frank by surprise but what he’d said had been most unexpected. An accident? His wife and young boy gone? When did this happen? Suddenly he was sinking. It was as if the weight of the news he’d just received was pulling him from under the sheets. He could feel himself being taken to immeasurable heights of pain but there was nothing he could do about it. The doctor was rambling on about some things but he couldn’t hear him. He felt completely transformed as the pain seethed through him unforgivingly. Tears rolled down his cheeks before he could stop them. The pain forced him to close his eyes and embrace darkness again. This time he didn’t will the darkness to disappear. The illuminative world was decidedly cruel. He wanted nothing more than to live in this darkness forever.
*
Having been given the cracks and grips of the Melcom disaster which had sniffed the life out of his wife and kid, Frank felt his world crushing right in front of him. There was nothing he could do to stop it. He allowed himself to embrace it, to accept it, to let the pain do as it pleased with him. He’d lost the two most important people in his life—those who gave purpose and meaning to his life—those whose faces he woke up every morning to see—what more could life do to him? What more could life take from him?
Nothing more. Except his life. And at this point, he would be more than willing to trade off his life for an opportunity to say goodbye to his kid and promise he’d come looking for him, and an opportunity to apologize to his wife for having lead her to her death.
The guilt. The regret. The pain.
They were all consuming and increasingly excruciating. Every minute seemed to remind him of his wife and son—she wasn’t as tall as Frank but she had high cheekbones, a deep-set blue eyes, an air of confidence about her like a gird and a smile which could turn him into a cold-stricken frog. She could simply cast a glance his way and reduce him to an aphrodisiac gnome of a man. And then there was her voice—when she spoke her voice bore a mixture of sweetness and finality which left him utterly captivated. She could simply ask him to turn into a bird and he’d quickly transmogrify into a nightingale and chime to her all night. She was perfect, and rarely did the perfect ones come. He’d lost his perfect half to a very unforgiving world. He closed his eyes again, feeling the need to be swamped by darkness. His eyes welled so he opened his eyes almost as quickly.
Light. A decidedly cruel world.
Frank’s son had come at a time when he least expected a child. When his wife had broken the news to him, it had been an unexpected news. He’d had a row with his wife over the sudden pregnancy—a very atypical behave which he would eventually brush off ruefully. Despite his earlier misgivings about the child, Frank had been awestruck by the sheer beauty of the baby when he was delivered at the hospital. The look of obliviousness in its eyes had struck a chord in him. He’d felt something nondescript which made him regret the row he’d had with his wife. He’d taken the baby under his wing almost immediately, performing all fatherly duties with unparalleled alacrity, and occasionally offering to help with the motherly duties. At a time when their marriage appeared to be headed for the rocks, the baby had come in to smoother the path; fixed the seemingly unfixable and brought them together. Sometimes tragedy is needed in order to restore peace. He was barely five years. But life took him away. He led his five-year old son to his early grave. What a cruel father! He thought regrettably.
Frank’s wife and kids weren’t the only casualties in the collapse of the Melcom building. There were other casualties. Some dead. Others alive but barely holding on. Others reduced to sitting ducks by severe injuries which rendered them incapable of doing anything. Somehow Frank felt the weight of everything on his shoulder. He felt as if he was the reason behind the collapse of the building—the building which spelt one of the darkest days in the lives of Ghanaians! His guilt had grown out of control. He couldn’t bring himself to live like this anymore. He couldn’t live anymore. The guilt he felt for the deaths of all those people couldn’t be erased by the ever-listening ear of a therapist; the advice of friends and family; the advice of a doctor and certainly not by the advice of his pastor at church. There was only one way to put everything behind him. As much as he hated it, there was nothing he could do about it. The magnitude of what he felt was too grave for him to continue like this. Sometimes seemingly unreasonable decisions have to be taken.
Lying on his bed Frank’s eyes begun to well again as his son’s giggles resonated in his ear. He could only muster a begrudging nod of despair as his eyes gave way to tears. He was alone, in his room with no one around to console him. He wept as though he were exorcizing his regrets and pains but it turned out to be futile attempt at self-healing. He closed his eyes. He lay in a peaceful darkness. He loved to be in the dark now. A world which insulated him from the cruelties of the light-filled world. He’d rather remain in the dark where there was no regret and no pain. As he lay there, he prayed for the pristine darkness to veil him until an eternal darkness took him to his family.
IMAGE TAKEN FROM PIXABAY
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