Sometimes the best feeling is nothingness
“Do they have two heads?” Dad caught the front of my shirt in his grip and pulled so hard my head was tipped back, my neck arched and my breath gurgled somewhere deep in my throat.
“Those people in your class passing their exams, how are they different?”
He released me with a sound of disgust. “Jesus, how are you even my son?”
Mom placed both hands on her head. “We had planned everything. Your father a Doctor, you a Pharmacist and you can work together in our new hospital.” She gasped and her eyes filled with tears. “But we can’t do that anymore because you failed. Emeka don’t you know you’re our only son? How could you do this to us?”
She slumped against the one chair in my room, muttering dire predictions under her breath.
Dad shook his head and his eyes slowly filled with tears. “You’re a disappointment and a failure. My only son. What do I tell my friends when they ask why you changed courses?”
I bowed my head, panting for precious oxygen while striving to avoid Dad’s condemning gaze. My tongue, swollen and parched stuck to the roof of my mouth. My hands hung by my sides, useless and numb. The taste of failure was rife on my taste buds. I stared at my feet encased in slippers.
Dad reached out to grab me by the neck again and shook me hard. I bore the pain of my head striking the wall behind without flinching.
I deserved it. I was more than a failure. I was nothing, a waste of space.
“More than six hundred thousand Naira we have spent on your school fees only for you to fail. Chinedu your friend is in his fifth year of medical school and he’s so brilliant we know he won’t fail.” He released me abruptly and ran shaky hands over his head as tears ran down his cheeks. “My own blood is a failure.”
Mom lurched forward, her wrapper swinging around her like a cape. “He isn’t even studying Medicine, just ordinary pharmacy, and he still failed. If it was Medicine nko?”
Dad sighed and walked away to take the chair Mom just vacated. “If it was Medicine we won’t see him to pick before the mighty course would have pulverized him.”
Only my brilliant Doctor father would use pulverize in a heated discussion.
“What are we going to do now?” Mom asked on a plaintive wail. “I’ve been planning his graduation party.”
Dad dropped his head into his hands and moaned. “I don’t know, I don’t know. All those money wasted.” He released his head to stare at his fingers. “Six hundred thousand gone to waste like that,” he said with a snap of his fingers. “Because I gave birth to a weak son.”
Mom bent at the waist. “God is punishing us for something.”
Dad’s head jerked up. “For what and why?”
She stood and began taking off her clothes. I raised my head to stare and stiffened. My throat muscles tightened painfully and I looked to my father for help but he had a distant look in his eyes.
I swallowed. “M-m-mom, what are you doing?”
She unfurled her wrapper from her waist, folded it and placed it on the ground. Next, she reached for her top. A cold, desperate ache settled low in my gut. In that second, I knew I was looking down the beginning of the end of my life.
My legs went boneless under me. “Dad, pl--”
Dad jerked and launched himself at me. The blow caught me by the side of the face, snapping my head back. I hissed at the pain but kept my eyes open.
I deserved this. A failure should feel no relief from suffering.
“You want to turn me into a laughing stock?”
I blinked back tears. I mustn’t cry because I didn’t deserve the tears. With effort, I forced my head up to meet Dad’s irate gaze.
“Answer me!”
“No sir,” I whispered.
He threw up his hands. “Then why did you fail, were the exams so hard?”
I shook my head mutely.
He grabbed my shirt and pulled me forward. Spittle flew from his mouth to land on my face. I stared into his eyes, absorbing the pain and shame there.
“Why did you fail?” he whispered brokenly. Suddenly, he pulled me tight into his arms. Over his shoulders, I stared at Mom through gritty, tearless eyes. I badly needed to cry. But I didn’t deserve a cry.
I brought this on myself. The least I could do was be a man and see it to the end.
“Why?” Dad asked.
When the first drop of water landed on the side of my neck, I was too absorbed in my misery to understand.
Dad pulled back and I saw his tear-drenched features. As I stared at his wet face, something inside me broke.
“Because I’m a failure,” I whispered.
Dad flung me off in disgust and turned away.
“I did tell you God is punishing us,” Mom said.
I dragged my eyes from my father to my Mom and my breath caught.
She stood naked before me.
Seconds dragged into minutes and I couldn’t look away. I drank my fill of my mother’s nakedness with my eyes. Equal parts repulsion and fascination ran through me as I stared at her flabby thighs, the soft curve of her stomach and the thatch of black hair between her legs. Pain and shame closed around my heart like a vise and squeezed. I lowered my eyes.
“Look at me,” Mom hissed.
Unable to speak, I could only shake my head. “P-please ma--”
“Look at me! Is it not the same number of breasts I have that Chinedu’s mother has? Then why are you failing when Chinedu is doing so well? Answer me if God is not punishing me?”
My father rubbed his hands over his face, cleaning off his tears. “Margaret wear your clothes. We are leaving before I say something I will regret.”
My eyes met my mother’s and I fought to draw breath. The disgust in them made my skin crawl. She should have beat me, raged at me, anything but this. I wanted to hide in a corner and cry, I wanted to cut myself and let my blood flow so I will be cleansed of this-- this disease inside me. I needed the pain to stop.
I remained standing by the wall, head bowed as they left minutes later.
Long after they were gone, I remained by the wall. I listened to the harsh pants of breath moving in and out of my lungs, supplying oxygen to my empty and useless brain.
A brain that had led me to this point.
A brain that made my mother display her nakedness to me.
A brain that brought shame to my family name.
Someone somewhere needed the oxygen more than I did. I couldn’t add wasting it to the list of my growing sins.
I moved. The insecticide I used to kill mosquitoes beckoned. I shuffled forward, grabbed it and lowered my aching body to the ground.
2,2-dichlorovinyl dimethyl phosphate.
I smiled. At least I still knew my chemistry. It would give me just what I deserved, a slow, agonizing death. I unscrewed the cap of the insecticide and brought it to my lips.
After the tearing, all-consuming pain faded into nothingness, Emeka smiled. Now he had peace.
A peace he didn’t deserve. But he would take it.
As parents, what length would we go to drive our kids to academic excellence? The answer, I think is subjective.
I’m guilty of this. As a teacher, I’ve been known to drive my students hard. For me or for them? I have no idea.
I don’t teach anymore.
Like I’ve said in a previous post, in Africa, depression is not a ‘thing.’ But I suffer it most times. I have low self-esteem. I’m paranoid about being hated even when I pretend not to care. I’m self-conscious about my looks and lack of intelligence. I pretend, but I have my moments.
This is a true life story. A friend’s reaction was, “The boy is not serious.” How serious can a person be to take his own life before he’s taken seriously?
I feel like shaking people who feel depression is nothing. Emeka’s suicide could have been avoided if someone had listened.
Remember, this is not fiction, I only tried to capture the moment as it might have unfolded.
I’ve been accused of my ‘lengthy’ posts. Thank you for reading this far.