Must Read: A Dream To Kill My Father - Season 1 - Episode 2

7 years ago

Must Read: A Dream To Kill My Father - Season 1 - Episode 2

His face lighten with smile as I told him I was done with the clearance and needed his phone to call his driver. I saw his glasses move as he said “bless you,” holding my right hand to show he appreciated me more than I could think, more than I could ever imagine.

I tried to picture him being attacked by asthma.
So I could hold him in the way he held me, so I could make him feel I would always be there for him. Perhaps, be his Inhaler or Seretide disc, so he could puff me into his mouth and feel relieved.

The driver picked the call at the first ring and I informed him we were ready to leave so he should start coming. After I hung the call, I packed all his belongings and we were set to leave once the driver and attendant, who would place him on a wheelchair was ready.
It was about 6:30pm we got home. I got down immediately so I could open the car for papa to come down, -was when people started trooping out of our blue painted bungalow to welcome him.
“E ka bo sir {welcome}” a woman said.
Another prayed “God will never let you fall sick again or witness anything that would cause for you to be taken to the hospital.”

It was at that point I saw my father appeared from the gate. I bowed my head to show I was greeting him,-then took some of the things we brought inside. He helped papa down from the car and walked him to the corridor.
“I won’t go inside that office now,” he said and sat on a plastic white chair.

I knew why he couldn’t go inside his office at that moment, the atmosphere would be different and could trigger his asthma.

I was tired and my eyes were heavy. I made for his office which I had been sleeping since he was admitted-if I wasn’t with him at the hospital.

I tried to shut my eyes as I lay down on the sofa in his office but sleep would not come. It was as though sleep was tired too, perhaps it had been busy all the while I was at the hospital, day and night.

I moved my body so I could lay on my side and try to coerce sleep by eclipsing the white florescent bulb that lit the office.
The office was painted sky blue, beautifully decorated with pictures of Papa in various frames hung on the wall. There stood out a frame above the shelf on the right –which Papa wore his red and yellow St. Stephen regalia; on his imported Mark and Spencer black suit. His black bow tie perfectly knot beneath the inner collar of his white shirt.

On the left side of the office hung his art works, elegantly carved altars with statues of different saints on them. I tried to imagine at night, when the florescent was switched-off; and the statues of St. Mary; St. Pio; St. Philomena, etc. All dazzling to give some form of heavenly light to the office.
The only window in the office, an aluminum Louvre window frame was etched in the wall, right beside the mahogany door.

A table of about 3ft stood at the middle of the office with what grandpa often calls ‘barbers-chair’ close to it. Those chairs you often sit on in the barbing salon, which could easily be wind {twist] round when the barber needed you to face another direction. Rubber tiles of blue and cream ran across the length and breadth of the office.

My grandpa entered and struggled to sprawl on his chair. He’s 73, but hasn’t lost that youthful, springy body. His skin though gleamed like a scale of fish glued all over his body to show his age but his muscles were still flexible. Perhaps he could still lift those weight he lifted when he was 25.
“Didn’t you see that I came in” he snapped and I rose from where I lay immediately.
“Can’t you greet?”
I was surprised at what he said. He has started again I thought. There was no time he got back from the hospital that he doesn’t pick on me; someone who I had been helping all the while he was on admission at the hospital; someone we just got back together.
I remembered I had slept on a slab, very close to the casualty department for 3 nights, in the cold of the dark. Although there were people older than I was, who could take care of him; his 2 daughters and 3 sons of which my father was one of them. But he preferred me because I was to him, fastidious.

Here he is again, trying to make me feel I had done bad making him feel catered for, even when his children were not making an attempt.
All the while I slept,-ran around on empty stomach for 2 days; not tasting food nor water. No matter how I tried to make myself available to help him, I was often referred to as useless.
Even when I was the one cleaning him up when he messes up {poo} his body; fed him; bathe him and many things he should be in a better position to say I did.
I felt as though I had done bad trying to take care of my grandpa, felt dejected and frustrated, felt tears welling up in my eyes.

Train of pains run through my body. I was sorrowed and hopeless and helpless.

I felt like going inside the kitchen to pick a knife and end my life. Perhaps, inject myself with Dimethyl-mercury or Botulinum Toxin. I was extremely frustrated and felt death could be the best step to take.

I was angry. I knew I was boiling and to save myself from saying any offensive thing out of frustration, left his office snapping my blackberry bold 5 off his table and headed for the living room.

I wanted to switch my PlayStation3 on as I sat angrily on the bug-ridden sofa but dismissed the idea. I peered at my phone to see through the indicative red light may be I had any message or chat-that could change my mood but saw none.

Something pierced my neck with a sharp object, as though a venomous snake had bitten me. I traced my hand to where I felt the pain and caught a bug {cockroach brother as we often call it} shining in its brown blood stuffed abdomen (back section). It had sU-Ck my blood, I muttered and pressed it between my thumb and forefinger to kill it.

The odour was foul, sharp offensive odour that smelt like books of ancient Greece just dug out of the ground. It was at that moment my father burst into the living room and said “papa is calling you.”

I felt something boil in my stomach and words flying freely out of my mouth. I didn’t know I had said many offensive things out of frustration in the space of 3 minutes. I saw him leave the room but I was boiling seriously, I didn’t know I had said I wasn’t coming and he should leave me alone.

When he returned into the room, he gave me a deadly punch on my chest, close to my heart. I felt my heart stopped; I was dead; blood wasn’t pumping into my heart and my soul was lifted out of my body, out of this world.

I saw my grandma in an unspecific location. The place looked a lot like cloud, just cloud surrounding everywhere. It looked like thin air, like faded white cloth or closely like ash. It should be grey but it was not. The place looked colourless, lifeless as though I were in another planet without a name. Perhaps, another heaven apart the one described in the bible.

She called my name “Femi,” and I answered “ma.”
“I want to tell you something you don’t know,” and I sat down on the floor, my legs interlocked like a Fulani man on his prayer mat; like a village boy who was about listening to one of those moonlight tales.

I tried to see may be I could see her face for descriptive purposes but she looked faded, very faded like atmosphere, I couldn’t see her face.

I felt a sharp pain in my heart but it didn’t prod me to move since I was with my grandma, I was safe. Although she didn’t clasp me in her hand, held me tight to her fallen b0s0m; very fallen like those Igbo head warmers-but I knew I was under a protection.
“I want to tell you about your father,” she said.