He warned me sternly before pouring the vomit on me. On my well ironed white shirt which goes back to pediatrics, back in UNTH. The same white shirt which holds my most traumatic memories.
But, I guess it's all my fault. I'd been too stubborn to listen to his warnings, to his slurred words that came out like stifled thunder.
"Don't fucking come close, you bloody civilian, you ungrateful child of easy times," he'd warned. His eyes glistened.
"Don't give me any treatment. Don't hold me back. I've had enough."
He struggled to get up as he spoke. But he couldn't.
Perhaps because, his bones and muscles weren't now, as strong as they'd been when he was in the fronts, at uzuakoli in the 60s. When, in his own words, he'd disarmed a machine gunner with only one bullet in his bolt action rifle.
Since his admission, he'd been muttering words like "Uzuakoli must not fall! Uzuakoli must not fall. Biafra or death."
He'd fleet into consciousness and say some current stuff but ultimately, he spoke mostly about the war and uzuakoli. About corporal nwafor, about Ifeajuna and Onwuatuegwu.
"All the men are gone. All the heroes. Where is our commandant?"
He'd mutter the words and then, he'd cry a little. Tears that flowed like a river. Tears of a youthful soul in a dying body. Tears that'd make even the strongest of men cry.
Then, he'd struggle to get up.
Time and again. Time and again. Time and again.
He tried again and again and again and each time, he couldn't raise even a fist. And then, he gave up fighting.
"finally!" I felt relieved.
Then I went ahead with what I had come to do for him - to intubate him, to make his feeding and drug administration, easy.
'Now, is the time,' for he'd been objecting since he was admitted. He'd been asking to die because he didn't want to see Uzuakoli fall once more, 'into the hands of the enemy.'
"Why did you people allow them to get Nnamdi when we never allowed them to get Ojukwu? Why? You cowards?"
I'd thought they were just mere words of a demented old man until a close relative of his said that the latest relapse of the old man's' 'stroke' had started on the day that Kanu was last seen. That the old man had tried to put himself in front of an Army armoured vehicle but, fell unconscious in the process. That since he woke up, on their way to the hospital, he'd been asking to be let go, to die.
***
So, why didn't I heed his warnings? Why didn't I let him die? Why did I let him pour the faeculent vomit on me?
Perhaps, the drive to save him was overpowering, made me impervious to warnings?
In our profession, most times, we see only the disease and not the man. The disease is the enemy.
Perhaps, it was my undying soft spot for men like him whom when they were children, were forced to become men by a bitter war that took three million of our people with it.
Perhaps, it was guilt. A burden emanating from the fact that we'd totally abandoned men like him who died so we'd live, that made me do it.
***
The sun has gone down now and the birds are returning to their nests and, I have to wash the shirt. Now that the old veteran has gotten his wish.
It'll rain, soon. The clouds are full of flashes of lightning and the thunder rumbles on.
©Nnaemeka Ugwu
21/9/18
No comments:
Post a Comment