Nana's haunts

 This is the second time I have relapsed from my quit-smoking programme. Its been two weeks now, the nicotine patches and smokeless cigarettes are incomparable to the minty, refreshing cigarette heat and the aroma of tobacco. Nana calls the alternatives I took to psychological crutches. She said if I had to quit I should just put a halt to it.

 

Nana was opinionated and she knew how to succinctly put forth her points point-blank. She was the Sherlock Holmes of our household. She played detective with my life scrutinizing all decisions and choices I ever made. She would say, “Sale, you have to contemplate fully before you choose" then would add the cliché "look before you leap". I hated it when she pried nto my affairs. That is all gone now, Nana died of breast cancer three years ago.

 

I am in Apom to visit Dr. Salako,a short, plump man with an over-protruding which sags over his belt. I couldn't put together how a man who had gone to school, studied the co-morbidities of being obese could live a life defying the dangers he knows. His looks betray his knowledge and skills in medicine as the hospital structures betray the wealth of our nation; the walls of the hospital buildings had turned grey and the paints were peeling off, the hospital wards, beds, the instruments were worn out from aeons of use without maintenance - the Kalakuta General hospital.

 

I sit in the waiting room watching as different people walk into the out-patient section with all sorts of problem. I try figuring out what could be wrong with them. A man with unkempt beards, skull-cap on his head and rosary in his hand walk into the clinic, he treads gently like the big swelling in his jaw would drop if he walked too fast, maybe he has a tumour. In a lonely corner, a woman sit with a tube in her neck, and a pungent smell escapes from her breathe, nobody dares sit near her. There is a young girl, I try guessing her age, she should be around fifteen or so, she has a urinary catheter underneath her and a transparent bag connected to the catheter, yellow fluid trickle into the collecting bag through the tube, next to her is an old woman, I guessed she's her mother, she cradles a baby in her arms. We all have something in common. Food for our souls, hope or despair, the wait. We all want to see the consultants on duty. We all await our respective fates. 

 

Dr. Salako's voice called me back to reality, i walked towards his office, knees knocking as I say a silent prayer, "let him have good news". A lady walks out of his office and she holds the door for me, smiles. I notice and respond with a half-hearted smile. I try thanking her but no words will come out.

 

This is my third visit to the Kalakuta General Hospital to see Dr. Salako, the very first visit was on the back of episodes of nagging coughs that started two years after Nana's death. If I could recall, it was my 23rd year of smoking cigarette. I was 13 when I started, introduced to the tobacco way of life by my peers. I remember Saheed the number one truant and his cohorts sitting on the pavements in one of the abandoned building in our school, threatening to kill me, if I didn't smoke the cigarette he had given me. I had walked into their gang in search of a place to defecate. The toilets were always left dirty then. Only one toilet served the multitude in my school. I took the cigarette from him, drew in smoke. I began coughing, my lungs felt like a hot and my eyes reddened and became moist. They all laughed and called me a chicken. I? I hated people looking down on me, so I took the cigarette and smoked some more, I fought back the fits of cough each time I choked on the cigarette and here I am today.

 

Dr. Salako has a smile on his face. He motions for me to sit. In his usual friendly voice, he asks how I am doing with my quit-smoking programme. I couldn't lie, I tell him. I relapsed twice in the last two weeks. He smiles, stands up from his seat, walks over to my side and places his hand on my left shoulder. He says, “The result is out". The smile on his face faded and his forehead squeezed into a serious look, like a judge about to announce the death sentence of a criminal. I am a criminal. Had I never tasted cigarette? Had I take heed to Nana's advices? Had I made the right choices? Had I looked over the fence before I leaped? Had I run away from Saheed and his gang that day? Had I followed my quit-smoking programme? Probably Dr. Salako wouldn't wear this stern look on his face; probably I wouldn’t be in this hospital.

 

All my past wrong choices and mistake flashed before my eyes, as I sit motionless in the chair,I look through the window panes into my cloudy future, Dr.Salako is the man with the tarot cards, I have picked a card and he will reveal my choice and interpret my doom.

 

"The results are out!” he says louder this time. I jolt out of my reverie. "I'm sorry Sale. At first we thought it was tuberculosis or Chronic Obstructive pulmonary Disease with the way your symptoms presented, but these tests are saying otherwise. Sale, you have to take heart and believe in fate. You have cancer of the lungs..." I look through the window panes as Dr. Salako unfolds the mystery of my life and foretells my future. I look into oblivion and emptiness spreads its wings on me. Nana had recently kicked the bucket. I am soon to join her.