Unbreakable

Part 3

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Over the next month, they visited about eight doctors, desperately seeking a positive review. Bilal went to all the doctors he knew and trusted and Yemisi did same. They were both exhausted. The best they got was from an Abuja based gynecologist who told them that they had to wait till the pregnancy was four months old, then they could perform a test that would tell them the probable genotype of the foetus. There was no simple solution. All that there was were maybes. They also went to visit a doctor that Bilal’s best friend had suggested and when they got home, it seemed entirely hopeless. Bilal went straight into the room. Yemisi went to the balcony to call her mother. She explained why she had been going in and out of Lagos for the past month. She told her mother about the pregnancy and about the genotype problem. She poured out her heart to her mother. She was met with complete silence from the other end of the phone.

Unbreakable

Part 2

picture credit- PicsArt

Yemisi bounced her head to the latest Olamide song playing on the car stereo. Then she started singing to Bilal who pretended to concentrate on his driving.

“Who you epp? Who you epp? You don baff? Who you serve?”

Bilal turned off the stereo.

“Ahan, why so grumpy?”

“You Yorubas are too noisy. I actually like that Olamide guy, I just don’t understand what he is saying.

“Which is exactly why I am singing it.” She turned it on again. “Coming thru, issue, Pound Sterling lawa fin shey tissue.”

Bilal turned it off. She turned it on. He turned it off, she turned it on again.

“Yemisi, you want to kill three of us abi? That song will cause an accident o.”

Unbreakable

Part 1

picture credit: PicsArt

Bilal checked his wrist watch for what seemed like the thousandth time. He was in a hurry to get home to get some work done, but he was also excited about his visitor. He couldn’t believe his visitor was really coming. It had been a long time he last saw her. As he checked his watch again, he sighed. She had refused to tell him the exact time her plane would be landing and he had estimated that since it was a Friday, she would have left work early, gotten through Lagos traffic and caught her flight, all that meant she should have booked a 5:00pm flight. It was 6:45pm and he had not seen her come out of arrivals. He had been here for two hours now. His phone rang.

Chronicles of Koko 3

“Koko, Fetch!”

Koko gradually became a menace to us all. She was still mean little Koko after all. She barked at our visitors and paraded the hallway like she paid our rent. Koko had hierarchy of respect; top of the ladder was of course her father, Hamza. Then Hamza’s best friend Kola and their other close friends. The rest of us in the house followed far behind. Koko had been taught to “fetch!” The things she really loved to fetch were plastic bottles, Hamza’s palm slippers’ and persons. Koko also had a strong grip, such that whatever she got between her teeth would be extremely hard to get back. Her grip was so strong that you could grab whatever she had in her teeth, lift her up with it, and she would still not let go. We all imagined her holding on to one’s flesh like that; it was something we all didn’t want to test.