By Ani Okon
If someone had told me I wouldn’t be in Uyo today, I for pour am spit for face, but something cringe happened that made my feet go cold and sent shivers down my spine.
Earlier today, I was at the park with my small school bag, which had a few foodstuffs to last me a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, I wasn’t on the first bus, so I had to wait for the second one to fill up with passengers before we could depart.
There was this beautiful girl in the back seat, obviously waiting for the bus to fill up too. I slipped in, sat beside her, and minded my business as usual. I had a pack of biscuits, already halfway gone, when she mumbled:
“Person go just fine like this but very stingy.”
She wasn’t looking at me when she said that, so I assumed she was just soliloquizing and went on with the last biscuit already in my hand.
“Yes, I’m talking to you. You, this stingy brother beside me in this car. Very stingy,” she said, sucking her teeth.
I couldn’t hold back my laughter. I extended the pack of biscuits to her, but she refused to take it.
“You just called me stingy, and now that I’m offering you my biscuits, you still no wan take am? Na here we go get wahala oh.”
We both burst out laughing again. Though she didn’t take the biscuits, she said it was because of a stomach pain—which I thought was nothing serious, at least not until 30 minutes later. I advised her to get some drugs from a nearby chemist, but she insisted she’d be fine. Beads of sweat had started forming on her forehead, and she looked completely restless.
“Wetin you chop this morning?” I asked, doing my best to find a solution to her stomach ache. When people around me are uncomfortable or in pain, it really affects me. She told me she had attended a friend’s birthday party here in Ikot Ekpene last night and didn’t eat anything throughout the night until this morning. She assumed the stomach ache was probably due to eating late.
I had to open the doors of the bus so she could get some fresh air before it became stuffy once the other passengers boarded. Since she was sweating, I decided to step down and get her a bottle of cold water. I wasn’t sure if it would help in her condition, but I felt I had to do something—anything—to help.
But what I came back to meet wasn’t what I expected at all. She was gone. She had died before I even returned with the water.
Someone I had just spoken to a few minutes ago? So lively, so jovial… and just like that, she was gone?
I couldn’t continue with the journey. I stepped out of the bus and went back home. I couldn’t even explain to my mom why I didn’t return to Uyo as planned.
Truly, life is very short.
I hope you don’t just read this and walk away. I hope you choose to live a purposeful life. I hope you strive to impact others in the best possible way—because in the blink of an eye, your breath could be taken away, like a flame blown out by the wind.
