There are few places as nightmarish and cold as hospital rooms whose corners are manned by solemn grim reapers waiting for loved ones to succumb to their grief and release the tethers binding them to this world.
The old man’s grandson knows this and trembles slightly as needles are shoved into his comatose grandfather’s arm
“Peter, are you sure?” his mother asks beside him. He pats her arm, noticing how the plump flesh he used to love to squeeze has been replaced by dry bone.
“It’s better than just leaving him there,” he says, wincing when one of the nurses roughly jabs a needle in his grandfather’s temple.
She nods, and they watch the man who’s been there for them their whole lives take shallow, raggedy breaths. When the nurses are done sticking needles into him, the doctor directing them nods, and they all file out, leaving Peter and his mother.
“Before I switch on the machine,” the doctor says, halfway turning from the monitor to address them. “You need to remember the solution is still temporary, and his body will degrade faster too.”
Peter feels his mother’s hand tremble against his skin, and he stills it with his. “Yes, doctor. Thank you.”
The man nods and presses the silver button, and your life begins to wind down.
Your eyes open slowly, and you blink in the darkness, adjusting to the wan light illuminating your feet from the window. As you rise on your elbows, someone shifts beside you, and your body tenses. Then there is a slight movement, and the body settles.
A breath of relief leaves your lips and you swing your legs over the side of the bed. Just beyond the door of the one room you share with your wife, the day is breaking as you dress and quietly shut the wooden door as you move to sit on the bench under the cashew tree. The morning air causes you to stuff your hands in the opposite cuffs of your knitted sweater, and you sit in deferential silence to the rising sun.
When the day is warmed, and all the birds are awake and stirring the rest of nature to movement, the wooden door of your house opens on creaking hinges, and you smile without opening your eyes.
“You should have seen the sunrise today. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”
The words fall from your lips as they have for years, and just like years past, you open your eyes to find a wide smile on your wife’s face. Then her dark weathered face blurs, and the two of you are surrounded by hanging wires and incessant beeping.
Your eyes widen, and you look around as your pulse rises. Then you see what is in the middle of the room and shock sends you crashing to the hard, dusty ground.
“Why?” Your mouth is dry, and your body vibrates as you try to force words past your lips. “Why was I in that bed? What were those wires?”
The woman—for surely she cannot be your wife—shushes you as she picks you off the ground.
“See how you’ve dirtied your clothes now. You know I don’t like washing.”
Your confusion mounts as you let yourself be carried like a sack of beans and placed with care back on the bench. The woman walks away towards the door to the house and the slightly limping gait is the one you have known for years.
And yet, your heart tells you not to question. Because for one split second as her strong hands lifted you off the ground, her face wasn’t hers, but a different one you knew a very long time ago.
“Hi.”
Peter’s head jerks against the table and he groans under his breath, wiping away the little drool on his lips before raising his head. A slightly smiling face fills his blurry view and he smiles back automatically before his brain can catch up to who he’s seeing.
It’s the handsome doctor.
“Are you sure you won’t go home?” the doctor asks.
Peter chuckles and rubs his eyes. “If I’m there, my mother will be here.”
The doctor smiles fully, his teeth bright against his ebony skin. The sight sets Peter’s heart racing and he forces his facial muscles to not move, afraid he’ll blush. There is a moment of silence as the doctor’s eyes move over him slowly. The heat from them makes Peter’s skin feel tingly, and he rubs his bald head, a little subconsciously. Then the doctor nods like he’s made up his mind.
“I’m going to check on your grandfather,” he says. “Do you want to come with me?”
“Okay,” Peter replies, rising on weary legs.
The two of them walk through halls and wards that have become so familiar to you that you wave to a few visitors and they wave back. When they reach the hospital room, the helplessness that has been a constant companion for the past two months creeps in and Peter absentmindedly begins to scratch his arm.
“How long can he stay like this?”
“Twenty-four hours at most,” the doctor says, crossing his arms and leaning against the door jamb. “But we’ve been trying to see if it can last longer. This is a new batch of serum. We’re honestly still doubtful he’ll last more than a day.”
Something jumps in Peter’s chest and he rubs at it. His other hand moves to his grandfather’s wrist, and his heart rate relaxes at the faint but present pulse. His knees suddenly feel weak and he sits in the chair by the bed, his fingers rubbing that reassuring vein pulsing with life.
“Where do you go to school?”
The question comes out of nowhere and Peter frowns.
“The Institute of Magic,” he replies.
“Are you serious? I always wanted to go there,” the doctor says. The excitement in his voice causes Peter to turn his head towards him. His dark face is split with a big smile, and the effect is contagious. Until he utters his next words.
“What do you study?”
Peter’s lips flatten and his left arm tingles.
“Creation,” he replies.
The doctor nods and says nothing. Meanwhile, every nerve ending in Peter’s body is on fire. How dare this man unknowingly poke into the very thing Peter has been trying to avoid?
He turns back to his grandfather, his vision filled with blue and white sheets and a gaunt face he needs to be lively again.
Go away. Go away.
The sound of a plastic chair being dragged on tiles fills the room, and Peter watches in his periphery as the doctor situates himself in the corner next to the small refrigerator.
“How are you always so cheerful? And don’t you have other patients to attend to?” Peter asks, annoyed by the man’s inability to pick up his cues.
The doctor simply shakes his head. “It’s quiet in the hospital tonight.”
The focus of his brown eyes makes Peter’s cheeks heat and he lowers his eyes in shame. Here he was being ungrateful when the handsome doctor could have been anywhere else.
“Thank you…” He trails off, realizing too late that he doesn’t know the doctor’s name.
“Kachi. You can call me Kachi.”
He does. And they talk late into the night, laughing and bonding over botched first times and favourite films and lost loves.
It hurts to open your eyes, but you do it anyway. Tears glue your eyelashes together, and you wince as the bright afternoon light assaults you the moment your eyes are open. You spring from your bed and run down the stairs outside your bedroom door, following the smell of frying akara.
It is when you are at the door to the kitchen that you realize you are naked, as your wife’s slotted spoon drops to the ground in shock when she sees you. Your excitement plummets at seeing her face—and only hers—and you instantly feel guilty.
“What are you doing?”
You smile stupidly when she hastily removes the scarf around her head and ties it around your waist. As she does, you inhale her scent, a mix of hot groundnut oil and talcum powder. When she is done, she steps back and pinches your face.
“Just because all our children are married doesn’t mean we can do anything we want.”
“Who said?” you ask, and laugh when she hisses and rolls her eyes at you. As she returns to her stool, you ponder what may have happened the last time you were awake.
Why did her face change? Why did his appear? And what did it mean that you saw yourself in a hospital bed?
These thoughts plague you throughout the day as you find any excuse to be around your wife, waiting patiently and impatiently for her face to change again. As if to reward you for your toil, her face looks more and more more like a combination of his and her own as time passes.
It gives you hope, and you become confident you will see him before you fall asleep again.
When night falls, you haven’t seen anything, and desperation has consumed you, but you keep your cool even as the man inside you is sweaty and praying for a miracle.
“Let’s go to bed. It’s late.”
You smile mischievously and tug at her arms, attempting to move her from the bedroom to the sitting room. “Or is it just starting?”
“This man,” she says with a laugh. “It’s because it’s not you that has been cleaning since morning.”
“I told you I can help you—”
“It’s because of you it took that long,” she replies, mildly irritated but still smiling. “If you weren’t following me around anyhow, I’d have finished since.”
Her words are nothing to your mission and you pull her determinedly through the dimly lit corridor.
“Di, what is it? Let me sleep now!” she shouts, pulling herself from your tight grip.
“No!” you shout. A desperate thing has taken possession of your body and you can’t stop, even when you see the mixed look of anger and fear on her face.
“I haven’t seen him yet! I need to see him again.”
The moment the words leave your mouth, the desperation leaves you and you’re filled with instant regret. The fear drops off your wife’s face and only the anger remains, contorting her dark face into something ugly and malicious. At that moment, her face is truly hers, sharp angles, bushy eyebrows and all, nothing left of the face you long to see the most.
“You think you want to see? Fine. I’ll show you.”
Claws extend from her hands and she advances on you like a predator. You scramble backwards in fear, the back of your knees hitting the bed frame.
Before you can beg, her claws slice the air in front of your face and you are back in your hospital room. Your daughter has left, and only your grandson is seated beside you and loosely clutching your fingers. He is laughing at something the handsome young doctor across from him says, but all you can hear is white noise.
“Look at yourself,” a voice hisses at your ear, making you jump. You spin around and see nothing but blue walls. You turn back to face the room, focusing on your body this time. Your stomach roils when you notice your sunken cheeks, bony arms and ashy skin, so different from the warm brown skin and lean body you bear now.
You look like a corpse that should have been buried weeks ago.
“You’re nothing but a dead man, living out fantasies in your mind.” The voice laughs. “And you don’t even have much time left.”
As if on cue, your grandson slowly transitions from laughing to sobbing, and the handsome doctor rises swiftly from his chair to wrap his arms around him. Peter’s body heaves and clutches the doctor’s arm like it’s his last lifeline. Your heart aches and you want to push the doctor away and hug your grandson.
Your own tears begin to fall and you wipe them away as they come, knowing they are futile. Your grandson begins to calm, his body slowly returning to normal as the doctor rubs his back and speaks into his ear.
The doctor leans away from Peter but they both seem reluctant to let go. There is a look in Peter’s eyes that you recognize from long ago, a small smile that is like the promise of sunrise. The room is cold to you, void of sound and air; but the look of charged tension Peter and the handsome doctor share sends tingles down your arms.
You once used to share that look with someone special.
Then the door behind them opens a little and the two spring apart, Peter wiping his face and the doctor smoothing his pristine lab coat.
A nurse pokes her head through the opening and nods to the two of them. As soon as the door closes behind her, the boys dissolve into silent fits of laughter.
Despite your drying tears, you smile at the scene, feeling slightly better.
The doctor stops laughing before Peter and smiles at your grandson like he is the rising sun. And in that moment, you know Peter will be fine no matter what happens to you, and your heart eases as you fade into darkness once more.
“What are we going to do, mummy?”
The metal cafeteria table brings a needed coolness to Peter’s fingers as he traces meaningless figures and shapes over the top. His eyes follow his mother’s eyelids up and down as she blinks rapidly, staving off tears he knows burst free the night before.
The cafeteria is sparsely populated as most overnight visitors have returned home to rest and most likely return soon after. Early morning sunlight filters through the glass windows and hurts Peter’s eyes, making him squint.
His mother sighs and rubs her eyes, and his chest constricts. She shouldn’t have to make such a decision. For the first time, anger fills Peter. Why couldn’t his grandfather just have died quietly in his sleep? Instead, his daughter has to choose between his death and a very dangerous restorative procedure … that has a twenty percent success rate.
“Your grandfather.” She stops and clears her throat. “Your grandfather wouldn’t want us to keep seeing him like this.”
Her lifeless words send a chill through Peter’s body and his finger stops moving on the table.
Your grandfather.
That’s what it has been for the past two months, ever since she told him of her father’s worsened condition. No more ‘daddy.’ No more ‘baba.’
Peter reaches a hand out to her and squeezes her hand.
“At least we gave him one last day to be happy,” he says.
“But how do we even know he’s happy?” his mother asks insistently. Her eyes are glued to the tabletop and she has stopped blinking, but the tears still don’t fall. “How do they even know if their machine worked? How can we be sure he hasn’t been the same as these past months? He can’t die unhappy! He can’t…he can’t…”
The tears fall then, and Peter leaves his chair to hug her as she sobs. His hands knock her headwrap askew but she doesn’t bat his hand away and fix it like usual. His tears fall too, and he completes her statement in his head, a prayer to every dead and living scientist and god.
He can’t die. He can’t die. He can’t die.
As they cry, Peter’s mind travels to his last discussion with his grandfather, where he explained why he was going to study Creation instead of Healing like the old man wanted at the institute of magic.
“Are you sure that’s what you want? With your brain, you can study anything and change the world.”
Peter had laughed and nodded. “Yes, I’m sure. I’ve had a whole year since secondary school to think about it.”
His grandfather just shook his head. “But it’s Creation! You’re just playing with sand.”
“It’s not just playing, kaka,” Peter said, rolling his eyes and earning a swift kick to the shin. “I’ll be able to Create like the gods you tell us stories about,” he continued while rubbing his leg. “And it’ll bring me closer to the gods when I finish. Isn’t that what you always wanted?”
The old man grumbled and stood from his chair, leaving their sunny balcony. “At this point, I just want somebody to heal me, please. I’m tired of moving like one dead man.”
The memory stings and disappointment chokes Peter with more tears. His chest feels like a herd of cows has trampled over it and returned for an encore. If only he’d studied Healing, then his grandfather wouldn’t be here. Better yet, if only he’d been able to contact the gods with their precious sand, which no one had been able to do in a hundred years. Then he’d be changing the world and, maybe, his grandfather’s fate.
Now, all he can do is hold his mother and stuff down his own pain while buffering hers.
When the strength of her sobs has reduced and she is only sniffling, he shakes her gently.
“Come. Let us go and tell the doctors.”
She rises like a corpse at his words, one end of her rumpled wrapper dragging on the floor. As they walk back to the hospital room, Peter absently thinks that at least one thing will be better when his grandfather dies. His mother will care about her appearance again.
When you feel the sun’s warm rays on your body this time, you don’t open your eyes. You pray instead for the sun to become so hot it burns away the oily feelings writhing inside of you.
You think of the way you betrayed your wife, the woman you swore to love for eternity, the raw anger of her hurt when she realized the only reason you hung around her was for him.
You think of your body, old and desecrated with wires, and your grandson and his mother keeping watch over you. Your heart aches, and a tear rolls down the side of your face.
“Um, why are you crying?”
Your chest seizes, you gasp, and your eyes fly open. Hovering over you is the face that faded over forty years of marriage till it became synonymous with your wife’s. a scar splits his left eyebrow in two and his teeth gleam against honey-brown skin.
“Joshua,” you say in a breathy tone.
Then you surge upwards and pepper his face and neck in kisses before finally claiming his smiling lips. The kiss breaks a dam inside you and emotion floods your heart, tightening your chest.
Joshua pulls away first and places a hand on your chest when you try to follow his face with your lips.
“There’s enough time for that later,” he says, drawing you into his arms and rubbing your back through your pyjamas.
His body is as solid and strong as it was when you met in university, the first time he caught you staring at his muscled arms and smiled at you. You wrap your arm tightly around his bicep, afraid you’ll never see it again; afraid you’ll never feel this happy again.
“Every time I’ve gone to sleep, I’ve woken up at a different time in my life,” you say, tracing his veins with your finger, the rhythm mimicking the movement of his hands up and down your back. The sound of the waves breaking on the beach is a peaceful lull.
“What makes this one different?” Joshua asks.
You shrug, not truly caring. You’re too happy to care.
Joshua’s finger tickles your lower back and you squirm against him. “I’m serious. What has changed?”
You sigh and sit up, immediately missing the warmth of the hard planes of his body. The beach is deserted. The two of you are the only ones enjoying the warm afternoon sun on the sand. You glance down at Joshua, whose eyes are closed and whose lips are tilted in a secretive smile.
“We’re at the beach,” you start slowly. “We could never come here before, when we first met. I always wanted to, but you said we had to be very careful.”
“I mean, you were always touching me any chance you got,” Joshua replies, his smile turning wistful. “Imagine if someone had seen.”
You nod and fall silent, lost in memories of when lying here like this would have filled you with so much anxiety that you’d end up locked up in your home for a week.
“And now?”
Now, they could do whatever they wanted and there would be no one to hurl insults or, worse, stones. If someone had told you that a hundred years would bring you the happiness you so craved in your youth, you’d have cryogenically frozen your brain.
That’s when it clicks, and you turn to Joshua with a big smile.
“I’m happy.”
Joshua nods and pulls you back down to him, your bodies fitting together like two perfect halves of an apple. “And I’m not letting you go anywhere again.”
Your smile is swallowed up in his as he kisses you and you are lost in exploring his body.
Then Joshua lets loose a bone-chilling scream and pushes you away from him like you are made of fire. Your lover writhes on the ground, sweat pouring down his dark face. You are no longer at the beach, but in a dark room with only the TV on the wall for ornamentation.
As your hands travel frantically over Joshua’s body, searching for the source of his pain, the TV comes on and static fills the room with white noise.
Tears stream down your face and Joshua’s cries intensify. His body flickers, and then the TV finally settles on an image. It is your hospital room again, but this time, the wires are being unplugged from your body and your family watches, Peter crying quietly, while his mother’s face is dry.
Horror fills you as you watch your body slowly being disconnected. Then it is only three wires left and Joshua’s body disappears completely.
Your heart stops. Only the white noise remains. You can’t even hear a heartbeat—your heartbeat. You don’t know how your feet carry you but you find yourself pounding on the TV, a supreme exercise in futility. You hit so hard that your fists begin to ache but you continue until finally, you hear a crack.
You pull your hands, staring at the long line on the television screen. From that line emerges white smoke, and you watch, mesmerized, as it moves through the air and curls around your hands. You raise your hand in wonder and curl your fingers into a fist.
Then you hear it. A sound other than static.
It is a scream, and your eyes immediately go to the TV.
Your daughter is shouting and pointing at you, while your grandson just stands there, a shocked look on his face. The nurse and doctor are running around the two of them, frantically plugging the wires back into your body. You watch all of this in amazement, forgetting all about Joshua.
Why the sudden change of pace?
Like a puppet being controlled by something beyond its own life, your eyes jerk to your body and you see something you thought you never would again.
Your fist is clenched and trembling slightly.
You gasp and raise your fist to your face. The last wisps of white smoke encircling it fade away, and your hand on-screen relaxes into its usual lifeless slump.
Only now, you and your family know it is not lifeless.
A cough sounds behind you and you spin around. Joshua lies on the ground, rubbing at his bare chest.
“Never do that again,” he says in your direction, but his eyes are on the screen.
You turn back to it. Your daughter is dancing around you, and the glass screen is as pristine as ever. The image begins to dissolve at the edges like a watercolour painting, as does the whole room, but not before you see a relieved look on Peter’s face as the doctor puts a reassuring hand on his back.
Relief and something like determination.
“You know they’ll have to do something eventually,” he says, entwining your fingers and leaning his head on your shoulder.
You nod as you stare off into the sunset. Your fingers trail your face where your wife’s anger pushed you into the hospital room. The phantom feel of her claws serve as a reminder of her pain, and suffering, and the loveless life you put her through up until she discovered Joshua’s handwritten letters to you.
It was like someone had stuck a knife in her and let all the joy bleed slowly out of her. Two years turned that joy-bereft body into one filled with anger, resentment and sadness.
Only the sadness remained until her death.
And that sadness hurt you the most, because it caused you to consider a question that had never once crossed your mind.
What if she had her own Joshua?
Joshua…
Tears prick your eyelids. You had gotten comfortable after years of marriage—so comfortable that Joshua and the feelings you’d once shared with him felt like a lie. And when you’d read the letters again, ancient relics that they were, they reminded you what love was, and the person you truly are, and what you’d robbed your wife of.
She could have left, blown up your life and gotten so much out of the whole mess. But instead, she stayed, and never told you why. And her sacrifice let you live along to be with the love of your life again.
Your tears flow faster now. You didn’t deserve her, nor the protection she and your marriage gave you. And then without knowing, she gave you something more, something you never dreamed of having again.
You look at you and Joshua’s entwined hands. One day everything might truly be gone, and you will sleep forever. But until that time…
“You should have seen the sun today.” You turn your head slightly and kiss his head. “It was the second most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”
Plangdi Neple is a Nigerian writer whose dark and fantastical tales have appeared in magazines such as Anathema, Omenana, and Uncharted. A lover of the weird and fantastic, his works draw inspiration from Nigerian myth, folklore and tradition. Find him at @plangdi_neple on Twitter.
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