Autopsy Report

Cause of death according to the forensic pathologist was stated as “hunger”.

Hunger was the cause of death.

Death was soon to come one day or another. A new day augurs unremitting death spells. This was the way life was for Garba.

At that supple age when the heart beats over 80 times in a second, a time when cerebral neurons fire and misfire, a time when no sin committed was regarded as conscious sin, a time when with sufficient thrust a flight was a possible with just 5 pair of fingers and a bunch of good will. A time when Garba was young, so was Ali, Muhammed, Rilwan, Aisha, Tunrayo, Ayuba, Haruna and all tender hearts of Suleja cresent. The eldest amongst them was ayuba and he was merely 13.

It was routine for the kids to come out afterschool playing on the red soil that discolored the frontage of their mothers stall. Aisha was the play originator. She had a new play in line every day. Garba was more of a Ecstatic spectator. He watched with severe will and wish. He wanted to jump over the square borders marked out on the red soil but he couldnt. He couldn’t move his limbs not intentionally but by a matter pre determined. Polio had taken away a good set of lower limbs, never did those limbs move expect in dreams.

Time never stopped counting, numbers didn’t stop adding, and mama was getting old. She moved fragile, she spoke gently, she cooked less and inadvertly, the remains of family ate less.

It started from 6, a family of six and quietly during the deepest part of the ignorant night, ashiru, mumuni, shakira all left at different times, they left their bodies though, and they left mama countless days of steady tear supply.

Famishment became an unavoidable sequence. Money had to be made, mama was too old to work for money anymore, and papa remained irrelevant to the sustenance of anything/any being in the house.

At 16, Garba joined a group of local beggars that kissed the windows of cars in lifelong traffic. At first, Garba knew too little about the art of begging. With his crutches, he made a mere sum of 200 in a day. But over time, with sympathetic eyes, a dark tinted skin, a bunch of famished teeth, century old torn clothes, and a touchy supplication in mid air against wound up windows, Garba made as much as 15000 in a month. This fee kept mama from starving to death but it didn’t keep mama from sleeping with death.

A veteran in the art of begging in fast moving traffic, a skill that had gained experience of over 20 years. A steady means of sustenance for Garba.

On this day while running with feeble clutches after that cool young chap in sultry shades sitting high above the ground in a dark tinted range rover. Ignoring the traffic, a super zealous motorcycle made a great hit. In a brief, his clutches flew off, a pair of flaccid paralyzed leg soared temporarily in the air whilst garba”s head landed some few inches away from the side walk.

The hospital had no mercy; they took away every single dime he'd saved for the past 25 years. CT scan, a chest x-ray, a full blood count and differential, malaria parasite test, widal test, wound swab, a slit lamp examination amongst others. Even Ayuba who served as a security guard in the hospital couldn’t render so much help so as to not to avail his wife and 7 children a year’s meal.

After spending 7 days in the hospital, Garba finally returned, to start from the scratch. A new life was about to begin since his fractured humerus was yet to heal. There was little begging to be done, little feeding could be done, feeding with one hand was easier, begging without legs and a broken humerus couldn’t be easier.

Hunger grew in his stomach like fungi grew on decayed bread. Persistence was the word. He took to lying down from sunrise to sunset all in a bid to reduce energy consumption and also to allow for quick healing in his humeral bone.

The pain grew worse, hunger dried the fluid in his eye ball, his ribs became as thin as fish bones, his tongue was tired of searching for food, his teeth grew bigger waiting for the next available meal, and his face was marked in drawing patterns with small volume veins like the map of Nigeria.

4 days gone and the only thing Garba had for a meal were water and soldier ants that have come to feed on his never healing fracture.

Ayuba came to visit on 5th day; Garba was looking well feed with gas. His stomach was bloated. He was weeping thru his eyes and ears, fat soldier ants crawled out of his mouth with pieces of his asthenic tongue. Ayuba, out of confusion and self denial took Garba to the hospital in search of miraculous doctors that would resuscitate Garba corpse.

Garba lay in the mortuary for days after his autopsy result was declared. After no one came to claim his body, his body was offered to a nearby medical school for young and aspiring medical student anatomy session.

One student came with his scalpel. His eyes gleamed over Garba corpse in excitement, and without remorse, he cut through Garba cadaveric soul down to his heart, to his surprise, Garba heart was there, his heart was there begging to beat one more time.

Aero

“Hey, let’s go. Just me & you. We'll take your 'anke' along”.

(Door closes, car starts)………. “Off we go”

"Tonight, we'll do something we've never done before, something weird and wonderful. We'll head to the airport. There I know a quiet place where we'll watch air planes land and take off. We'll bask in the breeze the flying planes bring and watch with ease how hard it is to fly. It’s going to be an exquisite view I tell you. Let’s go love and you'll see"

The sky was murky. Tiny sparkling white stars winked at us from afar. Anke being a lover of shiny things winked back in return with her twin ‘head stars’.

The road was like a stream flowing underneath anke’s feet. Far in the horizon, closest to the brightest star was a large apparition. A ghost amongst dark cloud. It moved quietly, higher and higher till it was almost difficult to see.

Anke stared, 'Dona' stared, I stared, and we all stared at the ghost in the cloud. I curse gravity for defying us. Holding us down with invisible strings.

Then Anke said; "let’s take off like that plane high in the sky, Let’s fly".

Not a bad idea if u ask me. This is definitely something we've never done before, and perhaps the road flowed smoothly, gravity could give us a minute slack.

"Dona, are you ready.....?" I said. "Let’s fly".

Dona smiled convulsively. "leggooooo she said"

Anke squealed in excitement, "and to the sky we'll fly" she said. We’ll use the Airport road as our take off ground.

60km/hr, then 80km/hr, on and on, 120km/hr and I could feel Anke try. she raised one leg then another, but our speed wasn’t sufficient to lift us up in the sky. It just wasn’t enough.

Dona clung to her seat belt. She contaminated anke’s cold air with her breath of fresh fear.

There was a sloppy bump up ahead. Anke gave the cue, "this is it. That bump could help us soar beyond the ground. With enough speed, we'll be in the sky in no time".

120km/hr, then 140km/hr and I could the see the bump coming closer and closer. Closer and closer, Dona closed her eyes tight shut(in hope for the better perhaps)

150km/hr and there it was. We climbed over the bump so suddenly and anke lifted all four leg above the ground (for some couple of seconds perhaps).

Dona opened up for that tiny second when we slide through the air, I could see the smile on her face, she was ecstatic.

Gravity denied us repose. And we fell to the ground like a cow that's been shot in a game. Anke cranked her shocks in a loud bang. Dona closed her eye once again. and far up there in the horizon beneath that dark steel sky, that plane we looked up to was far gone. It was gone. Probably heading for the moon.

We returned back to the speed limit (60km/hr). We made a quiet ‘stop still’ beneath that tall gentle green with pink leaves. A row of melancholic cars parked on both sides. They ignored us in our quiet space.

Anke was definitely tired. She took in the cold air of the night and replaced it with warm blistering breathes. We left her alone by the tree; me and Dona

“A little resting time will be ok, let’s let Anke catch her breath, she's probably exhausted from the 2 seconds flight we just had" Dona said.

"Come love, let’s go there, yes there" Dona; excited.

"The view up there is pristine; we'll see some white planes take off from there".

There, we watched them take off, those humongous airplanes. One by one, they took to the sky in great speed and a far great roar accompanied them straight to that shiny star sparkling.

Dona stared at each plane quietly while I watched her. She took a brief glance at me and then we kissed quietly/romantically while that plane took off right above our head.

I believe there is love in the air. my love for anke and ma love for 'u'.

Note: as u musta seen, anke is ma car (pls read heart break on eko bridge 4 more info).

Thank u pple for comments(in retrospect & in adv)