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.