CHAPTER NINETEEN: HUMILIATING EJECTION
1316 Words
The magistrate, Mr. Azim, was a man of silent power—until you rubbed his ego with a rusty wire brush. And Ron, that scrawny lad with wild hair and a sharp tongue, had done exactly that. Add to that the presence of a half-rotting zombie (Minos), an overly dramatic mother (Mami), and an ever-scheming friend (Jerry), and it was only a matter of time before Azim’s fragile thread of patience snapped like cheap suspenders in a windstorm.
So when Mr. Azim dialed the Commissioner of Police, his voice was calm, almost buttery.
“I want them all out,” he said. “By force if necessary.”
“Sir, which ‘them’?” the commissioner asked, confused.
“The boy who insulted me, the woman who tried to bribe security with chin-chin, the friend who acts like he’s smarter than the hospital board, and the undead monster lurking in the ward with the scent of expired pepper soup!”
“Oh. That ‘them.’ Noted, sir.”
Within twenty minutes, two vans screeched to a halt in front of the Magistrate’s Ward entrance. Armed police officers jumped out, fully clad in black uniforms, helmets and bulletproof vests, looking like they were storming a drug cartel rather than ejecting four unlikely misfits.
Inside the hospital, chaos was already stirring.
---
Mami was trying to roast groundnuts on a small contraption made from stolen surgical lamps.
“This boy no wan eat anything o!” she cried. “If dem like make dem say Minos na devil, na Ron I go protect. My son is innocent!”
Ron, lying on his hospital bed, stared at the ceiling as if it held the answers to the universe.
“I’m not even sick anymore. Can someone please just discharge me and let me go home?”
Minos sat cross-legged by the corner, chewing on a pillow. Not because he liked the taste. He was just nervous and pillows were the only thing in the ward not afraid of him.
And Jerry—oh Jerry—stood by the window, holding a rolled-up paper map and whispering calculations under his breath like a general planning a prison break.
Then came the sound.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
A knock so thunderous, the drip stands rattled and a nurse screamed from the corridor, “Jesu! Is that Minos again?”
No. It was the police.
A senior officer stepped in, his chest puffed, eyes surveying the ward like he was expecting bombs to fall from the ceiling.
“Ron… Minos… Mami… and… JEREMIAH BLESSING?”
Jerry blinked. “Sir, do you have to say my name like it’s a court summons?”
“You’re all hereby ejected from this hospital on the order of the Honourable Magistrate Azim. You are a threat to peace, hygiene, and common sense.”
Mami clutched her chest and staggered backwards. “Me? They are ejecting me? For caring for my only son? Oh God, punish anybody that calls this justice!”
Ron sat up. “Wait. So you're saying this whole ward is not a democracy?”
The officer turned. “Boy, this is a hospital, not a comedy club.”
Minos stood and stretched his decaying limbs, groaning like a wardrobe being dragged over gravel. All the officers stepped back.
Jerry whispered quickly to Ron, “Maybe Minos should stay. His presence might delay them—”
But Minos, dramatic as ever, opened his mouth and let out a guttural, zombie howl that sounded like a blender dying slowly.
“HOOOOOHHHHHHHHHRRAAAAGHH!”
Screaming erupted. An intern fainted. A cat that had been secretly living in the ceiling jumped down and bolted outside. The police, though trained professionals, instinctively reached for their tasers.
Ron stood between Minos and the armed men. “Wait, wait, WAIT! He just had a cough, that’s all! He’s not angry!”
Mami, ever the drama queen, threw herself onto the hospital floor. “They want to kill my son! They want to kill my son’s half-dead friend! My ancestors, do not sleep!”
One of the officers took out a megaphone.
“If you do not vacate this hospital within the next five minutes, we shall be forced to carry you out like overloaded luggage.”
Jerry grinned. “Let’s make it interesting.”
---
Five minutes later, chaos exploded like cheap fireworks.
The first to be removed was Mami, who gripped onto a hospital bed and screamed at the top of her voice, “My name is not in the Book of Ejection! My enemies shall not rejoice over me!”
It took three officers and two nurses to detach her. Her wrapper loosened during the struggle, exposing a pink nightgown with a dancing Pikachu on it.
“Don’t look at me!” she cried. “I’m a widow and a mother!”
Ron tried to walk out on his own terms, but one of the officers grabbed his arm.
“Let go of me, I can walk! I have legs!”
“Yes, but you also have the mouth of a radio station,” the officer replied.
Minos followed slowly, his shadow long and ominous. As he passed the reception desk, a nurse fainted into the tray of paracetamol.
“Somebody call the exorcist!” someone yelled.
Finally, Jerry, cool as a cucumber, walked out last, casually flipping his map closed.
“See you next season,” he said to the frightened nurses.
---
Outside the hospital, a small crowd had gathered. They cheered as if they were watching the ending of a dramatic reality show.
“There they are!” someone yelled. “The woman with the Pikachu nightie!”
“And the zombie with chewing-gum eyes!”
“Na that boy wey insult Magistrate! I like am!”
Mami raised her hands like a preacher. “We have been persecuted! But we are not crushed! If Jesus was ejected from a manger, who am I?”
Ron muttered, “Mum, please. Stop before they take you to a psychiatric ward next.”
A taxi nearby, driven by a man with only three front teeth and a permanently suspicious expression, honked at them.
“You dey go?” the driver asked. “Anywhere but here na one thousand.”
Jerry pulled out two hundred naira. “Can we ride halfway and trek the rest?”
“No.”
---
As they stood on the roadside, thrown out like mismatched puzzle pieces, Mami wept dramatically into a hospital tissue.
Jerry paced. “Well, I didn’t expect this... but I have another plan.”
Ron looked sideways. “Your last plan got us thrown out by police. What’s next? You want to break into the Senate?”
Minos suddenly pointed at an ice cream seller.
“Oh, not now,” Ron groaned. “Minos wants dessert.”
Mami wiped her eyes. “My enemies will dance the dance of shame! I shall return! Like Moses returned to Egypt!”
Jerry smirked. “Actually, Moses didn’t exactly return to Egypt joyfully. He was sent to cause trouble.”
“Well, so am I,” she said, her chin raised high.
A nurse peeped through the glass from the hospital lobby.
“They’re still outside. Should we call security again?”
“No,” the manager sighed. “Just pray the Magistrate never meets them again.”
---
As the sun set over the city, casting orange shadows across the hospital walls, Ron and his odd gang—Mami the dramatic, Jerry the schemer, and Minos the undead—stood together, ejected but not defeated.
Ron folded his arms. “So what now?”
Jerry grinned, eyes gleaming.
“We go to Plan B.”
Mami sniffed.
“Is there rice in that plan?”
Minos, still chewing on a piece of the hospital’s doorframe, burped softly.
The war wasn’t over.
Just beginning.
- Writer
