LADY VASHTI

CHAPTER TWO

"I want to go home, I'm from Akwa Ibom in case you don't know, Akwa Ibom ayaya".

The car radio was blasting the trending song and I thought it a pity that my best friend was sleeping beside me because she really loved this song.

"Please turn it up Uncle!" I pleaded earnestly even though the radio was already loud.

A request to which he duly obliged.

I looked at Vashti... "Still sleeping? Even with this loud music?" I asked in my heart.

She must be really tired for her not to be woken by such loud music.

I felt like pinching her so she would wake up.

If she were awake we would be singing along and making a lot of noise.

I even put down general Roberts' book which I was reading and sang along.

Even Uncle Darius was enjoying the song.

I could see him through the center mirror mouthing the words of the song.

"So even Uncle Darius knows trending songs?" I thought to myself.

The cool wind blowing my hair made it all perfect!

"This was going to be the perfect trip!" I thought to myself.

And then that feeling!

The feeling that something really bad was about to happen...

I couldn't place it, but I just knew it in my gut.

I looked at Vashti, she was sleeping so peacefully, with the hint of a smile on her face.

It would be foolish of me to wake her up right now.

I closed my eyes and prayed the feeling away and continued enjoying the song.

The lovely song succeeded in distracting me from the sinister feeling I just had.

And then it happened! My gut was right!

I was pulled out of my rendition by the sudden swerve of our car.

We were on a single-lane road and I tensed up in my seat when I saw that our car was pulling out of the traffic we were in.

We were approaching a bend and I couldn't see if there was a car coming on the opposite lane.

But I figured that uncle Darius could see better from the driver's seat so I relaxed a bit.

"Akeela, you're imagining things I thought to myself.

But it was really happening! It was super fast!

One minute I spotted the oncoming bus and the next thing we are ramming

into the bus really hard.

I heard the noise of impact but I can't remember feeling anything.

The noise of metal tearing into metal, the noise of metal tearing into flesh. I have spent days on this hospital bed

But it seems like I am still stuck in the scorching sun. I can almost still feel the sun burning my heels.

The sun was so hot and that was probably a sign. I remember crawling out of the car. I had to struggle for some minutes to open my side of the door.

When Vashti didn't make it to come out I figured that she presumably couldn't open her door.

I thought the door was jammed so I crawled to the other side of the car and tried to pull her door open.

Truly it was and so I struggled to get it open but could not.

Then a young man came and helped me open the door. The next thing I saw felt like a dagger to the heart.

But Vashti fell out lifeless. Her body had taken a different form. Her arms were twisted in a very awkward scary position.

She was bleeding from her nose and her ears. She was motionless. Every attempt to make her say something was fruitless.

I have always heard about ghastly road accidents but, "why me? Why us? Why her? Why now"?

The world seems to be spinning over my head.

While I processed all that was happening around me I realized that the crowd had gathered.

Some of them brought out their phones and began to take pictures.

I will never understand the rationale behind taking pictures of a ghastly motor accident. Something that my generation loves to do.

It was salah day and that was the cause of the traffic. People dressed in their beautiful ceremonial attires had come out of their cars to help us.

I almost couldn't believe that this was my reality.

"We need an ax, we need an ax! to bring him out" I heard someone scream and that was when I turned to look at uncle Darius he was badly injured.

The bonnet of the car had been pushed all the way in trapping him to his sit.

It didn't look good, it didn't look good at all. I could see broken bones jagged white bones peeping out of his flesh. oh my God! "His legs are gone"! I remember thinking.

Then came the wailing sound of an ambulance maybe it was the shock from the accident.

But it seemed like it didn't take the ambulance more than a few minutes to get to us and for a country like mine that was a miracle.

My mind flashed back to my best friend lying in the hot sun someone had covered her with a sweater.

I crawled to her and pulled the sweater off her face. "She's not dead! She's not dead"! I remember screaming.

At this point, I was shaking, shaking, and crying I didn't want her to be dead but the evidence lay there on the floor.

The ambulance attendants came along with a stretcher and moved her on it. I kept begging them to save her.

One of the attendants pulled me onto a stretcher but I wouldn't lay down they had to strap me to the stretcher.

Because I tried, I kept trying to get off the stretcher to get to my best friend I didn't want her to be dead but the evidence was right. My Vashti was gone!

The men from the ambulance had by this time pulled uncle Darius out of the car, I mean they had pulled what was left of uncle Darius.

His right leg was completely detached from his body. He lay on the stretcher with one leg looking shattered and the other completely missing.

To this day I don't know how there could be so much blood from one person.

The ambulance made quick work of driving us to the hospital or maybe it took some time because the nurses told me in the morning that I kept going in and out of a faint.

I fainted two times they told me. They ran an x-ray and found out I had no internal injuries save for my bruised knee.

One of the nurses told me that I should be grateful instead of wailing too much about my best friend.

"It is a miracle that you are alive," she said and I believed her.

Considering the state of the car when I crawled out of it, considering how badly injured uncle Darius is, considering the fact that Vashti died right on the spot.

I agreed with her that it was a miracle I was even alive and a bigger miracle that I had only a scratch from that terrible, terrible accident.

It didn't feel like a miracle though! "My best friend was dead! Uncle Darius was hanging on for dear life, and this lady was talking about miracles"?

"If this is what miracles look like, I think God can keep my share. I certainly don't need them!" I thought to myself.

I was still a little disoriented from the drugs I had been given and from the shock that my mind was still trying to adjust to.

But I heard one of the nurses confirming to Vashtis family who was now present at the hospital that uncle Darius didn't make it out of the surgery.

"He fought hard to stay alive," the nurse said. it is so sad that we couldn't save him".

"His injuries were too grave and the pain was too much," The nurse said sympathetically.

I could hear the sound of Vashtis' mother wailing.

Her anguish mirrored mine but there were no tears left for me to cry.

I just lay on the hospital bed numb my mind trying to process it all.

One minute my best friend was sleeping beside me and I was vibing to a really good song.

The next minute my worst nightmare unfolded before my eyes.

One of the nurses brought my phone another tiny miracle it had been in my pocket and it was intact and ringing.

I glanced at my ringing phone and saw that it was Fadil who was calling.

I didn't want to talk to anybody, I didn't want to see anybody. In fact, I wished I could just disappear.

I wished so vehemently that I could just go where my best friend went and maybe if the universe was kind we will be together on the other side.

I knew I would have to die for that to happen, and based on how I was feeling at this very moment? That didn't feel like a bad idea at all!