Representational photo. |
The
intensity of the door handle hitting the wall as it burst open shook the
apartment. One of the photo frames, with the face of a smiling mother and a
well-fed little child hung on the wall at the dinning section fell from its
hook on the wall, shattering on the floor. The commotion startled TJ and Ronke,
with TJ's lifted hand freezing momentarily midair. He let go of his wife with a
push that brought her down on the edge of the sofa as Olamide, their nine-year
old daughter ran into the sitting room wide-eyed.
"Daddy, Junior fell from the
bunk and broke his head. There's blood all over him," she cried.
"Yeeeh, my son!" Ronke
cried, staggering to her feet.
"Ola, what do you mean,
Junior broke his head? Jesus!" TJ wailed.
He and Ronke ran into the
children's room, where Toriola James, commonly called TJ Junior, sprawled out
on the floor beside the double bunk bed, the colar of his polo shirt soaked in
blood. He was motionless, a posture that brought both his parents anguish.
"Junior!" they both
chorused in unison. TJ went down on his knees beside him feeling his pulse.
"Ronke, quickly, bring him out, let me get the car and let's get him to
the hospital at once. He ran out while Ronke swept her five-year old son into
her arms and lifted him up. She ran with him outside where her husband had
their Honda Pilot SUV running. TJ helped her into the car with their son in her
arms, his head nestling on her bosom, her blouse smeared with the blood from
the deep cut on the side of Junior's head. At that moment, neither she nor her
husband remembered the row that nearly brought them to fisticuffs only a while
ago. Who remembered such differences when the life of a precious son was in
danger, anyway? Ronke thought to herself as she kept staring at the cut on
Junior's head.
TJ eased the car into the street,
turning right at the point where the street emptied into College Road as he
headed towards Yaya Abatan Road at the Ogba area of Lagos. The traffic was
light on this Saturday morning. He increased speed after the Yaya Abatan-Thomas
Salako interception and gunned down the car towards Aguda area. He turned left
before Sony Okosun's house and headed towards Oke-Ira. Soon he got to the
hospital. He helped his wife get Junior out of the car and ran with him into
the hospital's lobby, startling the nurses and two persons seated at the
waiting section.
"Nurse, where's the doctor?
Please help us, our son is badly injured," Ronke said, shaking with
fear.
"Do you have a card?" one of the nurses
asked.
"No, we don't," Ronke responded.
"Then you must obtain a card before we can admit
him. N2,000 for personal, and N3,500 for family. And besides, you must make a
deposit of N25,000 before we can commence treatment on him," the nurse
reeled out with no enthusiasm.
"What is the matter with you," TJ raged.
"Where's the doctor? I need to speak with the doctor at once."
"It won't change anything sir," the nurse
told him. "I am acting on the instructions given to us. It's the normal
standard."
"You're wrong. A standard whereby you place a
higher value on money far above the sanctity of the human life certainly cannot
be normal," TJ said, hate in his eyes, his expression menacing.
"Please take it easy," a middle-aged man
sitting beside a shivering teenager, told him. "It's the same thing we
were told when we rushed our son here. And they have no PoS where we could
easily have made the deposit. So my wife has gone to the nearest bank to make
withdrawals."
"I wonder what has happened to our society! What has happened to the bowel of mercy, the milk of kindness that was the hallmark of the Nigerian society in the 60's, 70's, and the 1980's?" TJ wondered.
"I wonder what has happened to our society! What has happened to the bowel of mercy, the milk of kindness that was the hallmark of the Nigerian society in the 60's, 70's, and the 1980's?" TJ wondered.
"That's grammar sir," the second nurse
interjected.
ALSO READ: TOP 10 REASONS WHY OLDER WOMEN LIKE YOUNGER MEN
ALSO READ: TOP 10 REASONS WHY OLDER WOMEN LIKE YOUNGER MEN
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Disclaimer: Comments from our readers do not represent the editorial policy of The Bulletin Press.