By Larry SUN (larrysundynasty@gmail.com)
Living life is like playing tennis with a wall – you get served back by what you serve it. I have no one to blame but myself if the endgame does not favour you. I threw – no – I smashed the metaphorical ball against the stone wall and it bounced back to hit me on the face. Karma is the stone wall.
Martina had died because I had caused her death with my action, or inaction as the case may be; and the regret would live with me for the rest of my life. However, let me narrate my tale of doom from the beginning, maybe some other persons would learn not to long for my kind of shoes just because they looked fanciful.
It happened two months ago when I met Martina for the first time. I had just been offered the job of a surgeon in the only private hospital in my community, and so I had deemed it proper to celebrate this by having a nice time at the cinemas. I had treated myself to an emotional movie and lots of popcorns when I saw her sitting two rows away from me. I couldn’t reach her. I had to wait until the end of the movie. Coming out of the cinemas after the movie, I sighted her at the other side of the road. Everything about who I was – my original personality – had evaporated at the sight of her. She was absolutely stunning, and all I could think about was how to talk to her.
Then just as I was about to cross the road, I saw a middle-aged man collapse beside me. He had a teenage son of about seventeen years old with him. The elderly man was having what seemed like an asthmatic attack. This teenage son was weeping and screaming for help. People circled round the suffering man and his weeping son; no one knew what to do, and rather than helping, some were taking shots with their phones. I knew I was the only person there who could save the man but I was in a quandary. I had the choice to either save the man and lose the chance of meeting the lady, or go after the lady and leave the man to his unfortunate fate. I had to make a decision fast, time was running out. The lady was about to get on the bus and the man was losing consciousness. I had to choose between my civic duty and my pursuit of love – morality versus emotion. I took a selfish decision and crossed the road.
Well, my action paid off. I caught up with the bus just at the last moment it was about to pull out. I was lucky to find a space beside her and pitched a romantic tent there. That was how the love story of Martina and I had begun. I was the perfect guy for her, and she the right woman for me. By the time we got off the bus, I had forgotten about the man I had refused to help.
I resumed work the following Monday feeling as lucky as ever; my life was finally complete – I had found both my dream job and my dream woman at almost the same time. In a few years, Martina and I would live in a grand home and reproduce like rabbits. Life could not be more pleasant. Getting on the bus appeared to be the best decision I had ever made. I knew I only had to jump and I would be flying. My first day at work was splendid, I carried out my duties efficiently; I performed successful surgeries on few patients, but unfortunately, I couldn’t work on those who couldn’t afford to pay for their treatments. I wished there was something I could do about them but there wasn’t. That was the rule of the hospital; you had to pay first before getting treated.
READ ALSO:
Then two months later, a hit-and-run victim was wheeled into the hospital in the evening of a Saturday. She was severely wounded; I almost didn’t recognize her – she was Martina, my Martina! I felt coldness play xylophone with my spine, rage violin with my arteries, and fear talking drum with my heart; I was a biological embodiment of a musical paranoia. I couldn’t think straight. I was in a panic, close to losing my equilibrium. I could not stop the trembling in my hands, or halt the progressively obvious tic that drew down my lower lip in short, abrupt spasms. I was close to losing my temper, if not my sanity. Who had done this? But now wasn’t the time for questions. All I knew at the moment was that kind passers-by who had witnessed the accident had brought her. I settled her medical bills as quickly as I could and rushed into the theatre but I was prevented from treating her on the basis that I was emotionally unfit for the job.
And so, instead of me, Doctor Thomas – a very clumsy surgeon – was assigned to carry out the surgery. I was outside looking through the window, watching as the doctor did a poor job on my Martina. And of course, the operation was unsuccessful. Martina died during surgery. I watched her lifeless mangled body and cried bitterly. I had met her at a movie theatre and lost her in an operating theatre.
The next day, the hit-and-run driver was caught. It was the teenager whose father was having an asthmatic attack. He had driven his father’s old pick-up truck to sell it to another man because that was the only way he could afford his father’s medical bills; and he had left Martina’s battered body in his wake.
Two days after Martina’s death, I was called back to the hospital to treat a patient because Doctor Thomas was on leave. The patient was the unconscious man I had refused to help two months earlier. His bills had been paid and I had to treat him.
I didn’t even deserve to mourn my loss.
*Larry Sun (+2349061754872) writes from Ikorodu, Lagos
