CLINGING TO HOPELESS HOPE

08: 42am Somewhere in Amamole, Accra…

Emefa’s strident cry sent Dela racing from the backyard with a sharp pace, spilling the chicken-feed on the ground without thought, and stumbling into the corridor without caution. His fears met reality. There, on the cemented floor, was his brother Atsu, sprawled on the ground, gasping desperately with the black of his eyes almost escaping from the piercing throbbing of its owner’s heart.
“Get his medicine, quick!” Dela ordered and cupped Atsu’s head in his arms, slapping his cheeks and shaking his head roughly. ‘Wake up…Atsu wake up.’ He let the tears stream down his face.

‘There are no pills in this container, Dela,’ Emefa sniffed sorrowfully. She turned the container upside down, and not a single pill or tablet dropped.
“Here, hold him this way,” Dela left Atsu in the arms of his sister and hurried to the safe on top of his suitcase. His wobbly hands held its key, and inserted it after several clumsy failed attempts. There was GH¢15 in the safe. He would need that, at least.
Atsu was still breathing when he came back, albeit slower.
“Get his insurance card.” And while Emefa was at it, Dela strapped his younger brother cautiously to his back and headed towards the hospital.

Times like this made him blame a father he never knew. With GH¢15 in his pocket, from a isolated vicinity, and bearing a sick brother, Dela dragged himself a few yards before they arrived at the public transport station. He was drenched.
“Hospital,” he tried to hail a taxi. Initially the driver peered at them uncertainly, but finally pulled over some meters away, and motioned for them to draw closer.
“Small…where are you going?” he was gnawing roasted corn indifferently, probably because he could not decipher whether the water on Dela’s face was sweat or actual tears.
“General Hospital…how much is your fare?” Dela knew he had to manage thus was ready to bargain as a miser would.
“10 Ghana…” he did not see Dela’s shock at his exorbitance. His eyes were affixed to the corn.
“10 Ghana cedis? Please sir, won’t you take five…look, I have a sick brother.” The driver paused briefly to assess the sick boy, and finally snorted, “Okay, pay eight cedis. Eight cedis and that is all. Imagine the traffic I have to endure.”

Dela could not afford eight cedis, and while he contemplated hardly, the driver murmured something and sped off. He tried to call the hospital ambulance.
“Hello, we are sorry our ambulance is broken down…” It sounded like an automated response. Nothing or nobody was kind. Even the sun scorched fiercely, burning the fat in their skins without mercy. Dela bore the brunt of his brother on his back, and walked on, sobbing, hoping…




10: 15am Somewhere around Ridge, Accra in a State Bungalow…

“How could a whole Minister for Equality and Justice catch such common flu…just before his encounter with the press?” the mistress teased, and sensually tongued the Minister’s ears.
“Ha-ha…I bet you gave me that silly flu,” he sounded nasal, much to the disgust of his mistress. “I have to go to the hospital,” he continued. “I must cure this flu before tomorrow. I think I am having a fever too.”
“Should I call you an ambulance??”
“Brilliant. Tell them to come without delay. The Minister for Equality and Justice is sick,” he said and laughed like a pig.
The mistress inched closer to him, baiting him until the minister could no longer tame his eros, and clutched her hips with a lustful grip. She placed a finger on his bushy lips. Right! He was sick and must take his time. A sick man needs to gain energy, and not to lose it.
Just as the mistress turned her voluptuous frame to make that telephone call to the hospital, the minister smacked her backside gleefully.
“Call the medial superintendent himself…tell him I need an ambulance without delay.”


12: 10pm at the General Hospital…

Dela gulped at the queue of patients and the way it snaked from the registry, way down the reception to the access way for the disabled. His eyes swept along the entire queue and after sometime realized that no one else present carried the burden he was heaving on his back. He went straight to the registry.

“Madam…” the nurse did not budge.
“Please I have a dying brother…he needs immediate attention”
The nurse stopped counting the cedi notes.
“Does he have a card?”
“Yes madam. He’s covered by insurance,” Dela said impatiently. He could feel his brother’s ache. It was as though they shared a heart, for he Atsu was hurting, Dela was hurting more.
The nurse counted the last notes before replying, “Well join the queue.”
“No madam,” Dela was ready for a paroxysm. He leaned forward with a mean disposition which drove a chilly sensation down the nurse’s spine, but she quickly mustered composure. This little boy cannot ruffle her emotions nor exercise control. She was in charge.
“Look, sit over there, young man. Join the queue, and then I will call the emergency unit. They should be here shortly.”
Dela agreed to the compromise. He unsaddled Atsu and rested his head on his laps, stroking his back from time to think as though that could ease the pain eating the poor boy inside.

“This boy looks very sick…has the nurse called emergency?” The janitor was curious. He was a tall man who wore gray hair, carrying a broom in one hand with a machete tied around his loin. He carried a small radio which was playing a popular tune: ‘He who jumps the queue, dies first…he who skips the line, meets first the curse.’
Dela chuckled and shook his head. He remembered the lyrics of that song from an old book he had read way back in secondary school.
“But where is your mother…and father?” the janitor was concerned.
“My mother is dead…and I have never seen my father,” Dela forged a smile.

The janitor shook his head sadly. Just as he was about to offer gratuitous empathy, the General Hospital ambulance pulled over, and the Minister for Equality and Justice was wheeled in on a stretcher. He suddenly beamed and flashed a phony smile, waving at the patients and assuring them they would be taken care of. He passed them by and entered directly into the doctor’s office…without a card…without discourse…without even a hello to the nurse at the registry.

Atsu’s breathing was now dreadfully slow…beating like the heart of a fatigued infant crossing over to the land of celestial beings.
“Nurse, when are the emergency people coming?” Dela burst out.
“Sit down, young man...” the nurse’s response was sharp and cruel.
“His eyes are reddening, Dela. He has stopped breathing…” Emefa screamed.
It was as though the whole scene and timing were divinely orchestrated, for just as the minister came out of the doctor’s office, laughing and looking as healthy as a horse, the janitor also strolled by Dela, who rapidly seized the machete tied to the janitor’s loins, and quickly, with the speed of light, sunk very deep wounds in the Minister’s neck with just two powerful swoops. He slashed the nurse and spurt her blood on the glass counter, before finally laying down his weapon. The Minister’s feet gave way, and he fell with a face still masked in horror.

“This sick man should be sent to the psychiatry…not here,” one nurse said before security arrived to whisk Dela away, with Emefa tailing them, weeping, and Atsu lying in the hospital bench, his hands and feet cold from twelve minutes of death.
The janitor turned the volume knob on his radio…louder. The music was still playing: ‘He who jumps the queue dies first…he who skips the line, meets first the curse’

Nii Moi Thompson