Doris the wife of the doctor had on several occasions regretted marrying a medical doctor. She remembered a seemingly controversial French proverb "L' Argent ne fait pas le bonheur" meaning; money does not make happiness. Doris was from a very poor family and she thought that material wealth was a sure key to happiness to this effect, she was found to have disdainfully and snobbishly despise and reject many suitors prior to her marriage to the medical doctor. And not only that the medical doctor evolved from a wealthy family, but that he was wealthy independently to himself. Never consider yourself lucky until you get married as Doris always thought to herself after this experience.
The admission of Nuela made the medical doctor Musa to spend sleepless nights as he either rummage through some broad medical textbooks, medical journals, searching the computer or making some telephone calls to his seniors in the field. He phone one medical professor or the other as no continent of this earth was spared. His studies at different foreign universities paved ways to his international connections. Meanwhile all was geared towards unraveling the current jigsaw puzzle.
Doris his wife wondered why a comatose patient could stifle the comfort of the home by making her live like a widow, infact the loneliness was too tasking for her. She became suspicious if it could be that Nuela has been a secret lover of her husband and afterthought said no! No! No!! My husband can't cheat on me and besides the patient was too tender to have known such thing not to even talk of being a matrimonial rival.
Doris like other women yearned for the warmth and company of her husband as availability of exhaustable cash couldn't make up for her yearning.
Night covers the dawn of a new day breaks
The prolonged stay of Nuela at mountain hospital was a source of worry to the biological relations and even Ojemba's neighbours. When it was mooted that the condition of Ojemba's only child Nuela had to do with poisoning, there was uneasy calm in the entire neighbourhood.
Lasgidi is a typical mutual town where any news od success, failure, birth, death or misfortune becomes a common business. People intimate with each other and exchange warmth pleasantries. They were as a result empathic and sympathetic. This African culture of being one's brother's keeper unlike Cain has not been eroded by western civilization.
Anyone who has ever exchanged harsh words with Ojemba's family became a suspect, insinuations were rife, some women became visibly restless. This is because of the folklore in which the tortoise once said that he would trample a pregnant woman to death if a stampede took place later and a pregnant woman was trampled to death by other people and the tortoise became the prime suspect as his claiming never to have went to the market that very day was not heeded.
Madam Anunti started suffering from insomnia. She was know for her foolhardiness in giving her tongue unbridled liberty. A week before Nuela's sickness, she said t Nwakaego : " our forefathers said that one eyed person is indebted to blindness thas alteration was made during a quarel between she and Nwakaego.
As many people heard of the above threat to life, they started keepinng their distance from madam Anunti. They started treating her like someone suffering from HIV or leprosym gossips had a field day, making her the theme of discussion, whenever she approaches a group of women, they would start pretending to have finished the matter at hand she was seriously suspected to have carried out the threat.
She felt like relocating to another town but that would rather give credence to the rumour and suspicion of her being responsible for Nuela's poisoning as a result she was gripped with dizziness, loss of appetite, restlessness and emaciation.
Dr. Musa had to off his phone as he was getting calls from the press, the police, politicians and other highly renowned individuals. Intercontinental phone calls from inquisitive fellows even disturbed the doctor. Questions like is she breathing? improving ?recovering? Will she survive were asked. Everybody seemed to be interested in knowing the fate and who could be responsible for the poisoning.
The national union of road transport workers to which Ojemba Nuela's father belonged had an emergency solidarity rally. They've sworn to deal with whosoever must have done this. Some of their members even went to consult a seer in a remote village. Mr Ojemba was too good to be left to suffer alone. Many people visited the bedridden sick tender girl at the hospital not minding the strict restriction placed by the doctor as regard to visitors. A plain-clothes but armed police officer was always at the door of the ward. This was the effort of the police officer to protect Nuela from further harm. Everybody was a suspect. Chied Omemma in his high connection requested for the police protection. There were many questions yet unanswered "who poisoned Nuela? Why? How? Where? And when.
It was actually at this climax or peak of suspicion, recrimination, suspense and tension that Nuela slowly regained consciousness and hence was in convalescence.
Ojemba and his brother Chief Omemma swore that whoever was responsible for this vice must be brought to book and be put on black and white.
One judge a family friend to Ojemba emphatically assured Chief Omemma that the yet to be identified culprit must face the full wrath of law. Ojemba was known to be ruthles even though he was peace-loving as an idiom puts it; " the sheep says she doesn't know how to dance, but when the music is in her compound, at least she would start jumbing around."
No this is too close for comfort, I must emulate the sheep as this is a direct attack on my very family. I must act beacause an only palm nut is not left to perish in the flame of a burning fire.
Ojemba was entrapped in the above monologue.
###END OF THIS EPISODE, VOTE, COMMENT AND RESTEEM FOR MORE INSPIRATION IN THE SUBSEQUENT EPISODES.
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