BOOM!! TAKKA TAKKA!! TAKKA TAKKA!!!
The sound of gunshots sent us crashing into Arrow’s room. We had no time to knock. Shouts and cries erupted all of a sudden from a distance, getting louder by the second. My heart skipped a beat as Evelyn jumped on me out of fright. In reflex, I spun out of her reach as I made for the door, jamming my body against it while I fumbled for the keys to lock it with.
“Lie down! Lie down!!” I shouted at an almost paralyzed Evelyn, dragging her down with me.
Hearts in mouth, we listened to the incessant reports of machine guns, boastful shouts and cries growing louder while the pounding of our hearts was even more deafening.
“Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!” Evelyn kept shouting while I struggled not to get choked from her tight grip.
My initial guess was that it was probably a gang of robbers at work again but I wasn’t convinced. Nothing was worth the trouble of armed robbery here in Bori village. Besides, the whole of Yteghe was known to be very peaceful as compared to other areas where the creek boys inhabited. Yes, the creek boys. It would have to be the creek boys but what was the trouble again? The last conflict here happened long ago, before the government’s amnesty programme.
It was in these fearful thoughts that I noticed my phone for the first time since we barged into the room. It was ringing and from where we lay trembling, I could see his name on the screen. Arrow was calling. With tremendous effort to free myself from Evelyn’s grip, I crawled towards the phone.
“Guy, where you dey? Where you dey?!” my friend was shouting over the phone.
“Your house! Your house!!” I shouted back in reply.
“Stay there O! Stay there! No try come out O!”
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It was a command that was certainly going to be obeyed. Arrow was at the hospital where we both worked. He said all he knew for now was that it was a clash between the creek boys and some other gang, yet to be identified. He was also suspecting it had to do with the abduction of one of the prominent political party’s candidate for the forthcoming elections by the boys of the other party the previous day. I shivered as I got this information above the noise of gun battle from a distance that didn’t sound too far. Some people had warned about reprisal attacks when we heard about the politician that was kidnapped yesterday, but I could bet that none of us expected it this soon and in this manner.
After the first call from Arrow, Evelyn and I clung tightly to each other, trembling and muttering prayers under our breaths as we listened to the continued rumbling outside. I was trying to be strong for her but I guess it wasn’t working. I too was too scared to offer much succour to anyone.
In what seemed like eternity but was only about two hours in reality, the gun shots started to fade farther and farther away. It would take another hour for a tensed kind of quiet to return around us. This time, I managed to call Arrow. It rang twice without answer and fear was beginning to creep in when he finally answered the call on the third ring. He was fine, he reported in bated breath. He was still at the hospital with the nurses on duty. Those at the hospital were now calling everyone they knew within Yteghe, to confirm if they were safe. I could hear shouts in the background and he explained it was a patient’s relative who was yet to know the whereabouts of her son and was refusing to be quietened by the nurses. He said all the staff of the hospital have been accounted for except Evelyn, the new nurse. I told him not to worry that she was with me, half expecting his teasing. He was rather relieved to hear it and was grateful. He had decided to leave the door to his apartment open for me, as I forgot the spare key he had given when I first arrived.
Doctor Enem, which was Arrow’s real name, being the only doctor at the hospital as at that time, had a lot on his plate. Knowing this, I tried to make the conversation brief, promising him I would take care of Evelyn but he wouldn’t get off the phone until I promised him that we wouldn’t leave the house until he came back, or at least until we heard from him that the coast was clear.
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That night we couldn’t sleep. Despite it being about four hours since we heard the last gunshot neither of us felt safe. A quick glance through the window revealed a dark and empty street with only a few houses barely lit. Evelyn was now curled up in foetal position with her head on my thighs while I just sat there with my back against the wall, staring into the darkness. Except when we wanted to reassure ourselves that we were not alone, otherwise we barely spoke to each other. We were both lost in our thoughts.
It has just been two weeks since she started working at Inland Hospital and right from the very first day, I’ve been attracted to her and had done so much to woo her and now, this? I wondered what she was thinking of the whole situation as I absent-mindedly stroked her hair. What had earlier looked like a promising evening for us had now turned out to be a nightmare.
“John”, she called my name.
It was no longer Doctor John, I managed to notice. Perhaps, we had achieved intimacy in a weird kind of way.
“Yes”
“When will they stop? When can I go home?”
“Soon"
We both knew she would have to spend the night here. It was already eleven anyway and more importantly, it wasn’t safe out there. I could empathize with her desire to be home as I too was feeling the same way. I remembered my uncle’s opposition to my coming down to Yteghe for work and now it seemed that he was right after all. I could picture him gloating and I resented him the more for it. He had done nothing to help me secure the much needed housemanship and when I told him of this job, all he had done was to oppose it without any reason and without proffering any alternative. He should go to blazes for all I care. It was eighteen months without a job that led me to this village in Ogoni land. Eighteen months of parading as a doctor unable to take care of myself let alone my family. Eighteen months of the title “doctor” gradually losing its meaning to me.
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The drudgery of the number of years we spent in medical school was often cushioned by the promise of a job as soon as we finished. I remembered how I, Arrow and our other friends in school used to encourage ourselves to push on despite the challenges we faced then in school with the hope that securing the prerequisite house job we needed for our full qualification as medical doctors wouldn’t be a problem upon graduation. At least, that was how easy it was a few years ago. Today, I was in a village I had never heard about until two months ago, working for a paltry sum to avoid being a burden to my aging mother who struggled to see me through school upon father’s death, and still I had no idea when I would get this so called house job with my practicing licence set to expire in a few months. I thought of how I had gone from one interview to another full of hope, only to have my hopes dashed brutally against the wall. I recall a particular hospital that published the list of successful candidates just as we were leaving the interview hall with the publishing date being two days before interview. I remember the mirthless laughter most of us shared that day. We were getting used to the corrupt system and most of us were ready to join the band wagon, if we could. We were running out of options. You either cough up a sizable chunk of money to pay for house job or you had connections in high places. It was no longer a secret amongst us. We even shared stories amongst ourselves of already employed doctors switching from one job to a better paying one just by paying for it. Well, they had the money to pay and we, the unfortunate ones could only grumble and curse. It was frustrating to still be dependent on a struggling parent with four other children, after eight years of medical school and almost two years post-graduation.
It was this frustration that made me jump at the offer when Dr Enem called me concerning an opening where he was also working while waiting for house job too. I didn’t think twice as I hurriedly left home, enticed more by the idea of escaping the hardship at home, than by the idea of actually working for peanuts. So, here I was scared out of my wits by a gunfight, alone with a young lady a little more familiar than a stranger right in the middle of nowhere.
Her snoring jerked me out of my revelry, startling me a bit. The dim light from my phone showed the time to be three thirty am. I couldn’t wait for dawn. Gently, I lifted Evelyn' head off my thighs and placed a pillow underneath. She muttered something incomprehensible in her sleep before she continued snoring. On tiptoes, still scared to make any noise, I found my way to the bathroom with the aid of my phone’s dim light. It was just as I finished relieving myself that we heard the shots again.
Evelyn woke up with a scream that pierced the darkness as I rushed back stumbling into the room. It had started again, the gun shots and the shouts. It was far from being over.
...To be continued
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