STAY WITH ME
Somewhere in the outskirt of Ìwọ, a disaster is about to happen. Derayo would make the greatest mistake of her life; she'd say “yes”, she'd agree to do it & wished she didn't....
You met at the Lagos garage. Him, a handsome young man who is a fifth year medical student of Bowen University, Iwo. You, a disgruntled third year microbiology student of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ilé-Ifè.
You became friends with him. Phone calls, video calls, and several hangouts. It started platonic, then the visiting — Ife to Iwo is just a thousand naira — to his apartment. The first few times you made him use protection, condoms saves everything including bastards. Then he started to complain and you switched to raw. It was sweet, pleasurable, and it lasted long.
The relationship was juicy, and because you are not a squirt, you did not hide the fucks. It was everywhere on your social media, each of your posts garnered thousands of likes and reaction. Several ladies thought you was perfect, hence, wanted to be like you, prayed to love and live like you. Until one late evening when it was cut short with you getting pregnant.
At first, he acted cool. He said he'd stay with you despite not being ready for fatherhood. Then later it wasn’t cool anymore, he proposed D&C which you rejected. You were your mother's only daughter and abortion is scary. The women in your family do not kill their children. You cried for days, cursing your father’s relatives who were not happy with you. Your tummy was getting bigger so you started wearing oversized clothes. It would have looked cute on you, only if there wasn’t a baby bump.
Weeks later, when guilt spiced with shame won’t let you breathe, you went looking for him. He was about to be a practicing doctor, he was just a few weeks away from induction, so he took you to a place. The doctor said they won’t be doing the D&C, that it is too risky now that your pregnancy had progressed. They said they’d do suctioning, that you won’t feel pain and it will just be like passing a large stool from the vagina. The baby will unalive itself inside of you, by itself, and you would pass it out.
You agreed. He smiled, patted your big forehead. He said he loved you, that he will be outside waiting. Some minutes later, two cold-looking nurses came and they injected you, they said you should relax, that the whole procedure would end faster than you imagined. The doctor came and said some inaudible things, you guessed he was telling you to be calm, that this is not his first rodeo, that he's versed at his job and would do it perfectly with his eyes closed. You started dozing but you struggled to keep awake.
They started slowly, first with pumping you full of salt water. The doctor parted your legs and you felt his hands and some warm metals going inside you. Soon, they hung four pints of blood, then the injections, then he started to cut, and suck, and suture, and cut again. You were slowly getting unconscious but your spirit sat upright, unfazed, off your body, on that big surgical bed watching all that was going on, wishing it could warn you of what it is to come.
They ordered more blood. Then more blood, and more blood. The doctor was barking orders and looked angry at no one in particular. His eyes were bloodshot, and his surgical gown splattered with blood in many places. But there you were like an echo, slowly fading into oblivion. Your body getting colder, and your forehead dripping sweats. The doctor's dripping sweats. The room tensed, and the two nurses in the room looking lost.
You became a beeping tone on the EKG monitor, a sinus bradycardia. A quick yet solemnly screaming tone. A Requiem. About twenty minutes later, you passed out. There was a flat line on the monitor and you ceased breathing. The doctor removed his hands from your vagina and started chest compressions. He repeatedly pressed your chest so bad that your ribs creaked under pressure, when he couldn't handle it alone, he called for your boyfriend.
Your boyfriend took over the compressions and the doctor decided to locate the cause of the bleed. The torn artery that was filling your uterus with blood, when he found it, he quickly repaired it. But the damage was too much, it was severe hypoxia. When your heart stopped, your body stopped sending blood and oxygen to your brain.
Who would have thought that in trying to stop a growing baby, you'd squeeze life off your head. The whole surgery lasted for two hours with you unable to get oxygen for about fifteen minutes. They waited for you to wake up. They waited for as long as possible. But you did not. You did not flinch, your eyes did not react to light, and your legs did not feel any stimuli. You body laid there empty; unalive yet not dead.
© Ololade Edun
Category: Flash fiction
All photo credits: Favour Jemimah Oseghale
To be continued next week Wednesday.