Strange how things are on the other side of death. This strangeness, perhaps coupled with my inadequacies, makes this experience utterly indescribable. I fear I am incapable of describing this experience to you because I do not know the words to. One simply has to die to understand the perpetually enigmatic phenomenon called death.

I certainly did not wake up in heaven as I had anticipated – for I am certainly not bound for hell even though I am not a saint but instead, I woke up in this huge, seemingly infinite universe of darkness. I could sense nothing except that everything was hollow as if I were in a black hole. I have, by some strange circumstances, been bundled into this jungle of silent confusion. I could discern nothing except being self conscious but even then, I could not remember my name. My mind was as bland as a blank slate. The blandness frightened me to the point of screaming. I screamed. A terrible scream that only echoed in the walls of my cadaver, where it whipped itself into silence; a deep, hollow, silence. The only assumption I could make then was that my mind and my body were no longer the same entity; they were quite distinct from each other. That much I assumed before I lost my consciousness again.

Then it came back once more, my consciousness. The first thing I discerned then was not the light of the angels for I could see nothing nor was it the heavenly melody of their songs for I could hear nothing as well. Instead, I perceived a smell; a distinct smell, a powerful, dominating smell, a smell I knew so well - when I was alive. But it took me a quarter of eternity to recognise the familiar smell of antiseptic in the air. I inhaled this…air and then it happened. I realised that my body and soul now appeared to be one but I struggled to find my mind. It came, like a thunderbolt out of the blues. It came when I felt the pain; pain all over my body, as if I had been thoroughly mangled by a ferocious beast. Then I heard footsteps, tired, irregular footsteps as if from outside my world. Then I realised that this could not be heaven. Heaven could not smell so awful.

Then she started humming a heavenly melody. Even in my presumed death, in a realm I was yet to understand, Faulata’s voice was quite distinct. She was humming a poignant tune; a tune that did magic to my mind. It ignited my memory because I challenged my mind to show me her face as I could not open my eyes. It was as if I were falling into an abyss, hollow and dark, with still pictures gliding about in the blandness, pictures of my life. I caught glances of them on my way down while my frightened scream echoed uselessly on the invisible walls. I saw her angelic face with her divinely toned skin, large, almond eyes; dark, like pools in which I would not mind spending eternity. Her brows were thin like upturned crescents and her beautiful eyes were framed by generous lashes that cast shadows across her face. Her nose was straight and pointed with a little loop passed through her nostril. Her lips were small but yet full, darkened slightly by nature.

And then I saw a picture of my mother, Ummi and I in the back seat of a small sedan with two other fat women. I remembered the stifling heat that pinched like soldier ants biting me; I remembered feeling like a sardine crammed into a can. I remembered Ummi’s reassuring smile and then the accident; the screeching tyres, the crash of metal against the hard asphalt, the shattering glasses, and the frightened screams, and then blackout.

And then I saw a picture of men in black. I felt their hands on me, strong, male hands, searching my body while I lay soaked in my own blood. Their rough hands ran riots on my body, touching me in all conceivable places almost lubriciously. They found what they were looking for – my wallet.

One of them said, “Oga, see. This one too don die.” As if removing my money from me settled the matter of my being alive or not.

The Oga’s voice was raucous. “How much you fin’ for ‘im body?”

The first man said, “Four thousand naira, sir.”

The oga said, “These ones se’f, them no carry plenty money. Oya, put ‘im body with the others but hide the money before people come.”

A third one said, “God o! This accident bad, eh, see how every body just die. Chei!”

The oga said angrily, “Shut up, corporal, if them no die you go fit get this kin’ money wey you dey get just like that? Na this kin’ thing we dey pray for, no be say na we kill them.”

I recalled that Ummi had been in the car with me. Had she died too, I wondered.

I caught glance of a picture of the men in black lifting me like a sack of rubbish to God-knows-where and I muttered barely audibly, “Ummi, Ummi!”

The officers dropped me roughly on the ground and screamed in excitement, “Oga, this one never die o!”

The assumption that Ummi was dead rather than the manhandling was, as I had thought, my coup de grace. Gradually, I faded into darkness – the final curtain fall of my short, tragic life.

Suddenly I felt myself crashing into the bottom of the abyss. I bounced off like a ball and struck down again with a thump. I felt hands holding me down and I struggled to breathe. It was indeed a long fall. And then I heard her voice, “It’s okay now, it’s okay.”

I laid back. Try as I did, I could not open my eyes. Every inch of me ached, from head to toe. After a while I found my voice, “Faulata, where am I?” It was barely a whisper.

Her voice was emotion laden when she spoke, “You are in the hospital, Salim.”

“And what about Ummi?”

Silence answered me.

~~~~~~~~~

            So, I was not dead as I had thought. Well, maybe physically I was not but otherwise I was through for sure. My whole life as I had known it had been shattered. Abba, my father, had been dead for long; my elder brother, Kabir, passed on just over a year before and now Ummi. All I had left was Jamila, my teenage sister. My other two female siblings were married.

            As for Faulata, our impending wedding was put on hold. Ummi and I had been travelling to inform my grandparents about the wedding due after my graduation when the accident happened. I had two fractures on right leg, one on my left arm and three more on my ribs. But the worst damage was to my eyes, which have been rendered blind.

            That was how I lost everything – my dreams of graduating and becoming a medical doctor with just about two months to graduation after seven years in medical school; my future, to have been shared with my love, Faulata. We were supposed to have been happily married and live happily ever after. Everything was blown away, like desert dunes, in a twinkle of an eye.

            My body healed in the hospital but my mind laid siege at the gates of heaven, pleading for admission. There was nothing more to live for. My mind and body were heading in two different directions while Faulata struggled to keep both together. She was the only thing that adamantly pinned me to this wretched earth.

            “You are not dead, Salim,” she would sob. “You cannot leave me here.”

            Her plight was understandable of course; a woman losing her love could evoke the greatest sympathy anyone could imagine. She made me feel guilty and I wished I could put an immediate end to her nightmare – our nightmare. I could not imagine her marrying the monster I have become. How I wished I had just died and saved her and myself all the agony. But I did not and Faulata and her seemingly undying love forced upon my reluctant mind a reason to live. I had to recall my mind from the gates of heaven back to this….this cruel world but my rebellious mind was not pacified. It still longed for the divine call.

            The flow of sympathy overflowed into my discharge from the hospital two months after the accident and my returning mind abhorred that. Relatives, friends and course mates just refused to stop coming with condolences, which instead of strengthening me, served only to make me feel hopeless and helpless. All those who could not make it to the hospital came to the house. Some, I believe, came just to see for themselves how really ugly poor, blind Salim had become. They would inspect me as if I were a lab rat, some sort of experimental guinea pig to observe for changes. Some came at early dawn, some in the mornings. By lunch time, the whole house would have been filled and some of them would deliberately stumble into my siesta, which was the only time I pretend to sleep. By night, I was left alone with my insomnia.

            I had this phobia for eating before people, strangers or not. I had this feeling that they would be looking at me, shaking their heads in pity. I hated to be pitied. I would rather have them laugh at me. But each time I imagined them laughing at me, I would get angry and fume. Besides, my pride would not have me eating before them because the exercise was tasking. I had to feel the food, like a child learning how to eat. And so when there were guests around, which was always, I would refuse to eat and Faulata, my darling Faulata, would spoon-feed me, coercing as only she could have done.

            Visiting the toilet was something else. I needed a guide to even shit. Often, I would miss the pit and deposit the whole thing by the side and Saint Faulata would have to wash it. She did everything diligently. She would come in the mornings before leaving for school and my house was her first stop on her return. I wondered how she coped with her project and her impending final exams barely a month away. With the gradual passage of time, I began to forget to love Faulata like I used to, instead, I relied almost entirely on her. Jamila, my young sister, had better things to do than to attend to me. Once she got back from school, she would change out of her uniform to start entertaining her numerous array of boyfriends. She got over the tragedy rather too fast and for her it was ‘life goes on’.

            I woke up one morning and came out of my room. Even with my walking cane I was still stumbling over buckets and stools left out of place by the careless Jamila. I was in a hurry to go to the toilet. Then I heard someone giggling. I said, “Jamila, why are you laughing?”

            It was not Jamila but her friend, Saratu. She said, amidst laughter, “You are wearing your trousers inside out.” And she cackled, very much like a hen.

            Seething with anger I said, “Bitch!”