Daddy

I sat frozen, unperturbed by the ululations around me.

Still, in bewilderment.

The corners of my eyes, hot. African-sun hot.

I looked straight ahead, eagerly straining to see something that wasn’t there.

I’m living in the most realistic dream there has to be in the history of creation.

Patiently waiting to get back to my world;

the one where I make my mum and the rest of the family jealous,

because I’m my dad’s favourite.

“Abdul, press...check the pulse well! Aren’t you a medical student?!”

A sorrowful voice cried out.

“Mummy, I... I...”

I saw Abdul.

His hands were vibrating, tiredly vibrating.

Eyes, bloodshot red.

Veins, popped all over his face.

Abdul is dark, but today, now especially, his face is red. Dark red.

Liquid dripped from every part of his body, like he’d just been baptized.

Two hundred and sixteen chest compressions in a minute.

Abdul wanted to faint.

Abdul should have gone for his posting this morning.

“Mummy.”

“Abdul, leave me.”

“Mummy, please...” tiredness hung in his throat.

It’s about time I disappear.

I shut my eyes tightly.

My mum will come wake me up in a few minutes.

I’ll tell her about the worst nightmare I ever had.

“Ab... Dul ...What ...Is ....It?”

I could hear my mum's voice quiver through successive exhausted breaths.

“Daddy has stopped breathing.”

I heard metal or was it glass?

Something clanged in my head so loudly.

Suddenly, I was burning up inside.

My head was contracting and expanding.

Black out.

A few weeks later, they would tell me I had tumbled from the sofa

and smashed the left side of my skull on the centre table.

That was the clang.

But now, I’m here trusting this is a dream

just too realistic for my liking.

My mind is desperately rummaging through my all my encounters.. experiences with God,

trying to find where exactly God said,

“Your dad will die on the morning of your wedding.”

God is not worth serving after all.

I could swear on an altar that God is a liar.