The MC continued his announcement. “The bride has just informed that she isn’t going to throw her bouquet,” the MC announced. “Why?” Everyone chorused, curious to know what they were up to. “She has decided to share her flowers amongst all the single ladies instead,
as a way of saying thank you for coming,” the MC continued. Everyone clapped as Yemi began unbundling her bouquet and handing out flowers to every lady standing there. One after the other each lady received a flower and went back to her seat smiling till it was my turn.
At first it seemed like she wanted to skip me deliberately and go to the next lady then she hesitated and walked up to me handing me a miserable petal without even looking at me, then she moved on to the next person and handed her a flower like she had done to
everyone else.
I could feel my face turning red as I started my walk of shame back to my seat. It was clear she still hadn’t forgiven me for what happened that morning. I had hoped that since the hall
was so big, the people sitting at the back wouldn’t notice that I didn’t have a flower in my hand but I was so wrong. As soon as I went back to my table and sat down, one of the overzealous aunties who had dragged me out started to stare at me like she was expecting something from me. I saw her staring at me from the corner of my eyes but I pretended not to notice. “Young lady, where’s your own flower?” she finally shouted across the table to me.
I seriously could not understand why the woman was on my case.
“It had finished by the time I got there,” I said, forcing a smile and raising the petal I had managed to get like a trophy for her to see.
“Ah! No, that is not accept-ah-bul,” she said, shaking her head and almost blinding the lady sitting next to her with her oversized headgear . I just smiled as she turned to discuss me with the other lady pointing at the petal in my hand. I decided it was best to make my escape
before she came up with another crazy idea.
“Bye bye ma,” I said, getting up and walking briskly towards the exit without even waiting to
hear her response. I’d had a long day and all I wanted to do was go to bed. Our hotel bookings were made to
cover the whole weekend so I thought I would enjoy the luxury of the hotel for one more night before going back home.
Later that night, the others got back really late and I was sleeping when they returned but Charly didn’t hesitate to wake me up to give me all the gist I had missed at the wedding.
The highlight of the gist was how Oby and Chuks had spent the whole time together and how she caught them kissing each other in a corner where they thought no one would see them. She
added that she and Oby had a discussion and according to her, Chuks had hinted that he was thinking of proposing soon. Any time I hear such phrases like “hinting at a proposal”, I always wonder if the ladies are not magnifying in their heads what guys say innocently, to
give it the meaning they want to hear.
I just nodded as she narrated her account but I didn’t say anything.
She said Chuks had to leave early the next morning to catch the first flight back to Ghana, so Jumai was going to join us in our room to enable Chuks and Oby to have some quality time alone together in the other room.
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I hated the fact that three of us were going to be squashed on a double bed but
it’s not like I could complain. I just shook my head and went back to sleep.
The next morning, I woke up really early as I had to be at work that morning because I was on call and the person I was to take over from was ending his shift soon. I wrote a letter to Yemi apologising that I was sorry for almost ruining her day, asking her for forgiveness and wishing her all the best as she began her marital journey. I slid the letter under her room
door—I hadn’t even considered calling her because I knew she wouldn’t pick her phone.
I made my way to the carpark and drove off to work. My work place was not too far from the airport. As I got closer to work, I noticed there was a bit of traffic building up and I wondered
what could have caused traffic so early in the morning.
When I had moved much farther, I
noticed that a huge cargo truck carrying bags of cement had fallen on a taxi beside it. It looked to me like the driver had tried unsuccessfully to escape being crushed by the falling truck because only the back of the taxi had been totally squashed, the front was badly
dented but it was nothing compared to the back, it would have been a miracle if any
passenger sitting at the back had survived. The emergency officials were already there at
the scene and from the look of things, the victims of the accident had already been rushed to
the hospital, I could only hope they made it out alive. I didn’t envy the doctors who would be
saddled with the responsibility of attending to the victims from such a terrible motor accident
so early in the morning.
Finally, I was able to make it past the obstruction caused by the accident, in a few minutes I
was at work. I was about 30 minutes early so I headed to the call room to look for my
colleague who was meant to be handing over to me. The call room was empty so I went to
the nurses’ station to find out if anyone had seen him anywhere. The matron informed me
that he was attending to an emergency in the Emergency Room (ER),
I went over there to offer some help, I knew they’d definitely be needing more hands on
deck. As I stepped into the emergency room, I saw my colleague with two other doctors
trying to resuscitate an elderly man. I asked the ER nurse what happened and she told me
he was a victim of a car accident and had just been rushed in a few minutes ago. “We’ve
been trying our best to resuscitate him since he was rushed in, but the other passenger was
not so lucky,” she said pointing at a corpse on the bed covered with a white cloth, “he was
brought in dead.”
There was nothing that broke my heart more than hearing those words, it pained me every
time I thought the person never had a chance. “He’s actually a young guy,” the nurse
continued, “I just feel sorry for his family,” she added. I went over to the corpse just to see
the face of the young man, I gently pulled off the white cloth covering his face, screaming
immediately I saw who it was. My hands started to shake, my legs suddenly felt weak, the
room started spinning around me, I felt like I was going to faint. This was the last person I
had expected to see—he was at the wedding yesterday with us and less than 24 hours later
he was gone? Wow! Truly there is a thin line between life and death… I kept thinking about
how I was going to break the news to Oby, how on earth was I going to tell her that he was
gone forever?
– Dr O
Find out what happens next…..