My kindness will not be the death of me.
They said one decision can change the trajectory of your life. I saw this almost come into play yesterday.
I closed from work by 2:30 pm yesterday but decided to stay at work for a bit because the sun was blazing and I was not about to get roasted. I eventually left by 4 pm. I got to the bus stop and there were two empty tricycles. I slid into one and waited. Had I chosen the second, the one further down, my day wouldn’t have spiraled into the chaotic mess it became.
A woman came in not long after with two children: girls. She looked tired, clutching her children’s lunchboxes like lifelines. They squeezed in. I knew what was coming, I saw the request forming in her eyes, but there was nothing I could do to stop it.
She looked at me. “Uncle, please help me lap one of my children.”
A simple request, yeah? A moment of kindness. I nodded. A decision that, later on, turned out to be like a fatal misstep. The smaller girl climbed on my lap and we moved.
We had not gone far when it happened. The little girl stiffened, and her body began an uncontrollable dance. Her mother screamed and the tricycle lurched forward. The driver must have been jolted by the chaos behind him. We parked immediately. My heart was hammering loudly and I was holding the child close to my chest. The child was still jerking violently, but I couldn’t move. The mother snatched her from me and put her on the dusty sidewalk. White foam bubbled from her lips. She was convulsing. Passersby had gathered now. Some rushed to help while others brought out their phones to make videos.
“Bring onions!”
Who get spoon? Open that lunch bag!”
“Rush this child to the hospital!”
I was still confused. The child’s mother was kneeling beside the child, crying and shouting. Her other child was crying too. Then the woman rose and looked at me.
“You! What did you do to my child?”
I can still hear the accusation in her tone. I can still see the fire in her eyes. I knew that look. I had seen it in my mother’s eyes a couple of times when she wanted to fight for us. I started moving backwards.
“Ha! Madam, nothing o. We were all in the keke together na.” My voice was shaking. I was shaking. Now that I think of it, it was a very pathetic defense.
She caught up to me and held my shirt tightly.
“Na so them dey do, these young boys nowadays no wan work. Them dey find who to use do ritual.” I looked at the person who had said it. She was among the onlookers who were making videos with their phones. I didn’t even have the luxury of getting mad.
“If anything happens to my child, I will make sure you don’t leave here alive.” She turned away and went back to kneel beside her daughter. It didn’t sound like a threat. It sounded like a promise. By then, they had gotten the spoon and fixed between her teeth, and she was not jerking as quickly as when she started.
Admist all the noise, the chaos, the wailing from the woman and her other child, I was thinking, ‘If only I had taken the other vehicle and not this one. If only I had told this woman ‘No’ when she asked that I help her carry her child.’
The spams eventually ended. We carried the girl, now limp and pale, back into the tricycle and headed to the hospital. I had to follow them. The doctor asked the mother if she had a fever that morning. She said yes, but she was given paracetamol. It turned out the fever intensified that afternoon and triggered the convulsion. I was weak, too weak.
The woman looked at me. “Brother, please don’t be angry. I was very scared.” I did not wait for her to finish her explanation or apology. I turned away and started walking out of the hospital. I needed to get home. It had been a long day.
My simple act of kindness had almost cost me my life.
