As Mr Simeon parked his car in the hospitals garage, he alighted, and went to get the door for his wife and trin did same for her siblings and trin took a moment to assimilate the environment of the hospital which has once tried all in their ability to save her life, she can't help but notice how the security personnel kept on directing oncoming vehicles as he did theirs. She took a deep breathe and took in most of the fresh oxygen, saturating her lungs with the exhales of the beautifully trimmed flowers which act as a dual sidewalk to the entrance of the hospital, they all started to move towards the entrance and trin noticed the inscription on the door plate above her head which States; "THIS IS DIAMOND STANDARD HOSPITALS BUT ONLY GOD CAN HEAL AILMENTS IF ONLY THE SICK TRULY WANTS TO KEEP FIGHTING AND LIVE"
She couldn't agree more. they all greeted the security man at the door who gently opened the door for them. as they got in they stood for a moment, then went to take some seats at the section marked 'visitors only'. they made themselves comfortable though tensed up and Mr Simeon went and made inquiries from an approaching nurse who was bearing a tray with some surgical instruments, he signalled her to a halt and got close enough and asked her "good day young lady, please where can we get the test for the covid virus?" she smiled in admiration and replied, "in the section down the hall marked 'section C19'" and with that he thanked her and they parted ways as he drew closer took Brian by the hand and say to Grace; "honey, y'all should come with me" and they all laughed because they knew he got that from an american film they watched together in a vacation they spent together in Houston, in this movie the protagonist said that to a group of trouble seeking band wagoners he just broke their limbs and they crawled behind him screaming and cursing in pain, the scene was so hilarious that that first sentence stuck to Mr Simeon's head and he'll say it whenever he wants to change the family's mood from a gloomy one to a trill of laughter and this time he smiled with his eyes in fulfillment having earned his wish, the tense now got off them as they made their way to the section. in there after series of test, only trin was confirmed to still have some immediate traces of the virus and she was immediately quarantined after some emotional outbursts by the family but they had to agree to it because as Mrs Simeon would say, "its all for the best, at least my trin is not dead, doc please take very good care of my daughter for me!" she rushed over to her and hugged her deeply, while Mr Simeon said "baby, I assure you that you'll be fine in no time, and we'll continue to come here on daily basis and give you the support you need till this is over, thrust me trin, its only a phase!" then after moments of sticking around and taken some precautionary medications given to them by the medical experts, they went home with gloomy faces. in the car, all attempts made by Mr Simeon to shake off the mood from what remains of his family proved abortive and even him was so downtrodden to fake a positive attitude out!
Meanwhile back at the hospital, trin was conferred to a white empty room made of stained white glass, it was a little bit cold and she can't help but consciously hear the humming of the air conditioning gadget mounted on the right hand side of the wall, the room was a replica of the CIA interrogative rooms except that she has to stay in their alone with her bag and only with the comfort of her phone and charger, also an extension socket to charge it. the door was numerically locked to avoid any form of escape, she finally spoke out after accessing the situation she was in, "am I in prison? this is no way what I expected" she only had an unstained rectangular section on the glass to look over to her mates in the other rooms but can only communicate with the two in her left and right with the inter-comms telephone in the extreme left side of the room close to the door, which was obviously not for her because even when the two tried to contact her, she wouldn't respond because talking was never her style but after pacing all around the room for about ten minutes, she resigned and sat down at the back of the room, soon she got lost in thoughts!
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Nostalgia drenched her brains as she remembered when she was just three years old, they we're still living in the ibo-deltan region of Nigeria, that was where Mr Simeon first met his wife when he was working in the palm oil farms and she as an agriculturist was with the team supplying mechanised tools to the inhabitants of the area from advanced countries, they met when she fell off a malfunctioning tractor and Mr Simeon seeing her with the rear of his eye, dived in head on to save her and from then he won her heart, she didn't go back with her team. she cut of family for him and married him in the church of okpe in isoko local government area of Delta state, but trin's memory can only extend to when she was only three, Mr Simeon only had a thatched mud house then and the family of four lived within, yes, trin's elder sister, her name was glory but destiny made her get pregnant to her boyfriend who she eloped with, the parents can't stop thinking that karma is paid them back for keeping grace away from them for twenty four years since the day they met. glory used to look after trin at home while Mr Simeon went to cut palm trees as usual and check his trap to see if he had any luck, he was always lucky enough because there was enough bush meet in the area from the fact it was covered with forests, only one road leads from the shores of the great Niger river to the village and its trek-able by foot, the richest man in the community had many vast lands, a pond, plantain farm, and a bicycle for locomotion, that's the idea of luxury for such an underdeveloped village. grace owned a pond as well and she'll gather enough palm fruits once every year, mash them up, juice them and cook them in drums with big stone picked from the river side as base for the drums to rest on. After some hours, she with the help of her husband and labourers will start filling the floating oil into Jerry cans (20 litre gallons) and they usually realized from thirty to fifty gallons each year, which they'll take to the shores and wait for vessels and they start their shipping journey to asaba region, port Harcourt, bayelsa and bridge head in Onitsha. this trip usually took from a day to two weeks at most and during the time, glory and trin will be left in their father's care, though glory demanded no care not because she was seven but because she was more capable than her age. whenever their mother came back from such trips, there'll always be enough money to go around for everyone.
her next business was crayfish and fishes Mr Simeon got from the pond and river, they'll eat to their fill, smoke and dry the remains and combined with the draw seeds they harvested during the season and they'll ship them to the Onitsha region where its most costly and from thence back home. they were a happy family and will always take their prayers every night.
grace loves to take risks not for the joy but for her family, she moves out at very late in the night cuts breadfruits into various loaves and drops them in various places she was sure snails will come eat them and at about two am in the night that is two hours from the time she kept them, she'll go check on them with only a local oil lamp made of a metal compartment and stove wool and fueled with kerosene, she bears it in the left hand and a machete in the right and goes into the deep dark forest filled with awful auspicious sounds of creepy animals and birds to check on these snail traps, and with the sack she looped to her waist she'll pack them in, sometimes with Mr Simeon acting as her escort when he's not completely exhausted from the days tiresome labour. he have tried to warn her on several occasions of the perils of taking such daredevil and fatal adventures without him but she wouldn't listen with understandable reasons. once she was bitten by an African python. it is rumored superstitiously that if a person provokes the innocent python to give them a simple bite, that the bite is a hundred percent fatal but when in case the Python was in hunt for little chicks and eggs as always and a human got in the way and was accidentally struck, the python hisses in disappointed due to unintended infliction of injury and the bite will have no effect on the victim!
Another of these stories is that a man saw a Python in his compound, laying around and playing, though the Python did nothing to incur the wrath of the man but the man can barely stand the sight if reptiles, so he picked up a stick and started hitting the snake and just about seconds before the snake died, it dived his leg, curled around it and died. He got it off his leg but days later his leg started to rot and peel off, he tried all medications and black magic from local witch doctors but it only got worse, one of the witch doctors now revealed that he killed an innocent python and everyone on hearing this resigned from trying to save him because they knew how pointless it is and he later died of a pain induced seizure!
Grace lived long enough to tell the tale that the Python hissed when it struck her leg and though she fell unconscious and slept in the bush with her skirt plastered over an antelope's excrement which she later burned the clothe because the stench won't go off, she later got better on returning home that day after drinking a boiled bowl of herbs to quench her dizziness!
(trin's thoughts shifted to when she was five years of age) she got pampered a lot that when the educational system was brought to their little community and they had a school in the portion a mile closer to the river banks, Mr and Mrs Simeon decided to put trin in school along with her sister, she will always disturb her sister and she knew absolutely nothing in school, she will take the thirtieth position in class every term and that was the exact population of the class. the parents thought that trin didn't have a good tutor since they we're always too busy in their work place and will always return famished and incredibly tired, they hired a man to take care of her because they trusted him, he was a very good man of about twenty six to twenty eight years old and he was the community's wood carver.
He carves household materials such as mortar and pestle, wooden spatula and he also built canoe's and chairs for people, he was a talented craftsman! His job included to take trin to school in the morning in his back and he does that excellently well, he then goes to his hut and start carving, later in the day, he goes to her school, picks her up and takes her home to her family along with Glory who now grew up into a beautiful girl and also intelligent, he takes them home safely and most times when the husband and wife are at home, they treat him to a delicious meal for appreciation, he sure had a huge appetite because he could eat half a painter of cassava floor with good soup.
it finally came the season for Mrs Simeon to export her oil to the towns, but this time around, trin was hell bent on going with her, so she allowed her. they've gone in the trip for the third day and trin was melting out disturbances to Grace, but she'll lovingly tolerate her while contemplating in her mind that she'll never come to such journeys with her again. She had her money which she had gotten from sales at towns they stopped buried in her below navel because of pirates. But the unthought of happened at mid night on the fourth day of the travel, the vessel hit something they were unsure of and started to sink, there was panic everywhere but brave Grace took trin in one hand, flings her to her back and tied her up with a wrapper, jumped into the river and swum to the direction of the light she saw of another vessel. the divers in their vessel were helping the crew to get to safety but they couldn't save the remaining merchandise, she got to the ship, they helped her out of the water, trin was too shocked to make any move and Grace was shivering from head to toe because of the coldness of the water. she rued her goods but she was grateful that she could save her baby because she was sure of herself. They later got home the next day, the husband after seeing them come back so early took notice of how Grace's shoulders were facing down and realized what an ordeal she's been through because her eyes were blank, she acted all brave to her children but she went inside and cried to her husband's embrace. Glory eavesdropped to her cry and later took trin aside behind the hut and interrogated her as to the reason their mother who never cried before in their life's was wailing that much, she explained "mummy and I almost go drowned because the vessel sank" Glory's expression changed to absolute surprise, she covered her mouth with both hands and her eyes were bulging out of their sockets,( trin could vividly recall). And she went on to say "all the goods are lost except the money mom had in her waist and with that we boarded the next vessel, but in that vessel was a seer who told mom that I was the cause of her misfortune, that I am at war with the river goddess! mom tried to rebuke her but she retained that heaven bear her witness that she was saying the truth and will have nothing against a child like me but mummy took me by the hand and left her presence but I think mummy is shaken by what that witch said" trin fired out, but Glory interjected in a serious tone by shouting trin's name twice and told her to mind what she says before she land herself in troubles, she pulls her ears to indicate how serious she is. they were still kids but the harsh reality they were living in made them to think, act and talk above their ages. They left to go wash their crossing belt school uniforms because the next day was for school!
As they were in school the next day, trin's class teacher bought a new bucket in the class and the pupils were happy about it, it was the bucket they'll use to fetch water from the one mile away Niger river which they'll mix with charcoal and darken the board in preparation for the day's lessons. trin insisted she wants to be the first to use that bucket so she went along with her sister and a senior class member who was in primary four to the river. the two pupils were in the hill tops close to the river when trin snatched the bucket from Glory and rushed to the river banks to get the water they needed, Glory was infuriated and she busted out; " trin, be very careful with the way you're going about all this or you'll be sorry you ever saw this bucket and thrust me, I can make you feel sorry!" but trin was adamant, she tried to rush at her and beat some sense into her but the Senior pupil named Juliet held her back, telling her that trin was just being a baby. Trin got to the river and with joy in her face she turned back and made a taunting face at the infuriated Glory but Juliet calmed her down. she went ahead into the river, a step after the other to the slippery clay depths and the water was soothingly cold to the hot afternoon, she was really enjoying this. she continued to go in so that she can get clean water, meanwhile Juliet and Glory have gotten drenched in their conversations. Trin continued to move until the waves in the river made her loose her grip in the bucket and it started drifting away, in a moment she pictured how Glory will skin her alive if she didn't retrieve the bucket and she went after it, but each step brought her closer to inevitability. She continued to reach out for the bucket till she realized that the water was above her head then, she tried to turn and swim back but the tides drove her further to the deep and for a little moment she started to feel she needed to breathe, she struggled all to no avail, jumped and jumped, she was getting hot though she was inside the freezing waters, just then Juliet who was untangled from their discussion looked in that direction and saw trin's hair when she jumped up, she touched Glory who look in that direction also and Juliet in a mad pace rushed and dived into the river, she swam for long to reach to Trin, meanwhile trin was having her fare share of mouthful swallows of the filthy and salty water, just then she felt something pulling her legs from below, she tried to shout but water filled her little opening and just then Juliet reached to her hand, pulled her up but she was so heavy, Juliet thought it was the water she had drank and tried more, she was able to pull her out unto her back and she enormous belly lay on Juliet's back while she swam her to the shores, trin was laying on her back, with red eyes and water dripping off her mouth, she was breathing heavily and she almost passed out, just then Juliet swam her right hand forward and notice the wound trin's finger nails gave her when she was struggling for breathe.
meanwhile the while time Glory was shouting at the top of her voice at the shore and when she saw them draw closer she helped pull them to the sands and they both lay on their backs breathing heavily, but just then trin vomited an amount of water equivalent to three cups and Glory was helping sooth her back with her hand in a caressing manner to stop the vomit. (trin still in the quarantine room got jerked out of her nostalgic ages of naivity with a hospital alarm and she sprang to attention). she was sad!