TO HELL AND BACK— HOW MY 2017 ENDED.

“Sorry ma, I’m sorry I couldn’t bring back your car today, my child is really sick and I had to...”.

My mum rolled her eyes, such lame excuses. Last week was the wife, the week before that was his mum, his family ought to be quarantined by now.

Anywho, it seems the car won’t be taking us to Port Harcourt anymore. Bummer...not. I actually didn’t want to go with my mum to some church program on the 31st of December and the 1st of January. I wanted to stay home and shoot fireworks and dance and just chill. I hoped the car situation would discourage her but I should have known better.

“Get dressed, we’re taking the bus”.

Damn.

Getting a bus wasn’t easy, we had to wait for an hour and a half. It was already four in the evening before we finally found one, I still didn’t want to go and my mum’s cranky attitude wasn’t helping either—she could be pretty annoying sometimes.

It didn’t take long before we got caught up in a crazy traffic jam, and it took a while before we left it. The drive to Port Harcourt normally takes only an hour, we had been on the road for two and we were only halfway there.

“In the name of the Father, and the of the son...”, the Reverend sister in the front had started the rosary. My mum brought out her rosary, I had forgotten mine. Groans from some of the not-so-interested passengers tried to drown her out. People could be mean, she only meant well, she wasn’t forcing anyone to join in.

It will be forever imprinted in my head. The fourth Hail Mary on the second Glorious Mystery. The Harmattan mist swirling around the windows of the bus. My mum’s head dropping slowly onto the headrest, she was dozing off— I planned to chide her about it later. The woman who was having a rather loud conversation with her daughter in the seat behind us. The two year old boy at the back that kept babbling nonsense, like he knew what we were saying.

The powerful headlights that came out of nowhere.

The crunch, the sickening crunch. The jolt as I was pushed into the chair in front of me. And the high pitched groan of metal as the bus started pitching to one side.

I don’t know how many times we turned, once, twice. All I remember was limbs everywhere, and people screaming and crying and calling out for help. I had found myself wedged between two seats and my mum was on me, her weight slowly squeezing the air out of my lungs. I was trapped.

“Mummy, please I can’t breath, mummy can you move. Mum, mum, please try”. That squeaky voice couldn’t be mine but somehow it came out from my throat.

I could feel my mum trying to get up, struggling to lift herself off me, but it was no use, the bus was upside down. The lack of air was making me dizzy, and the smell of petrol wasn’t helping either.
I stopped moving, thinking to myself... “so this is what it means to die, I hope they save my mum before this bus explodes”. Then everything started going dark.

Boom.

The bus had been turned over. People were dragging us out through the windows. I was pulled out and so was my mum. There was blood and glass everywhere, people’s belongings scattered around and parts of the bus were strewn on the ground.

There were torn limbs and broken skulls, the man who sat in front of me had half of his face covered in blood. There was something strange about him, something I couldn’t put my finger on. The realisation and the revulsion hit me at once, chilling my blood, his left eye socket was empty. The driver was unconscious, his legs dangled from strips of skin that looked ready to snap at any moment.

My mum was calling out to me, somewhere in the chaos, I stood up on shaky legs. I wasn’t hurt, only small cuts on my leg dripped blood. Barefeet—I didn’t know where my sandals were, I walked across the sea of glass, amidst the broken people, following my mum’s voice, picking up her purse that lay on the floor—it had money and phones and I knew we’d need it.

She was on the ground and she seemed okay, but she kept pointing to her ankle, her foot wasn’t facing the right way. I couldn’t move her, and I knew there would be no ambulance coming—Our crisis response system is non-existent. Luckily, some kind people stopped to help take those injured to the hospital. No one was coming to help me lift my mum, so I had to pull on people’s clothes and beg them to help us.
We were piled into different vehicles and rushed to the nearest hospital, who didn’t even have a doctor present.

Screw this.

I picked up my mum’s phone and dialled my uncle’s line with trembling fingers. An hour later, we were in his car and on our way to another hospital, a better one.

My mum’s leg is going to be in a cast for a while, and things are already getting tough at home. She’s the only one my siblings and I have got, and seeing her invalid makes me feel sorry for all the attitude and headache we gave her. Sometimes I wish I was the one who had the broken leg.

I’m real happy she’s alive, because I don’t know what I’ll do without her. We’ve been through hell and back, but we’re still fighting.

Get well soon Mum.