Adanne

I sit at my window sill and pick my nose. I know it's a bad habit but I can't just seem to stop. I sit there waiting for Adanne to burst in through the door like she always does just because she has an extra key. She doesn't ever knock and I often teased her that she would burst in to see me and the lover going at it one day. She scoffs whenever I say this. But Adanne is not going to burst in through that door, not anymore—not today, not tomorrow, not forever because Adanne was unalived at the last election that was conducted in my country.

            Adanne is the perfect definition of larger than life. Never has anyone met Adanne who didn’t immediately love her. She has a wonderful way with people and is a master at weaving words together to construct beautiful sentences that kept her listeners enraptured to her. Adanne has skin the colour of caramel—very rich golden brown coloured skin that constantly glowed due to years of intense skin care routine and deep moisturising. Her hazelnut eyes—a product of contact lenses that she wore instead of medicated glasses—drew a lot of attention to her. She stood tall among many women at 5.8 inches which was a rare height for most women. Adanne is built exactly like a pear—small at the top and wide at the hips. I always teased her about her tiny boobs but she would wiggle her huge bum and say it has compensated for the tiny boobs.

            I loved Adanne for so many reasons. The first of the reasons is the fact that she made sure I was not bullied by our mates while we were in secondary school. Most of our classmates were big and they tended to pick on me because I was the smallie. I have always been a tiny human. Even now that we are adults, I am a woman of 5.2 inches and I weigh only 50kg compared to Adanne’s 75kg. The other reasons were because she never judged me and would do anything to make me happy. Adanne was like a mother to me even though we were friends. She took very good care of me and made sure that I was never in need of anything be it emotional, spiritual or financial. She was my prayer partner, my gist partner, my personal ATM and my shoulder to cry on. Adanne was my rock.

            As I thought about her, tears welled up in my eyes. I don’t know how to live without Adanne. She has always been there and now that she is no longer here, I had no idea of what to do with myself. I chose my friends carefully and I did not have a lot of them. Adanne was the closest to me. She knew my darkest secrets and my worst fears. She has seen me at my worst and at my best. I don’t know if I can allow anyone to be that close to me anymore.

            Adanne and I used to live in the same neighbourhood in Surulere before she moved to Lekki. She said she had become too tush to live on the mainland. We laughed about it but I knew she just wanted to escape the madness of Surulere. Her car window was once broken at Ojuelegba underbridge and her handbag was stolen while she was in traffic. She thought it was safer to live on the island. She had registered for her voter’s card while she lived at Surulere and so, she had to come back to the mainland to vote during the elections. She stayed with me during the presidential elections and when it was time for the gubernatorial elections, she came to stay with me again. It is always a delight to have her around because she always cracked me up.

            On the election day, I had serious menstrual cramps that made me resolve to stay at home. We had planned to go to the polling unit together just like we did during the presidential elections, but there was no way I was going to go and queue with the excruciating pain I was experiencing. I had begged her vehemently to stay with me instead but she was adamant. She said if there was only one person who would vote for Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour (GRV) in the whole of Lagos State, it would be her.

            She had been gone for five hours. I was beginning to get worried around 1 p.m. when I didn’t see her. She had left the house since 8 a.m. I called and she said the election officers didn’t get there on time. She said it would be her turn soon and she hopes to be home by 3 p.m. or even before. I was relieved and urged her to be careful because I had seen videos of thugs beating and disenfranchising people on the internet. She assured me that she would be careful.

            I was curled up on the sofa, sipping on a hot mug of Lipton tea, lime and honey when I suddenly had a strong urge to check Twitter. It was less than fifteen minutes after I spoke to Adanne but when I opened Twitter, the first video I saw was that of a thug hitting Adanne on the head with a plank. She was screaming frantically but everyone was running away and no one paid any attention to her.

            I wore my slides and immediately rushed out of the house. The cramps I had earlier had suddenly disappeared. I ran without stopping to catch my breath until I had gotten to the polling unit. When I arrived, people were gathered around someone and some people were wailing. I pushed my way through the small crowd until I saw the object of their wailing. It was Adanne. She was lying in a pool of her own blood. Her skull had been bashed in and people were trying to revive her but I knew it was a fruitless gesture. There was no way she was going to survive this. The damage was too much. She regained consciousness briefly and her eyes tingled when she saw me. She smiled and my hope was renewed but just as I rushed to her so that I can assist the others to lift her up into a car and take her to the hospital, her body went limp.

            I screamed wildly and threw myself on the ground asking the people around to help me resuscitate her. “E ba mi gbe. E jo, e ba mi ji… E ma je ko dake o, ko gbodo dake.” People were shouting all around me and I didn’t know what to do in that moment. All I wanted to do was to scream out my lungs. Someone tapped me from behind and helped me to get up. He was a young man, probably in his early thirties. He had used his shirt to block the spot where blood was oozing from on Adanne’s head. Someone had brought a mackintosh and placed in on the backseat of the car. Another young man got in the backseat and had her head in his laps while I sat in front. A huge iced block was placed on her head in hopes that she would probably survive because her body was still warm. I was seriously praying within me that she would survive as the young man sped to the hospital. The nurses rushed out with an ambulance and immediately transferred her to a stretcher as they raced towards the emergency unit. I flounced around the waiting area, anxiously hoping that someone would come out to give me the good news. The guys who had come with me were trying to calm me down but I could not stay calm.

            How can I be calm when my bestie was lying there lifeless? The doctor came out shortly and I ran to meet him. “Doctor, is she stable now? Will she be okay? Is she going to be fine?”

The doctor looked at me with eyes full of pity and shook his head. “God knows we tried so hard to save her but I’m sorry, we lost her.”

            “You did what? Doctor! Talk to me!!!”

            “What do you mean by you lost her?!”

            “Someone should freaking talk to me!!! Tell me what is going on!!!” I screamed as I went down rolling on the floor. The two guys who had been with me tried to hold me but I could not be held. Grief was clutching so hard at my insides, it felt as if I was going to die. I felt the air leaving my lungs gradually and they kept shaking me in a bid to keep me stable.

            When I finally came to the understanding of what had happened, I requested to see her. A nurse came to take me to the room where she laid. She still looked beautiful as ever. Her beautiful long hair was now matted to her head in thick clots of blood. Tears streamed down my face in rapid succession. All the while, the two guys were holding me. Eventually, they told me that I had to leave and make arrangements for her body to be transferred to the mortuary. I made the payment and signed the necessary documents. Thankfully, the hospital did not ask for a police report.

            Now, I had to make the call to Adanne’s parents but I could not bring myself to do it. How will I tell her mum or her dad that their first daughter whom they loved so much was now being transferred to a mortuary? The guys who had come with me led me back to their car. They offered to drop me at home. When I got into the car, the owner of the car asked if I would like for him to call Adanne’s parents and I gladly agreed. It would be much easier for a stranger to do it. I called the number for him as he called Adanne’s dad on his phone. We reasoned that it was better to call the dad instead of her mum.

             The guy who later told me his name is Sanmi called Adanne’s dad and calmly explained everything to him. He put the phone on speaker and I could hear the old man heave heavy sighs at intervals. He thanked Sanmi after the guy had finished explaining the situation to him.

            “Thank you very much, young man. Can you please give me the name of the mortuary where her body is being transferred to?”

            “Yes sir, it is the Holy Cross Mortuary at Lawanson Surulere.”

            “Her friend Ibilola is here sir. Please, hold on for her.”

I burst into a round of fresh tears when the phone was passed to me. I didn’t know what to say to Adanne’s father.

            “I’m so sorry daddy,” I said amidst sobs.

            “I am sorry I couldn’t save her,” I cried.

For the first time since the father picked Sanmi’s call, he broke into tears. We cried together on the phone, only hearing each other’s snorts until he pulled himself together, said goodbye and ended the call.

            “Ibilola! Ibilola!! Ibilola!!!”

I jumped at the realization that my name was being called. It was the lover. I had been lost in thoughts. Thoughts about Adanne.

            “Do you know how long I have been standing there looking at you?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “Of course. Ma fi ronu she ara e leshe si mi lorun o babe yi.”

            “You just don’t get it. Adanne was my twin. It was like we shared the same soul. How do you expect me to just get over her like that?”

            “No one is saying it is easy. All I’m saying is for you to understand that she is gone.”

            “I don’t know how to,” I said as I started crying once again. I have cried every single day since she passed last week Saturday. Next week Friday is the burial and I am not sure if I can attend.

            The lover came to me with a box of tissues in his hand. He urged me to take it and when I was done cleaning the tears and mucus away, he held my hands as he looked me deep in the eyes and told me that everything would be okay.

            But, will it?

Photo by Isaiah McClean on Unsplash