My lean legs walked briskly closer to the seated cluster of dusty beggars. The sun beat down harshly while the wind whipped stinging sand particles on my dark brown, oblong face. My full red lips didn’t whisper my praying thoughts. I prayed for the eternal rest of my late Grandfather, a friend’s father and another friend’s uncle. My slender fingers clutched the small black nylons filled with hot bean cakes and others with ripe mangoes. I had six small nylons in all. I spotted the recipients of my free brunch. My hands stretched out to two small boys conversing in low tones, two women staring into the air who immediately stretched out their hands murmuring thank you. I moved past their faded black hijab figures to a blind, stooped man with a tiny metal bowl and a standing homeless young man. There, on a hot Thursday mid morning, I had done the prayers for my dead.
Born into a family of seers from a young age, I had learnt the importance of my visions, prayers and charity. It was a habit now, I had a system for giving alms, sweets,clothes, fruits, books, (religious bodies) donation boxes. From charity drives, to roadside beggars, to NGOs donations, to a friend in need, just name it. I walked back to my parked car just as fast as I had walked towards the sandy, plastic littered roadside. The bright golden rays shone relentlessly. I raised my slim left wrist, stretching my palm to block the heat. I felt a bead of sweat roll down the space in between my breasts and pool at my navel. I opened the car door with my right long fingers. Driving out of the parking lot of the mall towards the hospital, my eyes felt tired. The previous night had been scary. My girlfriend had been up all night vomiting, stooling and burning up. Early hours of the morning I had been packing up and mopping orange stomach fluids, pieces of half digested yam that smelt like zobo drink off my dark tiles. Of course I took a day off work, I called in sick. Thinking of how the fear she was going to die had crept into my mind made me shudder. The rolled up windows blocked out the noisy, bright, bustling of Lagos Island. It hadn’t helped that the first song on the radio on my drive out the hospital was JCole singing about the dead.
Alone in the red Camry, I prayed she was better at the hospital. I didn’t want to see death lurking behind her weak irises. While I eat chocolate and custard filled doughnuts from the pink box on the grey passenger seat.
