See you in HELL, C-in-C

In the short time from when she laid on her bed and when sleep came calling, she always allowed her mind to wander. This night, it was a similar night years back, which left an indelible impression on her young mind, that flooded her consciousness. That year, she was on holidays with her father's brother and his family after her last exams in primary 3. A little before bedtime, her favourite uncle joined her in her room clutching a colourful storybook. He read her a story. It was of a woman who came to the country many years ago. Due to the woman's efforts, the inhumane practice of killing twins because of some superstitiously promoted beliefs ended. He concluded by saying that had it not been for this woman, the girl's father and himself may have been killed at birth. Bright and starry-eyed, the little girl consumed every word he spoke. Her vivid imagination was entranced in a way only children can be by tales under the moonlight. As she retired to bed this night, it took an unusually long time for sleep to set in. The words of her uncle that night yet coursed through her dreams: YOU TOO CAN BECOME A WOMAN OF WHOM TALES WILL BE TOLD.

WORDS CAN INSPIRE. The aspirations of this young girl proved it. Though she lost her parents before writing her Junior Secondary School exams, she remained undeterred in making a name for herself. She was promptly adopted by her uncle who made sure she remained happy. Having been encouraged to stand out and reach for the stars and beyond, she disallowed the negative social environment from hedging in her potentials. However, it was not long before her uncle's economic situation dwindled, and she began to face obstacles. She met with financial drawbacks as his large family made demands on depleting resources. She experienced pangs of despair. With eyes fixed on her goal of excellence, however, she braved the odds; scrimping and scratching her way to her penultimate year of secondary education. Fortune then smiled on her.

A policy to promote education in her state began just as desperation was setting in on how she was going to afford the fees that lie ahead of rounding up her secondary school education, especially the final exams. Talk less of going to the University. She was co-opted into the programme and her appreciably good grades stood in her favour. She completed her studies in the sciences from secondary school and was determined more than ever to pick up a medical profession. Try as she did to question her attraction to medicine and to ensure that it was unrelated to that story under the moonlight, she could not shake it off nor could she imagine herself in any other profession. Finally, she put it down to her desire to work with children. But, an education in the medical profession came at a premium. A huge premium.

As one whom the odds favoured, she emerged the best female student in the university's pre-registration tests and was granted scholarship for her medical programme. This scholarship was under the auspices of a foundation founded by a noteworthy female scientist from her area to encourage one young and aspiring girl child every year for the entirety of any university degree programme. She put her nose to the grind and dedicated herself to study. It did not take long for her professors to identify her sterling profundity. The ease with which she excelled in her medical programme masked the sleepless nights she devoted to her studies. Her achievements were dwarfed by her humility. Those who met her admired the humanness of her personality and were even more endearing on learning of her academic excellence.

The thesis she submitted at the twilight of her programme bore testament to her motivating force. She argued, based on research, that exposure to certain electromagnetic radiation around hospitals, especially maternity wards and harmful ultra-violet rays from the sun (due to climate change and global warming) were partly responsible for the prevailing anomaly of cancerous growths in infants and children. She was so passionate about this discovery that she wrote to the national medical association and the national legislature to make it anathema for hospital maternity wards to possess any scanners or equipment that give off harmful levels of
radiation. She attached her research to answer the WHY question. The publicity of her work resonated beyond the country's shores. Fame followed.

In the years after the publication of her research, she had to dig deep to find the reserves of energy to keep with the demands on her time. When she was not attending conferences around the world to discuss her findings and further the conversation on child cancers, she was needed in the wards for her expertise with children. This was conjoined with juggling meetings with pharmaceutical establishments requiring her input in planned child medications, regular hospital meetings with the think-tank from government parastatals, saying nothing of some personal time for herself. One thing brought her consolation. She had come to terms with the voice of her late uncle: YOU TOO CAN BECOME A WOMAN OF WHOM TALES WILL BE TOLD. She had allowed it to inspire her and she was living her dreams. Especially as she read the letter of invitation from the United Nations Committee on Child Welfare on the conferment of an award on her for her work with children suffering with cancers. She closed her eyes. A sigh of contentment escaped her being.

Then, everything blanked out! In a swoosh of reality, she was yanked back to consciousness by the coarse voice of her bunk mate, her closest friend in the hostel. She was being drawn back, much as she tried to rivet her attention to what she felt was the present, the drag was unremitting. She shut her eyes tight. Yet, the bright slivers of sunlight from the windows slithered in, flush over her eyelids as her friend pulled back the drapes. Inevitably, she opened her eyes. Reality. It was the same room. Only back in time. The time after she fell asleep with her uncle's voice flashing through her subconscious. She blinked, willing the substance to fade back to her medical career. But even those shadows had begun to vanish into fantastical oblivion. Her friend wondering why she was taking forever to get up, hurried away to get ready for school.

She bit her lip. Resolute to make that dream real, she picked herself up and in self conscious steps, walked into the hostel corridor. In front of the mirror, she spoke into her future staring straight into her own eyes. I will be a doctor and save countless children. Steeled of will and resolve, she got to school and mentally became more challenged than ever to progress along the path she intended for herself. In bright flashes throughout that day, highlights of her dream played back in her mind and she caught herself smiling, melodramatically. It stayed with her all day. Even sleep failed to come at night. She tossed and turned and when that did not help, she sat up on her bed. Subconsciously, she willed the fantasy to continue. But her nighttime reverie was about to take a turn for the worse. Screams from around her hostel jolted her, and for the second time in as many days, she had to come back to reality imagining the worse.

It was broken to the rest of the country the reason for those screams later that day. The news exploded on the social media and was strewn across the world even before it got to her uncle in the evening. Her school had been the focus of an attack by UNKNOWN GUNMEN. These men had rounded up teachers and school children, gathered them into a hostel bathed with fuel. And had opened fire. In an attack executed in less than a quarter of an hour, they had brought to an end several promising lifetimes. The assets that the victims could have become to their respective domains went up in smokes, leaving unrecognisable charred remains. The uncle, when he heard, sat transfixed. In the dark recesses of his mind, he saw her eyes stare at him as he regaled her with his story that night. He imagined what could have been. The sacrifices that had been made on her behalf.

He always prided himself a man, suffused with African masculine virility, averse to any effeminate qualities. But not today. For the first time in his life, he wept. Not just because of the death alone, which he accepted in its fatality, but because of an innate sense of helplessness. There was nothing he could do about it. Except to cry and he did. A broken man, he emptied himself of cryable tears. Then, feeling more helpless, he did the only thing he had to power to do. He cursed her executioners. With his blood.

The one with the powers to do more than her uncle, did less. He declared, in the voice of his spokesperson, that the executioners deserved a place in hell. WORDS CAN INSPIRE. Indeed. But they can also conspire. And when the girl's uncle heard that all the Commander-in-Chief was going to do was wax spiritual, he included him in his list of the accursed. He felt that by omission or commission, by action or inaction, the C-in-C had conspiratorially been an accessory in the death of his little girl.

Last night, he jerked up from sleep, drenched in sweat. He had subconsciously dragged himself  from sleep than see out the end of the nightmare that troubled his sleep. The images were discombobulating. He was in the hostel. Her once lovely eyes were filled with fear as she huddled close together with two friends of hers, both of whom were screaming hysterically. He had looked around and seen teachers trying to comfort the children though themselves riddled with fear. All were praying who could. He peered from the windows and saw the dark silhouettes of the attackers and heard the audible swish of liquid being emptied from cans. Fuel. He had read the stories and knew what was to follow. Desperation set his adrenaline pumping. He turned, intending to run away with his niece but realised he could not move. She was looking at him with frightful countenance and she started crying. As the whooosh! of fuel-spirited inferno rang out, he jerked up from sleep. That was hell. That was what he now wished for the C-in-C.