It is 10th October, 2018.
Dear Diary, I almost died today. It is 10PM. I am sitting in my room, staring into empty space. It is here—all I have been running from. My day-long denial meets it grim end. The realization, the thoughts, the trauma—they seep into my head. The same way blood seeps out of my knee. Rats! The bandage has been compromised.
I almost died today. Here is the story.
It was supposed to be easy, usual. It is morning when I leave my house. I take an okada towards Shoprite. Heck, I can do this—this is Akure. I am to meet up with my friends. We are supposed to see a movie by 12:25. “Supposed” is never a simple word.
I am thumbing my phone the entire ride. I am asking Tomide about PwC. I am asking Eniola about her short-term goals. I am suddenly unseated. The bike lurches to the right. The tires give way. My knees kiss the tar. I am on the floor. I roll off the road to safety. Everyone is saying a lot. I am sitting still, shell-shocked. I cannot move or think. They are telling me how lucky I am. I see policemen.
My phone is on the road. I am stretching out to it and muttering. Then I am shouting. They hand me my phone, it is unscathed. The relief I feel makes me ashamed.
My jeans are ripped around my right knee. The blood is crimson red. The blood on my right hand has dirt all over. The bike man has a sharp, horizontal cut on his waist. The look sickens me.
They help me into the police van. It speeds off. The policemen are telling the story— The driver was speeding, the tire in front burst. We had a hurrying trailer opposite us. We fell to the right. It moved to the left. There was just meters between life and death. I am trying to listen. I am calling my mother.
Everyone is annoyingly calm at the hospital. The doctor will not attend to us until we buy equipment. The ceiling fan blows new pain into my flesh. My mother arrives. She is thanking her Eleda. She is looking for the bike man. She says I should have followed her to church. The hospital has no POS. She is livid. She leaves.
My friends arrive. They are asking, laughing, taking pictures. I am laughing too. “Lucky” is the word of the day.
After an hour, the doctor attends to me. He has his glasses on his nose—an unnecessary habit for a young man. Or a necessity. I don’t know. He makes jokes. He wants to know why I understand Yoruba but do not speak it.
I take two injections. I fight pain every time the soaked cotton wool is pressed to my body. The doctor smiles knowingly at me— “I hope that one is not painful. Brace yourself for this one.” The liquid in the brown bottle makes me scream and cringe. It is on a different level from iodine. I hate doctors. I hate hospitals. I hate today.
While I wash my hands, someone is crying “Ye!” continuously. Oh they are feeling pain. But they suddenly prolong it and add “this one na gbedu wey dey ja pata”. I cannot help myself. Now I am laughing aloud.
My mother finally leaves. She is relieved. I am directed to a nurse who takes my pulse, then to a doctor for some prescriptions, then to the pharmacy for drugs, then to the cashier for payments, then to the pharmacy for drugs. I am questioning the bureaucracy. I am wondering if I should be walking and queuing with my badly bruised knee. No one cares. There are sicker people.
Kayode takes me home. I refuse to stay home. I don’t want to think about it. I want to go back to the mall. I want to get away from solitude. I want to see Night School by all means. I want to change my damned trousers first. No one protests. Throughout the evening, Fakunle embellishes conversations with “So David had an accident for nothing?”. Feyi, my cousin, says it is good for me. Feyi has an odd way of showing affection.
I return home much later. 7:14. My other secondary school mates are asking about my well-being. I am fine, relatively. Bruises are better than a ground skull. I am grateful. I am also unhappy, traumatized. I hate the thought of death, or almost dying. I hate being lucky. I hate that saying this makes me seem grateful. I hate that I cannot explain the feeling.
A part of me wants to act normal as this is nothing to speak excitedly about. The other half wants to talk to people about the accident. I fear that the latter would win. I will turn my near-death experience into some blogpost. People will flood my DMs with questions. I am going to regret it. But I know that keeping it to myself would be much worse. I know that keeping an open diary is how I have gotten through my toughest experiences. I remember that I am not a hard guy so I switch to pondering the best way to tell this story. Oh yes! I will use present continuous tense and short sentences. No abbreviations.
I wait for the night prayers in the parlor for the first time. I was in an accident today, for the first time. The pain reverberates with my heartbeat. If I am able to sleep, I may have to do it facing up, for the first time.
Tomorrow, I will courageously take a chain of bike rides to Kayode’s. That FIFA 18 must be played before it is fully retired.
Tomorrow, my mother will say bad things happen to me because I am not regular at church. She will wish aloud that I take anything in my life as seriously as I take Tax Club. I will lose my temper and accuse her of blaming the victim.
Now, I am thinking about pain—that doctor in Shutter Island said it is never about the place of contact but all about the brain’s reaction. I am asking my brain to stop. I am thinking about Shutter Island a lot these days; the end of that movie was confusing.
I am thinking about the ghoulish feeling that occupied my head before I left the house today. I had thought about having an accident. I had imagined my life on a wheelchair, everyone helping me to the toilet before eventually losing their patience. I contemplate a lot of things, I am a drastic thinker. I am a fan of the hypothetical. Now, I am horrified. Was it my thoughts that made this happen? Was this a warning? I shake it off. No, this accident will not be spiritualized.
What if I had died? Had I done enough? Was anyone really impacted? Did my movements cause any positive change? Had anyone seen beyond my lonesomeness and pride?
I am thinking about the credit alert I got earlier —the first, for my songwriting. It made me so happy. I love my options. I love my beautiful mind. I love my life. I am thankful.
Tomorrow I will do something new.
Now, it is 10PM on 10th October. It is 10 days to my 22nd birthday.
But I almost died today.
