What I Will Do If I Have Seventy Hours Left to Live!
For a while now I have been having this constant chest pain, but I couldn’t see a doctor because I am attending a Writer’s residency. Anyway even if I wasn’t attending the residency, it’s not just in me to visit doctors, I hardly believe in them! But with this cough and because I am with another resident it became necessary that I visit the doctor provided by the Residency. After conducting various tests, the doctor came up with a shocking revelation. He didn’t want to communicate this to me by himself; he felt the shock may not be good enough for me. I could see from his expression that whatever it was wasn’t good! I embraced myself, and decided to accept whatever it turned out to be as my fate.
The shocking news is that I am having just seventy two hours to live on this earth. Three days to live! Three days of existence, I thought of all my dreams, all the dreams of several years, all I could say is how, why, what did I do wrong, and so many other questions went through my head.
“Young man” The doctor said, and I looked up at him, he tried smiling to me, but he could not. I have always heard that doctors are never emotional on matters like this, but this man was emotional. Am sure he was thinking about my age.
“Am happy you came here”. He said and I thought maybe there was still hope after all, but he has something different in mind.
“This could have happened one way or the other, you know. Maybe you might have slept and didn’t wake up anymore, or you could have been involved in a fatal accident, and might have died in it, but now that you know you have three days to live, you are aware of it, it makes a lot of difference compared to someone else who doesn’t know at all. I think these three days will help you achieve so many things such that even in the land beyond you will be grateful that you had the opportunity to know before your death. He paused.
“Hmm” I thought.
It made sense, there are so many things that I needed to do and so I embraced myself and ignored the sad feelings that kept coming to my mind. I have seventy two hours to live! I quickly returned to the residency and started packing my things. I had to return home immediately. There is so much to do within the next seventy two hours, I wished I had more time, but I have to make do of the time available.
I informed my flat mate Ken that something urgent came up and I had to leave immediately; he was confused because we had spent four weeks together at the residency and had become use to one another. Without giving in much time to convince me not to travel, I packed my luggage.
The thought of what was responsible my living an incomplete life term sprang through my brain, but the more I thought of it, the more I hated it; smoking! After packing my bags, I went outside the building and burnt out the rest cigarettes I had in the room. I wished no young man would ever touch cigarette again, I thought as I burnt it up.
Now I am returning home, there’s a lot of things to do, starting from my neighbors, I haven’t been talking to them for months now, I cannot afford to die holding grudges. It is not my fault that I wasn’t talking to them; they are this kind of very dirty people, and they have an “I don’t care” approach towards almost everything. They are noisy and nosy always causing rancor in the compound, they keep late nights and sometimes we have to leave the gate unlocked all nights. I took their bullshits for almost two years, but I got fed up of it and told them my mind especially about their littering of the house with dirt’s from their kitchen garbage. And so I stopped interacting with them, not even exchange of pleasantries. Meanwhile I use to be very friendly with the kids; they come into my flat to play especially at weekends when I wasn’t busy. But now, even the kids no longer greet me. The toys I bought for them for their birthday still lurked somewhere in my wardrobe at home, I decided not to give the toy to them after a serious quarrel ensued between their mother and me over their dumping of refuse right at the front of the gate, that is over six months now, and we have not been talking.
There is no need trying to justify myself now, not even when I know they have done so many wrong things to me, even the ones I cannot remember now. But now there is no longer room for grudges, I can’t die having some people grudging me, especially those that I am aware of, it would be different if I didn’t know. And so I am buying a bunch of plantain for the family, and once I am able to check through my wardrobe, those kids are getting their gifts. I know my wife will be wondering what was happening to me, but I am not going to tell anyone what the doctor had told me, it will be my secret until I was gone.
So I decide, once I get to the house I am going to their flat, I had never been into their apartment since I moved into the house. It’s going to look odd, hmm, sure but I have to do it. What if they don’t accept me? I think it’s still better I tried, you won’t understand but my neighbors have serious attitude problems, most people around do not associate with them. The woman lives with his two young sons, her husband left her a long time ago to live abroad because of her over-bearing attitudes; even the landlord wants her out of the house. Well I don’t need to think of all that now, I need to think of the life beyond. Okay I just pray they accept me.
I will later stay indoor for the rest of the day with my wife, I know the journey will be tiring, but then seventy two hours is also a short time, especially in situations like this, it is fast spent. I won’t tell my wife anything about the doctor’s revelation. No, I can’t afford to do that, not in her condition; we are expecting our first child.
We will spend the day choosing the name for the child, though we had been talking about baby names for long we haven’t decided on what to name our baby yet. I will also brief my wife on all my activities especially my business activities, she must have access to all my writings, she has the password to the computer and my e-mails, maybe I will just write it out in a diary for her, I won’t tell her why, and she won’t be suspicious because she’s always had my password.
The next day, I will have to visit Tope and Peter. Peter is my elder brother, and Tope his wife, we have also not been in talking terms for a while. That is a long story, I cannot go into it now, and it won’t even contain this page if I want to. There was a problem with Peter and his wife after I lost my job at the bank, the wife was very rude to me and my wife, and so I had kept away from them since then. I have to go there and make up with them too; it’s not worth dying not forgiving them. I think I will also buy a bunch of plantain for them, Peter likes fried plantain. I will spend maybe two hours or more at Peter’s place, I hardly stayed at their place for more than thirty minutes even when things was good between us.
I will use the rest of that day updating my diary and writing down for my son what I want him to become when he is grown, I will leave some bible chapters and quotes that he will study as he grows as guide to help him through life.
On the third day, I will first thank God for everything I have achieved in my life, I will ask him to help take away my death sentence if it is possible, or else, he should let me die peacefully knowing that I had done his will, I will ask him for the forgiveness of my sins and for me to be on Jesus’ side on the last day, then, I will beg him to take care of my family while I am gone. I will listen to a lot of music that day. Then I sleep long long long forever!
If you are the one what will you do?
Categories: Short Stories & Articles
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