MORROW’S little brothers were his rescue men that cold morning. They caught him just when he dropped limp, then rushed him for treatment.
They took him to the cottage hospital uptown. A primary healthcare unit which the British ran that time. It was one that grew on to become some secondary healthcare in time.
So, Oji and Daleka swung to their brother’s rescue and rushed the dying man there.
He was admitted for treatment at once. Then his guardians waited outside.
The sun crawled up the sky all day as the two brothers waited for news. They’d been asked to wait outside and they must oblige.
The gentle sun had grown red hot as it burned atop the place. Now the men couldn’t wait it out any longer.
So Daleka decided he’d head right in. Wanted to see what they were doing to his brother.
He said he couldn’t trust those folks. So he hastened along the way—the older one followed.
A small time passed and Oji was left wandering alone. He’d suddenly lost sight of Daleka and had returned outside.
Then it happened that he walked back into the small building that time...
Walked the passage through which his brother was wheeled in. And heard voices inside a ward that made him stop.
For a British nurse talked with his kid brother.
‘Oh not that... just glassware. I mean, glass—yeah, eego. He ingested that. Ingested, yeah!’
‘Injesh—?!’
‘No, not that... eego. This one... eego—’
‘Aha... igo!!’
‘Yeah... igo – glass; onjẹ – food. Now: Onjẹ igo—’
‘Ó jẹ ìgò, huh?’
‘Yeah, good! “Swallowed glass pieces” – is that it?’
‘Ugh?!’
‘No, not this! But ground glass... powered! Like this—!’
‘Eh, lubu?’
‘Good! Dust form... yeahh!’
At that point Oji broke in, saw Daleka talk with the Englishwoman, then faced his little brother.
‘What did she say?’ He asked this in Yoruba.
‘It wasn’t a poisonous herb Brother had,’ the man answered him.
‘Wura got some glassware. Like those beer bottles that the Whiteman brought here.
‘Then she crushed it to powder and mixed it in Moro’s food.
‘She was fleeing when we saw her leave this morning!’
That news hit Oji a little hard. Still this was not what the health worker had said – the man slipped that in.
‘Hah!’ the older one gasped. ‘But what about Moro?’
Daleka turned and saw the woman leaving. So he recalled he hadn’t asked for his brother.
Now it was Oji who ran after her – the head nurse who just spoke with them.
He tried to communicate but he didn’t strike a chord. He’d left a cold impression when he butted in.
Even so, Daleka caught up with them; thanked the nurse for earlier...
‘Thank you Doc-tar! Thank you...!’
The lady smiled at the effort. So she asked, ‘Want to see him right away?’
The brothers didn’t catch that.
So she beckoned with a hand, ‘Come along!’
The woman took them to the inner ward where Morrow lay resting.
The nurses had hurriedly treated the dying man. They’d given him a jab to wake him and induce vomiting.
They gave him plenty fluid to cleanse his inside while he threw up. He drank water and threw up stuff.
Yes, they gave an oral dose also, that helped to purge his digestive tracks. He ejested the particles that remained in his system.
Then he was placed on intravenous fluids.
The old war survivor happened to survive this also. So he’d take some alkaline treatments for his belly walls.
Now his kin came to the man’s bedside and found him sleeping. They looked at him – and he wasn’t dead.
‘He needs the rest,’ the matron smiled.
Somehow, Daleka caught that. ‘He needs to rest,’ he said.
He spoke those words in Yoruba.
Yes, that instant Morrow turned, and his brother’s hearts leapt.
So the woman smiled. ‘He survived it, you see?’
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