The wanderings of a dreamer

I wake up to the thundering storm, embracing myself with the duvet that seems to have slipped off during my night's sleep. I check the time in preparation for school, but then I remember: it's holiday season.

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"Oh! Thank God." I slump back onto the bed, sinking into its warmth.

There's a one-week holiday before the resumption of college. I stare blankly at the ceiling with my eyes wide open, and my gaze fixed as my mind drifts to wonderland.

I zoom into the imaginary...

Where I am sitting on a chair, the type that rotates three hundred and sixty degrees.

There's a faint knock on the door. "Sir, there's someone who wants to see you," Mrs. Jenny, a nurse, says. Her head poking through the slightly open door.

"Oh, really?" I reply. "Please let them in."

I then notice an old woman walk in. She wheels in a man who seems to be her husband.

"Good eve-ning," she speaks as she closes the distance between us. Her drawling speech gives away the fact that she is probably in her seventies.

"Ahem," I clear my throat. "So, what can I do for you, ma'am? What's the complaint?" I ask.

"He finds it difficult peeing. If You ask him questions, he just stares blankly at you as if no one is talking to him." She pauses and takes in a deep breath. "He also forgets things easily." She adds.

"Really?" I interrupt. "He is your husband, right?"

"Yes," she replies. "He doesn't even remember the date of our marriage and sometimes can't recall his own name." she continues.

I instinctively suspect it's Parkinson's disease.

She goes on narrating her story while I watch her lips move. My ears deaf to her words as I start to wonder how it is that they're still together after so long. I thought love was ephemeral? I ask myself.

"Sorry, how long have you been together?" I interrupt again.

"Forty years," she replies.

"Wow!" I reply with a nod.

"Okay, go on." I say, giving her the go-ahead to continue.

But then, something draws my attention. I hear someone calling my name from the distance.

"Emeka! Emeka! Emeka!"

Its echoes drawing nearer and nearer until I startle as I get pulled away from my imagination, and Just in front of me, a few feets away, I see my mum.

"What do you always think of? I've been calling your name, but you didn't respond."

"Good morning," I greet her while snuggling my way out of the duvet—It's time to assist her with the early morning chores.

I walk to the kitchen to wash the dishes we left. We had ate barbecued fish and drank a bottle of Star Radler the night before.

While washing, I recall the old couple and our little conversation and the urge to become a medical doctor increased. I've always loved proffering solutions to people's plights. And the elderly ones? I love their tales.

I get interrupted by a clattering sound. I look to the ground, and it's a ceramic plate—my mother's favorite.

"Shit!" I mutter.

"Emeka, what's happening?" she asks from the distance, but I reply with silence.

I hear her footsteps approaching the kitchen, and I know it's not a good sign.

"My God!" she exclaims at the messy sight. "Are you daydreaming or what?" Her voice amplifies. "Sometimes you forget yourself, as if you were in another world," she adds, before walking away.

"As if I were in another world?" I remember her words as I clear up the pieces. I am in another world—there's no doubt about this fact.

Days go by, and the clock ticks. I converse with myself to keep my mind sane. My thoughts become my closest companion just like the crazy garbage guy who talks to himself.

The morning before I leave to prepare for my final MBBS exams, she calls me, sits me down, and asks, "Talk to me, are you okay?"

I laugh.

"I'm serious, are you?" she asks again, her worried eyes showing concern, her gaze so firm that I fail to maintain eye contact.

"It's nothing, Mum. That's the way I've always been. Nothing's bothering me," I reassure her.

I watch my old woman as she gives me that motherly look. Her strength is fading into oblivion. Her eyebrows tinged with grey hairs, and her perfect skin covered with wrinkles —time isn't on her side anymore.

"What if one day I wake up to the news that she's gon—"

No. I shake the thought off my head. I stand to my feet, my backpack filled with books as usual. I walk to the door, twist the knob open, and just as I'm about to close it, our eyes meet yet again.

I can feel tears brimming in my eyes, but I refuse to let them stream down my cheeks. She wears a smile, and I wear mine.

"Bye," I wave to her and immediately shut the door behind me, leaving the only parent I have left, alone.

As I walk the empty street underneath the morning dew, that same thought creeps into my mind, but I violently shake it off my head, yet again.

I rather choose to embrace thoughts filled with optimism than nurse a reality I will never be ready for.

No, not today, I whisper to myself. Not today.

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