10:39am. Wednesday 12th
Winner's head slipped off the head rest and he jolted up. With drousy eyes he scanned his environment before realizing that he was still on the road to Port Harcourt. Sighing, he adjusted his already aching rear to a more comfortable spot on the seat. He couldn't hear the movie playing from one of the travellers phone again and he noticed that the bus was oldly quiet. He glanced round and everyone was engrossed in one thing or the other. Looking out the window, he envisioned his mother and junior sister. What would they be doing now? Whitney probably would be in school having lunch or playing with her classmates. And his mother would probably be on her phone checking the time so she would know when to call him again. He chuckled. He was going to miss that woman. At least for a week. And then in December, he's going to be back on the road again, off to Port Harcourt and only God knew when he would go home again. It was by a miracle that his mum was even able to pay for this seat, if not, he wouldn't have been able to write this exam.
His phone dinged and he dug it out from his pocket. A message from his Mum popped up on the screen.
'Have you eaten?'
He let out a little laugh and replied.
'Mummy, we just left :D'
The message didn't deliver. He checked his network strength and it showed just one bar. He lifted his phone a bit above his head to catch a better signal when the man beside him spoke up.
"There won't be network for a long time. That's how most journeys are." Winner turned to the man. With a subtle beard and dominant sideburns, he almost made the scientific theory that humans evolved from apes real. His dressing matched his tone of speech—a casual t-shirt and jeans. His left hand was adorned with a gold wristwatch and a church wristband. Winner couldn't see the name if the church but for the man to have it on meant that he was a Christian.
The man didn't look too old, maybe in his late or early twenties. "Is this your first time travelling?"
Winner returned his attention to the man. "Actually, yes."
"You're a student." It wasn't a question but Winner thought to give a reply.
"Yes, sir."
"Don't call me 'sir'. My name is Tunde. So what are you studying?"
"I'm actually on my way to write my Post-Utme. I'm going for Medicine and Surgery."
The man turned to Winn giving him his full attention. "MBBS? What a coincidence, that's exactly what I studied. UNIPORT is my alumni and I'm going back to say hello to a few lecturers."
Was this a lucky encounter or what? What were the chances that he would not just meet an alumni but one that also studied the course he was going for.
"Wow, is there anything you can tell me to prepare me for what's to come? I mean, when I gain admission, I would like to have at least a little idea on what the course entails."
Tunde let out a little chuckle. "Enthusiastic, aren't you?" He laid his head against the seat's head rest, his knees raised and propped against the seat in front of him. "MBBS is not as tough as people say it is. It comes with a lot of body parts," he chuckled at his own joke. Winn didn't find it funny but he smiled anyways. "and a lot of late night reading. You will think that your social life is over because of what you chose to study. Some people actually over engross themselves in Medicine and Surgery that they forget that they ever had a life of theirs in the first place. "
Winn sensed that he wasn't just giving advice right now. He was remembering. And this memory surely wasn't what Winn needed to hear. Maybe Tunde sensed it too cause he stopped talking and just stared at the ceiling of the bus.
Winn wasn't really a social media person so he doubted what Tunde said would affect him. The only people he was sure to talk to both day and night was his mother and sister and there wasn't anything that would stop him from doing that.
Winn decided to change the subject to something else, something not relating to education.
"How long is the drive?"
"It's a day's journey. But the next stop shouldn't be too far now." Tunde glanced at Winn. "Why Medicine?"
"I don't know, I just want to… help. And it's physical, it's not just emotional help.. It's quite a thrill to be able to help the wounded."
Tunde seized him up and turned back to the roof of the bus.
"It's nice. Your motive."
"And what about you?"
"Hmm?"
"Like, what's your reason for studying Medicine?"
He turned quiet, his eyes counting the patches on the bus roof. Winn waited. Was it a wrong question? Well he asked first so—
"I didn't want to study Medicine." Tunde finally said. "It was my dad's dream. He died before he could finish his practice. So let's just say," he looked at Winn, "I'm finishing what he started." And he bent to dig out his laptop from his bag.
Winn turned away to stare out the window just as his phone dinged. It was his mother.
'Ok. Have you gotten to the first stop?'
His last message had delivered at some point while talking to Tunde.
He typed out a reply.
'Not yet. But soon.' he hit send and laid his head against his head rest and closed his eyes once more.
His head had not touched the glass for five seconds when he heard the bus tires screech.
The bus tilted to the right and everyone inside got flung to the left.
His head hit against the window and the last thing he heard were the screams right before he blacked out.
11:30am. Wednesday, 12th.
The man behind her was snoring so loud she could hear it through her ear muffs. The driver had his eyes so focused on the road that he didn't even glance at her once.
She turned to the man sitting directly behind the driver. His head rested on the back rest and his mouth was not even slightly open, it was wide open and the sounds coming out were not so great. Couldn't someone shut him up? Was this how she would spend the next hours of this ride?
She would have asked the driver to stop under the guise that she wanted to pee but they just left the first stop and she had offloaded all the junk in her stomach.
Ugh!
She couldn't continue like this. It's bad enough that when she gets home she'll face a shit load of yelling, she just needed peace and quiet in the bus right now.
Stretching her hands out towards the man, she tapped him repeatedly till he jolted up.
The driver glanced at her once before turning his attention back to the road.
Yeah, I'm doing what you should have done. She thought.
The man shone his drowsy eyes at her.
"Your snoring is a bit loud, sir." She gave a tight smile.
"Oh." Oh?
He didn't apologize but turned his head to the other side and closed his eyes once more. At least the snoring had stopped.
A few passengers stared at her and she glared back before they turned away to whatever they were doing before.
Shifting back into a more comfortable spot on the seat, she pulled out her phone to see the ten ignored messages and seven calls she missed from her mother.
'How did the exam go?'
'You didn't even tell us if it went well or not.'
'You're at the park now, right? Have you boarded the bus?'
And the rest were about where she was right now and if she had reached out to her uncle to tell him that she had gotten in the bus safely. She shouldn't be ignoring the texts but she just knew that whatever she was feeling right now would be ten times doubled when she told her parents that she failed.
She should be more like her dead twin sister is what they'll tell her. Patricia. She died in her 100 level and somehow, in some twisted way, Phina was blamed for it.
"Oh, you know Pat doesn't like the cold yet you still leave the AC on at night."
"Why do you despise your sister so much? Is it because she's better than you?"
Oh, for Pete's sake, she never did any of those on purpose but how would she explain to people that were so deep in their bias?
So she carried the weight. Yes, she killed her twin. She hated Patricia so much that she dumped drugs into her drink that eventually caused her death. They all knew Dad was drug addict but hey, blame it on good old Phina no one cares.
No one her cared.
And she forced herself not to.
So yeah, she failed. She was a disgrace to her family. They would be better off without her in the picture.
After all, they had two doctors in the family. What good could she bring that would surpass that?
Her phone dinged and she turned it over to find a message from her uncle.
'Pick up your mother's call. I just told them how your exam went. They want to talk to you.'
And just then, her phone rang and the caller ID came into view.
Mum.
12:00pm. Wednesday, 12th.
Williams pressed his foot into the break pedal and the bus eased up behind a truck. Despite today being a weekday when people rarely travelled, the roads were still clammed up. He turned his left wrist around to check the time. It was 12pm on the dot. The heat was beginning to settle down on them and he could feel the sweat that dotted his forehead.
Horns blared behind him and he wondered what was holding up the line.
He poked his head out of his window to see if he could get a peak of what was going on but all he could see were cars, cars that would rather pull their bonnet into any little space beside other vehicles to get a head start when the traffic moved.
Sighing, he sat back down, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.
"Yes, I know."
The girl in the passenger seat said and he spared her a brief glance. She'd been on that call for up to thirty minutes now. He wondered who she was talking to that made her face so wet.
She was crying.
The girl used her shirt sleeve to subtly rub down her wet cheek. She must have sensed that he was staring because she turned her eyes to him.
He didn't look away. He just stared at her.
She got uncomfortable and turned to look outside her window.
A sharp and direct bright light blinded his vision.
William slammed his eyes shot almost immediately using his hand to bloc my his eyes.
His head throbbed.
Opening his eyes again but cautiously, he turned towards the girl who was still turned to the window and then to his left. There wasn't any object that could emanate such a bright glare.
He rubbed his eyes but there weren't any hovering black spots to show that he had stared into something bright.
So... was it just his imagination?
It looked real though.
He needed his drugs.
He fumbled around his pocket searching for a capsule before remembering that he had run out earlier.
With a groan, he pressed his palm at the centre of the steering wheel and the horn blared out.
He really needed those drugs. He had to get them. He didn't want to know what would happen to him if he didn't.