SEPUYA

EPISODE 2.
I woke up to that familiar scent this morning, the druggy smell of my second home; the hospital.
I was sick, very sick.
I had been on admission for over a week, and even for me that was news. I couldn’t remember the last time this happened; even when I was much younger and would have those frequent hand-and-foot swellings which my doctor called dactylitis.
It sounded like Dac-TEA-LIE-tis to me. Especially when it was pronounced slowly and I could make out the words tea and lie; which I cunningly interpreted as lying down on a sofa with a glass of iced tea and some biscuits, while intermittently playing video games.
The most disorienting part of being here is my inability to sculpt. Sculpting was my way of making it all disappear, of leaving my world and emerging into another, where there was no pain.
I ran straight from the car to my room most days after school, to pour the inspiration I had gotten that day into the 3D images of my sculptures. I begged Miss Tara to let me go for classes on sculpting but she had sized me up and told me to get serious. What good would sculpting do for me in the present day Nigeria? She would ask. And though I had no response, I knew I loved to sculpt.
Some of my experimental sculptures turned out to be absolutely fabulous, while some simply looked miserable. Especially the one about Kale, my class crush. Hers just hadn’t taken shape yet, and I was still on it before this untimely admission.
Kale was the only one who treated me normally at school. She was my only friend, the only one who didn’t look at me with pity and was still capable of making sickle cell jokes without coming out as offensive. Even teachers had learnt to exempt me from major class activities or flogging exercises, especially after my fainting attack on being beaten.
But Kale, that girl was the stuff dreams were made of!
Miss Tara had finally learnt to accept my passion for sculpting when I had made a delightsome sculpture of her; though she still viewed it as a silly one. I sensed that she let me be because it was the one thing that made me feel normal, amidst the daily drugs and the weekly doctor visits.
Miss Tara felt she had let me down by bringing me into the world. She would soliloquize over and over again ‘I should have been more serious. Just one mistake! The only serious mistake I ever made and this child gets to suffer for it, throughout his lifetime.’
But everything I am today, even in the midst of these pains, I owe to Miss Tara.
My crises were fun, in their own way; for Miss Tara simply over-indulged me during those periods. There was no other way to put it. I even faked them sometimes, just a few days after they had stopped to continue with the chocolate and ice-cream I was sure to get. 
At other times, Miss Tara was one of the strictest mothers on the planet. What with my rehydration regimen and daily drug dosages which she knew like an effective clock. Or the fact that I couldn’t do a lot of exercises so I always had to stay indoors.
The sharp pain ravaging my body serves as a steel reminder of the fact that indeed, I am still in my hospital bed and have only been in my head for the past 2 hours. My unfinished sculpture of Kale served as the teddy bear I held on tightly to this morning.