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Death On Medical Road

LIFE IS SHORT
DEATH IS SURE
HELL IS REAL
TURN TO JESUS

The sign at the back of a bus on Lagos - Abeokuta express way. I stared at it and the words were dancing in my head - LIFE IS SHORT, DEATH IS SURE. There was not always much to look at in the taut traffic that often plagued this part of Lagos. Vehicle moved bumper to bumper, the yellow danfo buses poked in and out of moving lanes trying to get to one end of the road to drop off passengers who were stopping at 'alon' (the way conductors said it), One disgruntled driver yelled at the other for being stupid, the other yelled back that he was mad. I wondered how people expected Nigerian roads to be safe when there were Idiots and mad men behind the wheels.
If you weren't at the wheels of a vehicle, you would be likely to dose off in the traffic. I would sometimes look out the window and see passengers asleep with their mouth open, make up and all, because they woke extra early that Monday morning and on every other morning, just so they could still earn that twelve thousand Naira salary that kept food in their stomach.
LIFE IS SHORT, DEATH IS SURE.
The notice kept coming, at the head of the poster it read 'Breaking News'. I tried in vain to read the full text yet only that phrase stuck to my head. The man beside me started a phone call, he yelled loud enough for the whole bus to hear about his five hundred thousand Naira transaction that had not come through yet. I gathered my bag and disembarked at National.
After the bus sped away, with the conductor yelling for more passengers, I stuck my ear piece into my ears (it was my escape from the noise) and nibbled through the spaces in between the rows of busses offloading commuters.
I got to the road and crossed with the aid of a crowd that had formed. Then second half of the road was easy and I could walk calmly across. LIFE IS SHORT, DEATH IS SURE.
I walked on blasting the music I was listening to at full volume. I almost ran into a man who stopped abruptly, he stood between I and the train track. I'd have climbed on immediately without looking or hearing the train. The train passed speedily as soon as I had stopped. LIFE IS SHORT, DEATH IS SURE.
It kept on ringing in my head as I found my way after the train had passed, tucking my earpiece into my pocket.
Life, the one you plan to live to the fullest, is actually too short that it can just be snuffed out like that. In a moment of ignorance, in a moment of absent mindedness.
I walked on. Passing through the myriad of people of different Heights, different faces, different body odors. They would come here everyday to hustle for a better life through whatever they did. For most of them, the thread of living a better life had grown so thin years ago that they were not sure if it was still there.
Medical road was occasionally freer than the high way. I wondered why it was called medical road.
A man, in clothes than mayn't be accepted in some homes as rags, strode by the road side selling bottled water.
This time of the morning, cars rode quickly and sparsely across the road. A thirsty woman in the passenger seat of a Toyota Corolla called out to him and he ran after it. LIFE IS SHORT and people still struggle to live it. The #100 fell to the floor of the tarred road, the man in dirty rag clothes bent to pick it. DEATH IS SURE. The Hilux van at top speed didn't break on time.

LIFE IS SHORT, DEATH IS SURE now i was certain it wouldn't leave my head.

*this is purely fiction. There was no death on medical road*

Written by Kay Ugwuzor
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