THE SHAME OF A NATION

Sample · Desperation

‎‎The sun on the streets of Jabi didn't care.‎‎It beat down on my head at 1:30 p.m.‎‎And for one desperate moment, I wished it would swallow me whole.‎‎I was twenty.‎‎On my tray were five plates of groundnuts wrapped in transparent nylon.‎‎In my heart was a hospital bill.‎‎₦95,000.‎‎Due in three days.‎‎“Groundnut! Fresh groundnut!”‎‎My voice was already hoarse. I had been shouting since eight that morning.‎People walked past me. Some glanced at my tray. A few slowed down, then kept moving.‎‎Abuja people were always in a hurry.‎‎Nobody had time for a girl and her groundnuts.‎‎My phone buzzed.‎‎The hospital again.‎‎I stared at the screen for a few seconds before answering.‎‎“Hello?”‎‎“Miss Simi, we're calling to remind you about Henry's outstanding balance. If we don't receive a payment by the weekend, we'll have no choice but to discharge him.”‎‎My fingers tightened around the phone.‎‎Henry.‎‎Sixteen years old.‎‎My younger brother.‎‎Our mother had been gone for years. Our father had left for work seven years ago and never returned. We never found out what happened to him. No body. No explanation. Nothing.‎‎It had always been just Henry and me in our old semi-detached house.‎‎Until malaria became complicated.‎Now Henry was lying on a hospital bed in Jabi General Hospital, while I stood on the street selling groundnuts to keep him there.‎‎I ended the call and swallowed hard.‎‎“Groundnut! Please, buy groundnut!”‎‎My voice cracked.‎‎A man in casual clothes stopped.‎Hope flickered in my chest.‎‎He looked at me from head to toe, then at my tray.‎‎“God will help you, little lady.”‎And he walked away.‎‎I stared after him.‎‎God?‎‎I'd been praying to God since Monday.‎‎God wasn't paying the hospital bill.‎‎I looked down at my tray.‎₦1,800.‎‎That was all I had made so far.‎‎I needed another ₦93,200 in seventy-two hours.‎‎My stomach twisted.‎‎In a nation that called itself the giant of Africa, I was standing under the scorching Abuja sun, begging people to buy groundnuts so my brother wouldn't be sent home to die.‎‎I picked up my tray again.‎My shoulders hurt. My feet burned. My lips were dry.‎‎But Henry was waiting.‎‎So I kept walking.‎‎By 6:33 p.m., I pushed open the hospital gate with an empty tray and a heart full of dread.‎I'd managed to sell four more plates.‎I had kept one plate aside for Henry.‎My total earnings for the day were ₦2,600.‎‎Still nowhere near enough.‎‎The crumpled notes stuck together in my sweaty palm as I walked toward the ward.‎The hospital smelled of disinfectant and fear.‎‎The ward was noisy.‎‎Babies cried from one corner. A woman in labour screamed from somewhere down the corridor. Nurses moved quickly between beds.‎‎But bed nineteen was strangely quiet.‎‎Henry.‎‎He looked smaller than sixteen lying there with a drip attached to his th...

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