Forgiveness comes slowly.
THE LAST MAN STANDING
By Ezeiyoke Chukwunonso
Ezeiyoke, Chukwunonso is a promising young writer of 24. His short story was among the long listed stories in the Golden Baobab Prize, 2010. His poems have appeared in ANA Review, a literary journal and Sowetan Online Magazine. He was born in Eastern part of Nigeria. He lives there. Currently, he studies Philosophy, with much interest in the Philosophy of Arts.
WHEN THE GOVERNMENT announced their ban on what they termed ‘non-essential foodstuffs’, I didn’t fully understand the implication until two weeks later, when I went to buy a Sprite, a drink I was addicted to. My father had been, too. When he was still alive I remember people calling him “Mr. Sprite”. If you were near, he would shake hands with a smile. With children, he stroked their hair. When he was in a hurry or a distance apart, he waved. He only rushed when he was going to the coal mine at Coal Camp, Enugu, the site that had first attracted white men to Enugu City. They had then established their house at New Heaven, leaving peasant workers in Coal Camp. My father had preferred living in Abakpa, a town on the outskirts of Enugu City, with a lot of indigenes of our own tribe, but this was where he could find work. That was before independence.
At the store, they said Sprite was not in the stock. Not in stock? That was silly.
I was still battling to comprehend this when they made subsequent bans. Numerous food items were added to the list. Indo-mie, Spaghatti, Macromie, Bobo, Biscuit, all were given their final funeral rites. The Minister of Information, said that we were in a state of emergency, fighting ADAIDS. The production of those banned foodstuffs was a waste of manpower and would not help the majority of the citizens suffering from the epidemic.
Advanced Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (ADAIDS) had a long, complicated history. Rumour had it that a couple of scientists from Germany and America were sponsored by UNICEF to conduct a genetic experiment, using an AIDS virus. The experiment allegedly took place in the Sahara Desert, near the northern part of Nigeria, in an underground lab. Nobody has ever given a correct description of the place. Most people believed it was destroyed immediately after the experiment failed. The experiment, aimed at producing a cure for AIDS, instead ended up producing a mutated type of AIDS that could be contracted from sexual intercourse, even when one was wearing a condom. Worse, the disease remained dormant until three months before death, making it easier to spread. Once someone contracted it, the person never lived beyond three years. After the experiment was shown to be a failure, UNICEF came in and silenced all who needed to be silenced. Some said that all those who had anything to do with the experiment were assassinated. Others believed they were heavily bribed.
I do not know if this is true.
The most popular, story of the origin of the disease was that some Fulani nomadic cattle herders in northern Nigeria, victims of HIV, had intercourse with their cows. The HIV virus in their bodies reacted with another virus in the cow’s body and it resulted in a mutated AIDS. The ADAIDS was transmitted to Igbo prostitutes in the southern part of the country (The tribal people used to believe they could literally march through hellfire if money were discovered in the Devil’s hand) by those nomadic cattle herders, and to their women when they went home. With time, thanks to sex, as a fire that catches a cluster of palm thatch roofing spreads, the disease spread everywhere.
To worsen matters, the government stretched out its hand to non-foodstuffs. We were constrained to watch only one local TV station and also to listen to one radio station. Two of my favourite programs, Hyper Fear and Dance like the Dead, were struck off and their producers reassigned. They gave us the same reason: “lack of manpower”.
One amusement park was permitted in each state and a maximum of three secondary schools. All the universities were reduced to one, with only two faculties: Medical Sciences and Engineering. They believed that the medical academics were the only relevant faculty that could handle the plague of ADAIDS. As for Engineering, they kept the infrastructure from breaking down. So, we still had electricity. For the rest: “a waste of manpower”.
I found out from afternoon broadcasts of the BBC and Radio Nigeria that the UN had abolished the flow of aid workers to the country. Soon, I ceased to hear any further pronouncements made by the government. One day, like a joke, the government was dead! Gone. No more announcements, no nothing. It dawned on me that, with the death of the government, other things, like electricity, would follow suit.
I decided to place an announcement at Radio Nigeria, the only surviving station and the first to be established immediately after the independence.
The announcement would invite everybody living in Enugu City to come and live in Uwani Town, to fight loneliness with ‘African communalism’, since the disease was winning every other battle. I was sure not all of us had contracted the disease. I hadn’t.
I was not at risk. My illiterate mother had not taken prenatal vitamins during her pregnancy. So, I had contracted a disease in youth that had rendered me a eunuch. But I had hopes that married couples who were faithful to each other and children would also survive.
At first, I was optimistic. I walked out of my bungalow, where I lived alone on Nnaji Street in Uwani. The street was empty. One could hardly recognise the black colour of the road tar. Mud had painted it red.
I walked to the major road, where I would get a bus-taxi that would take me to the station. For hours, I stood waiting. No taxi came. A Peugeot pickup drove past me. The back was loaded with a corpse. Two young men were sitting in the front with the driver. I didn’t need any person to tell me where they were going. I had done a similar thing in my street many times. The corpse was going to be disposed of in a big pit dug at the outskirts of town. They would then incinerate it.
It eventually became clear to me that taxis had died a natural death, just like our government. I decided to go back home and use my car. I still had gas.
When I got to the radio station, I was lucky to see the studio manager, Mr. Dudu, standing, arms akimbo, in front of the building. A man as short as Zacchaeus. God forgive me; I hope that is not a cliché. We shook hands. I told him of my mission. He accepted, but quickly informed me he had just broadcast an announcement: The disease had developed a more virulent strain. Any person who remained with a victim of the disease in an enclosed area for about two hours would also become infected. He said that a Professor Dimbo Theresa from the University of Nigeria had brought him these findings and asked him to air them. The manager then warned me of the dangers of gathering a large crowd of people with my intended announcement.
I considered his warning. There were few of us left in Uwani and plenty of houses for the remaining people, if the mortality rate here had been the same as in other Enugu towns. I was sure there wouldn’t be any risk of transmission.
He agreed and my announcement was a success. People turned out, though few in number. To my surprise, Professor Dimbo Theresa was among those who came to join us.
The few of us who remained eagerly waited, listening to the news to hear which new government would seize power, but none came. We were still waiting when the last surviving radio and TV stations vanished. The first day I turned on my radio and was confronted by the reality that the station was no longer working, it seemed to me like a doomsday. But weeks later, we had all become accustomed to the new reality.
As time went on, and people died out, I had to drive my car from where I was living in Uwani to New Heaven, Abakpa and Emene to see if anyone was still there. I usually did that with an old Peugeot pick-up. The reason was to avoid disease transmission. If I saw anybody, that person would have to stay in the open, in the back, during the journey.