Musings from a sickbed

By Harun Muhammad

I miss writing. I miss swinging back and forth with words. Bro, I miss dictating my thoughts and manipulating my fingers within the stadium of my keyboard. I miss everything: the muse, the control, the feeling of expressing myself in words.

You see, you do all these things when you are hale and hearty. It doesn’t matter how much you crave for it: it happens only when you’re not lifeless. Beyond here, our brains are programmed to make sense of what’s before them, or make a prediction of a pictorial view of what has happened in the past. That’s it. No more. No less. Our brains are rigged, and thus, can’t know, predict, or make sense of what’s beyond their territories (Spoiler: they guess, which is disputed.)

The nights are endless, horrible, terrifying, and beautified is the oppressive bone-chilling cold clapping the innocent me — all this in addition to unbearable pain. How long? I kept asking. For how long? I prayed in soft tongue. I have suffered enough. I know. But, when will I get back to my table and write again? I wailed in the agony of pain. My natural look helplessly disappearing on me. Day-in and out, like the way moths have no choice than to dance with flames, I lied in deepening silence while the pain resonates through my body. Keep the faith! That’s the slong the President-elect Joe used to redeem the hope of American people. So, I say to my ebullient, keep the faith, you’ll pull through this.

Recall that our brains are rigged, yeah? People here can’t sense what I have been going through: the unbearable pain remains known to only people that are staying with me. Outside that, I look fine. I tweet. On Facebook, I shared quite a number of stories and responded to all tags. Update my status. Yeah, I am fine. If I die, it would be like, he just shared something yesterday oh… or I viewed his status few hours ago, or was he sick sort of…

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You see, memories are lonely horse riders. They never stay too long in a new town. They are always on the road. I’m learning to love them without getting committed. The more I play catch-up with my memories, the more I track-shot the next one. Could this be end for me? Maybe. For my adult life, I have never been this sick. Long. Pain. Horribleness. Name it. I picked up my note. And guess what? I wrote to my sister. “ In case anything happens to me: note these passwords. There you can have access to everything that belongs to me. The rest are easy”. I forwarded to her: please keep this safe and don’t tell anyone that I am sick at home.

Two-days before I fell sick, I picked up a freelancing project. My client is one of the top provider for online professional and higher education here. I wanted to have used the best in me to deliver an excellent work. But, you know, the poor me ended up in the sickbed. Double wahala. I thought of returning the project, but, my stubborn mind pushed for finishing the project regardless of the pain. If I manage to get recovered, I would get more projects from them. BTW, working for them will enhance my experience and earned me recognition going forward. Pain killers came to my rescue. I managed to have used pain killers within for few days to deliver the project. And, the fight to staying alive continues…

Harun’s Sickbed

Here we have enough medics. Access to basic healthcare services is effortless. The first medic told me after he prescribed drugs to go and see one surgeon and showed him the paper he gave me. The surgeon checked the paper and thoroughly examined me again. He said, do not to take this drugs, go and get these drugs I write for you. Don’t forget to comeback in the next seven days.

Less than seven days, little progress. Rush back yesterday and told the surgeon the little progress. It was as if the man predicted my comeback. I was given a room to lie down(picture below). I was thoroughly crossexamined. Given another sets of drugs and asked to comeback again today. Strange like a resurrection of Lazarus, for the first time in 3 weeks, I had a very sound sleep. Long one for that matter. I feel, now, so good, energetic, and lively. Alhamdulillah!

If there’s one thing our leaders should tirelessly work for, let there be access to basic healthcare services for all and sundry. While going through this, I imagine our medical workforce, the infrastructure, and the services. It’s a thing that will blow your mind and make you pray for our dear country. I hope one day we get things right and better.

Until then, folks, I am sick no more. Yay! 😀