“THE SCIENTIST’S GOD”
©?Opeyemi O.Akintunde
PART 13
The police officers had been blaring the siren all day… The country had become very dangerous… Hoodlums killing one another over government food… Stone looked out the window and he regretted not following his wife to Bribia Island. The Shut down was affecting His country.
He picked up his phone to give Ella a call…More than ever, he felt he needed his wife around him. He knew he was always shouting at her but he couldn’t hide the Calm and loving Presence she carried…
The Gunshots rent the air…
Armed robbery, unwarranted deaths had become the order of the day. Husbands beating their wives to death. Couples who by virtue of work had never spent two weeks straight together, were forced to stay together. Husbands were beginning to realize their wives had boyfriends and Wives began to see that their husbands had “side chics”.
Stone had been hearing the screams of his neighbors. Street Urchins going from house to house begging for money. The Shut down was literally killing people more than the Islingbee Virus itself in his home country.
“ Hello! Ella… “ Stone said over the phone…
“ Hello Daddy…” Rejoice said in tears. They had been at the hospital for hours. Her mother had been rushed to the Bribia Island clinic.
Stone didn’t like the fact that Rejoice picked up his call!
“ Why would Rejoice Pick my call?” He reasoned quietly
“ Where is your mother?” He said authoritatively as usual.
“ She is sick and she is in the hospital… I hear she has the Islingbee Virus…” Rejoice said crying…
Stone felt his world was crashing when he heard Ella had caught the Virus. Immediately the fear of Ella dying consumed him…
“ Can I speak with her?” Stone said
“She can’t speak …” Rejoice said amidst tears…
Stone knew he was in trouble, No other woman could be as good, calm , and forgiving as Ella.
“ Is there an adult I can speak with?”
Folabi had refused going back to the hotel with everyone. They were in the hospital on the Island. The doctor had broken the news to everyone that Ella had the Islingbee Virus.
Everyone withdrew, but Folabi couldn’t leave Ella alone…
“ Uncle Folabi, my Dad wants to have a word with you!” Rejoice said stretching the phone to him
“ Hello Sir, good evening sir…”
“ Good Evening Mr Folabi, how is my wife, what is her condition?” Stone asked
“ She has been taken to the ICU, I believe everything will be fine…!” Folabi said respectfully
“ I told her not to go to this Island, if she dies it’s all her fault…!” Stone said bitterly…
“ Sorry… Sir, Why would you wish your wife dead or Blame her for what is happening to her… You shouldn’t speak about her that way, what your wife needs at the moment is positive energy… and since you both are Christians, a prayer will be better at this time that this blame game…” Folabi said angrily. He ended the call before giving Rejoice the phone…
“ He is angry as always… I wish my mother wasn’t married to him.” Rejoice said
Folabi was shocked at Ella’s daughter’s statement…
“ Your father hurts your mother…” Folabi asked
“ A lot… she takes a lot of mess from him, I guess the only reason she is still married to him is because of her faith as a Christian. Mum says God hates Divorce.” Rejoice said
“ I don’t believe that school of thought, When you are not happy in a marriage you leave….” Folabi replied
“ Are you married?”s Rejoice asked all of a sudden
“ No, Not yet?”
“ Why?”
“ I haven’t seen the kind of woman I like, the only one that matches my preference is married…”
“ My mother?” Rejoice asked
Folabi was shocked the little girl knew more than she should, he turned to her with a questioned look as a way of avoiding the question…
“ I see the way you look at her, you look at her the way men look at women they love in movies”
“ Your Father!”
“ ….is not a good man, he doesn’t look at my mother the way you do… he behaves like he is only managing her…”
“ Well, if wishes were horses I would have loved to marry your mother, but she is taken, we should concentrate on her getting better…” Folabi said hoping to end the conversation…
“ You can fight for her…” Rejoice said
“ I am not a doctor…” Folabi defender himself
“ Mummy once told me Sicknesses can either be physical or Spiritual. Let the doctors do their best, why we fight for her Spiritually…”
“ Well, Islingbee Virus is just a virus possibly from the forest, intact I heard it is from bees… there is nothing Spiritual about that!” Folabi said
“ Do you love my mother?”
Folabi went mute, because he kept staring at the little girl who was interrogating Him. He knew he was a very sly person, he knew how to dribble ladies, he never let any girl force him into professing his love for her, but here was a girl barely 12 speaking to him in a way that he felt he couldn’t lie to her…
“ Yes, I kind of like of your mother in a special way but… I know she is married with 3 kids so I am not looking into destroying her…” Folabi was saying…
“ I know but you are saying a lot when all I asked is a simple question, or better still let me ask the question in a simpler way…Mr Folabi, do you love my mother enough to fight for her?”
Folabi nodded his head in the positive, although he didn’t know how he was going to fight Spiritually to save his female crush. He didn’t know much about Spirituality.
“ Thank you… I know this Virus is not ordinary especially with what I saw on my wall that night…” Rejoice said
Folabi remembered there was a night Rejoice had woken almost everyone up over a handwriting on the wall…
“ Tell me about that…”
As Rejoice was about to relay the scenario, they heard the loud voice of the doctor…
“ Oxygen!”
*****************
“ We need to leave this Island…” Lola kept pacing the room. She couldn’t afford to die. She began to wonder what would happen to all the money she had in the world. She was worth 1.3 billion dollars. Her children were well settled in Life, so they never really bothered her for money. Fear gripped her heart as the reality of dying hit her.
“ So, if I truly have Islingbee Virus, that means I will die soon and leave all this money behind… “ LARA thought as she took a seat in the room
“Really, What is money? “ lara said loudly
Her husband Larry looked away from the news he was watching on T.V and faced his wife. The question his wife just asked herself was strange… His wife was a serious industrialist and oil mogul who never joked with Money…
“ Honey, are you okay?” Larry asked Lara
“ I am fine but Larry What if we have the Virus and die, what happens to all the money we have made?”
“ Hmm… “
Click 4 below to continue reading