She opened her eyes, seeing the white light above her, hanging from the ceiling. To her right, was a kitchen knife tightly locked within her fist. To her left, Jaleel on the floor, drenched in his own blood, his eyes wide open and looking towards Armani.
December 2015
The phone rang. “Hello Ahmed, peace be onto you”. “Good morning Jaleel, peace be onto you too”. “Can I see you today please.” Jaleel and Armani’s Doctor replied. “Okay, I’ll meet you at the clinic by 2pm today” as Jaleel hanged up. “Alright dear, I will be seeing Ahmed later today, he has some good news for us I guess” Jaleel remarked with a smile as he kissed Armani and left for work. Later that day at the clinic with Dr Ahmed. Jaleel was quite curious about why the Doctor wanted to see him so urgently. “Jaleel, based on my past sessions with you and Armani as well as a couple of tests done on her, results show Armani is experiencing a condition known as ‘Blackouts’”, Ahmed explained subtly to Jaleel. With a curious look, Jaleel asked “What does that mean Ahmed?”. “This means, Armani is subject to frequent loss of consciousness while awake or otherwise, she will not be fully aware of events around her during such moments “. Ahmed continued “During such moment, she is bound to engage in any activity – sane or otherwise that is beyond her control and when the blackout phase passes off, she resumes full consciousness but has no remembrance of what she has done within the past hour “. As Jaleel was starting to make sense of the Doctor’s diagnoses about his wife, he asked further “So what could be the reason for such condition?”. “Well…” Ahmed continues “it could be anything from a minor accident or injury which affected her brain to witnessing a devastating event in her past that her mind tried to forget. Are you aware of any similar occurrence Armani could have encountered in the past?”. “Not at all Ahmed. Armani has always had a very nurturing growth from childhood living with her grandmother till I married her and she’s never been involved in any sort of tragic incident since I’ve known her or even married her besides the miscarriages obviously” Jaleel replied confidently. “Why did she live with her grandmother? What about her parents?” Ahmed asked. “Oh well, her parents are late now. But I learnt she lived with them for a few years before her granny took custody of her. She has always been quite reserved when talking about her parents and I have not pressed much about it since she was about seven years when she left them. I will call you both in again in a while to discuss this further and advise on some possible remedies to her condition. She will however, need a lot of support from you on the treatments to be prescribed. This treatment should be for a while till she can affirm less or no unusual events around her, I will advise putting a hold on treatment once we confirm she’s getting better.
December 2016, Ibadan
It was a Wednesday morning. Jaleel was, as usual all dressed up and ready to leave for work. Armani had prepared his breakfast for him to take before leaving. “I know you have a busy day ahead of you so you need to eat before leaving”. “I should pass on breakfast today if I had a choice but don’t think I do” Jaleel commented with a smiling reaction to Armani. “No you don’t dear. Not today” Armani replied before sitting Jaleel down to have his meal. “I hope we are still on course with your medications? Our baby is five months old in you now you know” Jaleel said to Armani, awaiting her affirmative response. “Yes dear, we are on course. Just a few days behind on the medications Ahmed prescribed. Ran out of them and I’m supposed to go get more at the pharmacy but been procrastinating and feeling lazy”. Armani’s response with a guilty smile on her face. Jaleel looked at her with a surprised face but had to skip his intended comment. “Should I get them on my way back from work?” Jameel asked. “I’m tempted to say yes but I shouldn’t wait that long before taking them today. So I’ll go get them this morning. Thanks anyway”. Moments later, with his goodbye kiss, Jaleel dashed out, got into his car and drove out. Few hours later, Jaleel, at work, realised he had left some papers he needed for his meeting presentation at home. Picked up his phone to call his wife trying to confirm if she noticed his boxed bag in their room, anywhere. Armani however, did not pick up. “She’s probably not close to her phone” Jaleel thought out loud. Knowing he had another two hours before his meeting with the board members started, he decided to take a quick drive home which is only about half an hour from work. Moments later, Jaleel opened the door to the living room. “Hey Dear, I’m home.” he exclaimed with no words from Armani. He went straight to their bedroom, saw his box on the bed and paid less attention to the paper already out of the box on the bed. Took out the papers he needed, gave a relieving sigh, closed the box and returned it to its spot. Just about stepping out of his room, Armani met Jaleel’s belly with a knife sharp enough to slit a goat’s throat, pulled out and thrusted back in repeatedly till Jaleel fell to the ground, lifelessly. Staring down at him on the ground, with the smug smile, feelings of content and the thoughts of staging a perfect suicide, Armani walked over Jaleel, fell to the ground just beside him, her eyes closed up with the knife still within her grip and she lost full consciousness.
Read episode one hereWriter : Micheal Tadese . Contact via Blogor Instagram
Eniola
Opari.
Tolani Busari
Lmao opari gidi
Debs
Just wawu! So he’s actually dead! Please what did she find o??? Does he have another family ni?
Toyeen
I wonder what she found. Fingers crossed.
Fiction20 Series – Excerpts – Micheal Tadese
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skinnybrownie
Hmm.. Waiting to read the next episode
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