"A single moment of misunderstanding is so poisonous, that it makes us forget the hundred lovable moments spent together within a minute."

Anonymous.

Happy Birthday Weirdypearl. May God bless you abundantly for all that you do. Love ya! Have an amazing birthday 🥳

"I was very rude to the nurse earlier." Alhaji gestured secretly with his pursed mouth towards the door where the Nurse in dark pink scrubs stood. 

Elijah looked carefully towards her, like he wasn't looking and told him her name. "She's Nadia Muhammad Shinkafi." Maymunatu turned fully to look at her, when their eyes met, she smiled widely at Nadia who smiled wanly back. 

"Well, you have to apologize. You're usually not like that, but it's not an excuse." Maymunatu said with a shake of her head and a hidden roll of her eyes. 

"I know, it's just it's embarrassing that the first impression she has is of me barking at her." Maymunatu shook her head again at her father, she patted his shoulder, removing invisible lint from his hospital dress. 

"I'll do the apology for you if you're too shy to do it." She teased her father who eyed her with mock disgust. She laughed quietly, watching him grind his teeth in irritation at her teasing. 

"Have I ever taught you to let others apologize for you?" Maymunatu shook her head, looking teasingly at her father. He sighed and sunk more comfortably to the bed before muttering something about being hungry.

"You cannot eat, Elijah has sent someone to get your nutrient IV so, you have to wait. And you've insulted the nurse, so your wait might even be longer." She ended her sentence with an evil chuckle that was meant to irritate her father but he chuckled lowly alongside her. Soon, the CMD returned with a new nutrient pack and handed it to Nadia to set up. 

"During surgery, the nurses stood up for me. I remember hearing her voice and the other young lady. She was asked to scrub out by that clearly incompetent man, while the other had to stay. Whatever punishment you have in mind, should be meted out only to the doctor if you will." The CMD nodded thoughtfully, he apologized again for the error and left the room in another flurry. 

Alhaji cleared his throat and Maymunatu who was sitting by the window, chuckled so evilly even Nadia raised her head from her setting up the IV line. 

"I'm sorry I shouted earlier, I was insulting and I should not have said what I said earlier." Alhaji watched her stop and exhale gently, then she nodded tiredly and injected the said antibiotic combination into the IV. Alhaji priced himself on raising his children to see his actions, Maymunatu and Na'im had seen him apologize for being wrong, which he seldom was, so it was nothing new for her. 

"That," She pointed at the IV and removed her gloves to dispose of them,  "should go on for at least one hour, I'm going to the nurses station downstairs to record this. Please excuse me." She walked out, picking up the small bag that held her knitting on the way. Before alerting her earlier, he'd watched her knit while in deep thought. 

"She didn't accept the apology. You'd have to work harder to earn it, she's my sort of woman." Alhaji rolled his eyes at his daughter's theatrics. He could feel the IV rushing into his system, it was exactly the effect he was looking for. The feeling of hunger slowly dissipated and he could focus on other things. 

"I can help," She said, "but I need to focus on excelling at my internship." Alhaji rolled his eyes again, feeling much more comfortable since the drug and nutrients were now flooding in his blood stream. 

"I didn't ask you to, I can apologize enough by myself."His answer was a little slow and slurred, Maymunatu smiled and kissed her father's forehead upon noticing that he was slipping away into slumber. 

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"Go home this young man, don't let your wife tax you for coming late." Elijah laughed and patted his laptop bag. He'd sat with Alhaji after Maymunatu had been forced to leave as well, hours before. 

"I can stay here till morning. I'll rest assured you're safe when I'm here." Alhaji shook his head, bringing the hand that was clipped with the pulse rate machine to his face in exasperation.

Elijah had come to work for him after his former personal assistant had been promoted to VP of a subsidiary enterprise he owned, Elijah would do the same but not soon from the look of things, he liked his job as a personal assistant too much. 

"Go home, rest and return early tomorrow, when I get discharged tomorrow, In Sha Allah. We'll talk to the South African Envoy. Okay?" Elijah nodded and lingered for a few minutes, reminding Alhaji of a few things here and there. He loitered some more at the door, talking about mundane things with Alhaji. 

"Get out of here. Leave this place."Alhaji shooed him away and Elijah laughed as he left the room, leaving Alhaji in the silence of the darkening evening. He sighed to himself, wondering how it came to be like this, it was just supposed to be a check-up and suddenly he was spending the night at the hospital. 

He could have sworn that there was some foul play involved if he'd not asked for it to be thoroughly checked. The check came back clean and he realized the doctor was just incompetent. 

Footfalls sounded closer and closer to the room and a few seconds later, the sliding door opened, the harsh light from the corridor flooded into the room when she stepped into it. Elijah had told one of the bodyguards to step into the room, the bulky man stood in a corner, watching. 

"Assalamualaikum Sir," Alhaji nodded at her, he watched as she did her night round in his room.She pulled curtains, looked at the chart, wore gloves to check him tongue, his eyes and temperature, she recorded them and disposed the gloves. 

Then she stepped outside to do something before returning to ask him if he was comfortable. 

"I'm fine. I don't need anything as well, if I do, I'll tell you. I also feel fine so you're free to fall asleep." He knew though, that no matter how much he said she could fall asleep, she might not do so, it was one of the hazards of the job. Doctors however, could fall asleep while on duty, the bulk of the patient's safety was on nurses. 

She nodded quietly and as she was about to walk out of the room, Alhaji stopped her. 

"I'm truly sorry about earlier, I was in pain and I don't have any excuses, I apologize again." Alhaji apologized again, She walked closer to the feet of the bed, shaking her head. 

"No sir. At all. You apologized earlier and I accepted completely. I just didn't respond verbally because I was very tired. I realized much later that I didn't say anything." Alhaji genuinely cracked a smile for the first time, he nodded and asked her a question. 

"What school did you graduate from?" He adjusted himself and Nadia moved to adjust the bed for more comfort. Alhaji sighed as he sunk back into the now inverted bed. 

"ABU Zaria, you?" She answered his question with another question. He chuckled lowly, "ABU Zaria as well, though much earlier than you. Then I went to Cambridge to study for about five years before returning to establish my own Pharmaceutical company." She stood a few meters from him, just wringing her hands in what Alhaji thought was nervousness. 

"I just knew that name was familiar, I just didn't put two and two together." He let his eyes stray to the bodyguard who hid his laughter in his elbow. 

"Why are you laughing?" Alhaji asked with a frown. The man's laughter died immediately and he stood at attention, facing the ceiling. Alhaji felt the buzz of irritation that had gone all day return with full force. 

"So? Why were you laughing?" He pressed on, the man coughed lightly, clearly fake.

"I'm just surprised she said she doesn't know you sir, I mean everyone knows you." Alhaji's welcoming, smiling dark brown eyes turned cold as the bodyguard spluttered, then he went on iffendingly, "Maybe it's because she wants to fake not knowing you. You know how women are." 

Alhaji looked at his employee in unadulterated shock. He could not shut his open mouth, he thought of several ways that conversation could have gone and nothing proper came go mind. 

"What sort of misogynistic view is that?" Alhaji asked him, still in incredulity.

"I've seen it a lot of times, I'm sure she refused to accept the apology to draw you closer. That's how women are." Alhaji couldn't speak, but he watched as Nadia bent her lips into a mocking sneer, say that he should have a good evening and left. 

A few minutes later, when he could finally speak, he called Elijah on the phone to move the bodyguard to somewhere else where he wouldn't have the urge to slap two teeth out of him. 

"You should have heard how he unduly insulted the nurse, the very kind nurse that has stabbed sleep for my well-being? I don't want to see him again, don't take his job, but I don't want to see him again." 

\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* 
Elijah held the door for Alhaji to go first into the office of the vice president. They'd reached there after nearly a hundred checks, their phones taken and all. 

"How are you, sir? I heard you were indisposed for a few days?" Alhaji smiled genially at the older man who gestured for him to sit in front of him. 

"I'm a lot better. I guess it was work stress." Alhaji felt a little uncomfortable after lying but he couldn't help but do so, everyone was looking for the slightest loophole to deal with him and he would be stupid to hand out a line to them. To tell that he got sequestered at the hospital was telling them they could come attack him. 

"So, this meeting, is to discuss your vaccine." Alhaji shook his head, wanting to correct the older man that it was a booster shot, not a vaccine, it was for children born with HIV and people who their HIV got detected early. He did so, in clear terms. 

"Yes, whatever you called it a booster shot, but the media is calling it a vaccine. Everyone who isn't in your field is going to call it a vaccine as well.

Back to the reason, we will pre-order twenty thousand doses only. We cannot afford to subsidize that treatment." Alhaji frowned for the condescending tone that was used and second, for the insensitivity to the plight of the common man with the virus. 

The government had to buy vaccines to subsidize it for the masses. Many people could never afford vaccines if it was sold for real money. 

"Just that?" Alhaji asked, he sighed and nodded. 

"Yes, just that, but you'll tell the media we bought a million doses. It's good publicity for you as well, you understand how this business goes." Alhaji pursed his lips and nodded, there was nothing he could do, only do as the man had said. 

"That's all for now." Alhaji beat him to getting up, he shook the man's hand while seating and left the room, letting the breeze take the door from him and slam it. 

As they got into Alhaji's car at the parking lot, Elijah sat bedside his boss and didn't know what to do to soothe his anger. He had to be mad with rage and ever angrier because there was nothing he could do about it. 

"Look at that moron! Wants me to lie, did I need the money? They're going to use me as a campaign point, use my hard work as a campaign point and I will do nothing about it? No, I'm not Abdullah Bindawa. I suddenly lost my name, Elijah, mark my words, the whole world will know they only bought twenty thousand vaccines. I will make sure of it."  

Elijah sighed, his unhappiness written all over his face. Alhaji rarely got angry, but these days, reasons to get vexed with rage had begun piling up every single day.

*******

Okayyyy. Hello people. My favorites 😍

How are you guys? How did your week go? Did you miss me abi na Alhaji una miss? Toh, I brought him oo and Nadia as well, and their fight(more like non- fight)

In this life, people should LEARN to mind their business, like that bodyguard now. Went to go and spoil the meeting between Alhaji and his baby. 😐🙄

Anyways, gotta go. Thank you for 2k reads. May God blesssssssss you all abundantly.

With all the love in my part of the universe, I'll see you on Friday.

TheOmoope 💙❤️