The person behind the steering wheel rushed down and a slightly robust woman in her late thirties came into view. Her eyes were crinkled behind her bold framed glasses and her lips glowed a dried Persian red. She hurriedly leaned over to detect a pulse as she placed her ears on Mary's faintly breathing chest.

Mary remained still but for the slight rise and fall of her sprouting breasts under the gown she had on. The lady in a hurried panic, lifted Mary's body and placed her on the squeaky cream leathered chair at the back seat. The car smelled of comfortability and wealth and it still gushed out the new car scent which stuck to clothes even after long hours.

After few turns on the long road that burned with the sun, Mary was taken to the nearest hospital and soon a Doctor coated in white with a stethoscope dangling from his neck was brought over to attend to Mary. He seemed comforting and didn't seem to understand the gravity of being hit by the bonnet of a well polished car because his smile remained unrelentingly constant even when the lady tried to inject fear into his light skinned self.

"Beatrice, she's going to be fine," He said, placing one hand on her shoulder while the other held a flat board with a paper clipped to it. She heaved a loud breath and watched him disappear into a ward where she imagined Mary's body was.under strict supervision and care.

Doctor Aminu was the Fulani Doctor in whom Mary's life and chances of survival were committed into- the sang out best in the field. He sparked out diligence and a glorious smile that glared out a greater portion of his teeth. It was the little attention he gave things that remained in people's hearts and it was the reason they returned later to seek him for their numerous health problems. It was the reason ladies thought he was interested in them but for the silver ring on his fourth finger.

Beatrice sat on the mounted silver plated chair with numerous holes on its body and a cold feeling spiralled within when her skin touched it. She had pads of fat in certain corners of her body, but you could tell she was lean and young even though in actuality, she wasn't all that so. Her thoughts ran back to how she intended racing her car to her own death until she knocked a little girl down. She seemingly had enough money but the overburdening demands of the society for a lady that old to settle down always got to her. She wanted to end her life with no traces aligning back to her. The headlines will carry her death as one of the most tragic of the year. The delectable owner of Annabelle's Magazine, where culture and women were glorified died of a ghastly motor accident. She felt she had failed women by not being tied to a man or having children of her own and here she was about murdering another's. She buried her face into her hands and for what seemed like forever, she prayed.

*****

The hospital was busy that evening with accident victims being pulled in with long stretchers, the groaning of new born babies, weary relatives of patients seated at the reception awaiting good or bad news with fingers crossed, the acrid smell of many cap fulls of antiseptic dropped into water for cleaning.

The power supply had been cut short and Doctor Aminu stared into the surgical lights as they grew dim with both hands holding a bleeding artery. Splatters of blood patterned his cerulean blue coloured scrub. His fellow surgeons looked into his downcast expression waiting for the next move. The patient, Maureen, was dying and there was yet an unborn child in the womb. As though ignited into action by a thought, he lit open his pearly coloured eyes foggy with emotions. He wasn't going to fail the woman or her husband who paced about the hallway.

"Everyone stay calm! We are not losing the woman or her baby. Light up your phones," he instructed and the ward lit up.

He stitched the bleeding artery with a certain extra cautiousness allowing sweat drops form in a panic.
He slowly tore open her lower abdomen and watched as her pink coloured inner tissues had blood rush up and seep out. The process of harvesting the blood filled foetus seemed like forever.

"Where's Nurse Doris?" He asked, his nose mask gagging him and restraining his words. The nose mask had brown stains of sweat and dried blood covering his mouth only and his hands had been to busy to lift it up to his nose. He needed the aid of the best nurse and not the half baked products of medical school that were only interested in impressing and scared of taking risks.

"Doctor, she's on break now. She has been on duty for fifty-two hours and just came out from the ward where another pregnant woman just delivered," A lady doctor who lifted her phone for the light spoke up. She was petite and quite eager to work.

"Call her, She'll rest after this delivery," Doctor Aminu said.

"But Doctor-"

"Do as you're told!" He barked. His sweet, gentle nature had been replaced by the zeal to keep the patients alive and in good health that it didn't mind going the extreme.

Doris strolled in, her eyes weary and body, stiff. She yawned exasperatedly as she yanked off the extra scrub on the hanger and appearing fully clothed, she washed her hands and slid her fingers into the rubber gloves and held unto the cut open skin of the unconscious patient as Aminu carefully pulled the baby out. Doris was handed the crying baby with the cut umbilical cord as she skillfully rocked the baby to quiet. Gently placing a finger over her tiny holed nostrils, she tried detecting a soft breath but she couldn't. The baby had difficulty breathing and so she quickly reported back to Aminu her frightening discovery.

He quickly placed the baby on the bed and examined her chest for any rhythm but got a faint and irregular one. Placing his hands on her chest, he began slight compressions by enacting force on it every second and then he will listen again for a breath but there was none.

He demanded for an intubation tube to suck out whatever blocked her airway and carefully release light puffs of air within, rejuvenating her lungs. When she began crying and was no longer stiff, he sighed out of relief.

Maureen took deep loud breaths as she slept and Doris took the baby towards the incubator where several other babies laid. The glass cage enclosed the soft newness and tenderness of her pale pink skin. She still cried, she yearned to be fed and wrapped by the coziness of a mother's touch.

Doris tapped her mouth repeatedly as she yawned painfully. She held unto the glass case of another as she slowly dozed off. Her lips were slightly apart and her head fell to the sides. A fellow nurse tapped her and she jerked back to reality. The message had been delivered that the mother from the first delivery needed her baby and wanted to leave. Lifting the soul she had managed to still, she was led into a different ward and handed the baby to a sobbing mom who readily took her and rocked her.

The lady, Beatrice, had been saying something about leaving that night to the Doctor even though he convinced her to stay for longer. She was tearing up and a stray tear landed on the baby's cheek, it was warm and extremely salty.

She left the hospital moments later sublimed by the quietness of the streets. She had to do it, she thought. She had borne the shame of getting pregnant out of wedlock and carrying the baby until it had been born. It would be a lot easier to drop the child where she was sure good hands will adopt her. The product of her womb would not have to be subjected to the ills of the society such as poverty and maltreatment. A church will adopt her in their kind mercy and will raise her right, she thought and moved slowly towards a church after a sharp bend. She sighted the stained glass decorated with symbolic pictorial diagrams each having a peculiar meaning and halted as though reconsidering her actions.

Nearing the church and mumbling words of prayer, she dropped the child at the front of the church wrapped with many layers of clothing within the gated fence and ran because she feared she might terminate her actions if she heard her baby cry. She did hear her baby cry, the young one wailed even. The baby's hands stretched out for someone to lift her up but no one seemed near. Beatrice ran as a deep sense of agony tore her from within. She never looked back and thought to herself that her actions were for the best whenever the horrific thought throbbed her.

Author's note: Wow! I hope you understood what you read? Maureen is the real mother of Mary but the sleepy nurse Doris, handed Mary to Beatrice who left her at the church. Hmm a lot of things happen within the hospital walls.

What do you think is going to happen next?

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Today's chapter is dedicated to bisolalayo 💕

Enjoy!
Enjoy!