Poison.

David's shoulders sank. At that moment, he knew that his end had begun. For all of his fourteen years of living on earth, David had always felt that he was one bad occurrence away from sinking into depression.

There was no denying that feeling. The surrounding circumstances — the draining effects of poverty, the poor living conditions that his family had been subjected to. David had always wanted to change all of those things. There was a constant ebb of angst in the shores of his soul that one day, something terrible would happen, and he may not be able to save his family when that time came.

That underlying thought alone was disturbing because he'd always wished he could do something phenomenal to rescue his family from the shackles of hardship. Now, he'd tried, and he'd caused a fatal shipwreck, the anchor sunk deeply into the tides of the ocean.

Somewhere deep within his heart was a feeling of an adverse kind of satisfaction. This was the opportunity he'd always wanted — the chance to be the Savior. But he'd done the worse thing, and the worse thing had happened as the repercussion. Hence, it was now the appropriate time to sink into the shell of unhappiness — a carved prison that awaited him for so long.

There was nothing good he could ever do from thenceforth. Now, his family would be better off without him since he'd tried to act the sailor and had veered the ship off into a total disaster. He'd caused everyone a great pain. He'd proved to be the unwanted youngster, and it was only right that he shrunk into non-existence.

He was a waste — useless and best discarded. And these sentiments reflected in the countenance his mother beheld. It showed in the way she stared at the doctor, gripped by disbelief on hearing the words "poison." His mother had perhaps had a little faith in David that there was no way Sindara could have consumed poison when she was under his care.

So when she turned to him, she asked in the calmest tone possible — a voice that trusted David. A voice that was ready to believe David's innocence:

"David...The doctor just said something about Sindara consuming poison. And it doesn't seem to be making much sense to me. Can you tell me what you think the doctor is trying to say? How did it happen? Or rather, what exactly happened to Sindara that led to poisoning? Was it from the porridge or the beans I left over? Did she react terribly to the food?"

But when David disappointed his mother by answering the question with truth as painful as thrusting a dagger, he looked into her eyes and saw the trust crumble like shattering glass. There was a way she stared that made the sad thoughts crossing through her mind readable. "Why did he visit her? He heard my warning clearly on that day." "If it had been Alex or Yemisi that did this, I wouldn't have felt so betrayed or shocked. But you? How could you do this to me?"

David knew there was no way his mother would ever feel the same way about him anymore. Upon this harsh realization, the sensibility of the betrayal, tears streamed down his cheeks — despite the adverse satisfaction, even though he already knew he was betraying his mum from the moment he knocked at the door of that woman's house.

Watching his mother go through that much pain and shock just showed David how much of a waste he was, and the realization of what he already knew didn't make him hurt any less. David knew he was going to be invisible from thereon. David wasn't going to try to help anymore since all he'd done was cause havoc. Still, the pain didn't diminish.

The doctor stepped out of his office for the second time and asked them all to step into the room to have a view of Sindara's corpse. David's heart thrummed. Late Miss. Sindara. When they walked into the cold, monotonous room, David watched his mother intently as she rolled the blanket away to reveal Sindara's unmoving face.

He saw that his mother was still in a state of disbelief as she crouched next to the bed, clutching Sindara's immobile hand in hers. Still, he could spot fractions of a furious feeling in her eyes. Seeing the dried blood that smeared the left side of Sindara's face, the paleness of her cheeks, the chapped and lackluster tone of her lower lip was enough to infuriate his mother.

No mother desired to see her child in that state. And so David expected his mother to turn and fix her gaze on him. He was expecting her to yell and place a curse on him. As he stood still, his body felt dormant. The only thing that moved was the tears that fell down his eyes like a torrent of rain. His heart moved in a pattern that was not so rhythmic.

She should curse me any moment from now. I deserve it. Any moment from now. She will yell at me and blame me. Any moment...

She did turn. She shifted her gaze from Sindara's corpse and was now looking elsewhere. His heart pounded faster but dropped like a sac when he heard the words that proceeded from her lips:

"Maybe she's in a coma. She still looks so beautiful on this bed. Her hair is exactly the way I'd packed it this morning. Although her face is pale and has bloodstains, her body is still glowing. Dead bodies never look this neat. I'm sure Sindara will wake up and push the blanket away. I'm sure she will murmur about not wanting the blanket over her shoulders. I know she will, right?"

David's first impulse was to feel surprised that his mother hadn't turned to say a word to him. He wanted to feel shocked that his mother wasn't blaming, yelling, or cursing him. But those words... Those utterances of disbelief shattered David. His knees felt weak at that moment, and he'd even jerked backward to lean on the wall unconsciously.

His mother was in a state of intense pain because of him. With each manner that Folakemi expressed her shock, David didn't only feel indescribable sorrow. Strangely, he wanted to change the situation. David had initially wanted to cower, to sink into oblivion and invisibility because he'd caused a great deal of trouble. But now, he began to wish for the last chance to do something — so his mother wouldn't feel this hurt.

As he heard her ask the question, "What am I going to do now?" he personalized the question and internally asked himself repeatedly.

What are you going to do now, David?

The answer came, curt and brutal — in a way that was not so surprising: Nothing. There was nothing he could do.

Come on, David. He nudged himself forcefully above that brutal answer that came from his inner voice. There should be something you can do. You caused this. You betrayed your mum, knowing how she felt about the whole matter. You should be able to have a solution!

The pressure was birthed from the conflict within his soul. And so he closed his eyes, screwing them tightly shut. He was determined to find an answer as though the remnant of his usefulness depended on a solution he could create. Truthfully, it did.

Then, he remembered the dream he had while he slept on the armchair the previous day —The vision of the unknown hand that cooked a meal of poisonous jollof rice. Immediately he recollected the illusion, the image came back to his mind in motion, like a paused movie that was resuming from the second it had stopped.

David yelled in horror and got up from the couch. He tried to run away but could only get to the exit before his stomach started to rumble with great pain. David let out a cough too, and worms began to fall out. He screamed and screamed, trying to call for the faceless person to save him, but he got no response.

His stomach grew bigger and protruded with each second. More worms sprung out of his body and sucked on his skin till he could no longer see anything, darkness and void filling up the space because the worms had also feasted on his eyes.

Although David couldn't see now since his eyes had melted, his ear still functioned well. The worms hadn't begun to suck off the skin of his ears. So, he heard footsteps that were fast approaching. David deciphered that they were the footsteps of the faceless person.

She was coming to save him!

Soon, the footsteps stopped. David could now feel the presence of the owner of those footsteps. Afterward, he felt the unknown hand rest on his shoulder. Immediately the lady touched him, the darkness disappeared. He could see the walls of the living room — peacock blue and eucalyptus. His eyes were restored! He could see! Soon, the worms that feasted on different parts of his body vanished. The open bruises on the pores of his skin disappeared.

David stretched out his arms, gazing intensely with astonishment. The skin of his limbs was as clear as day. He touched his face, dabbling every part possible with his fingers. Nothing! With a bright smile on his face, he turned and saw the faceless woman walk towards Sindara, who the worms had nearly devoured.

The faceless woman touched Sindara, where she sat on the chair, and the same thing happened. David saw all the thousands of worms disappear. Her skin was shining in all of its melanated glory. No one was coughing anymore. The woman had saved them from dying from the effects of the poisonous meal.

They survived!

Slowly, David began to open his eyes, satisfied with the happy ending he'd given to that gory vision. With a slight smile on his face, he hoped to see the actualization of what he'd just visualized. David desired for that encompassing vision to be a befitting solution. Instead, he saw that his mother was absent, and there was a look of shock on the faces of everyone in the room.

What happened?

Then, the doctor cleared his throat and said:

"Unfortunately, I can't release the corpse since you all are minors. Mrs. Williams is the only suitable representative of the family, but she has left the hospital abruptly."

Abruptly? Where did she go?

Then it clicked. David's mother had gone to confront her enemy. A shiver ran down David's spine as he gazed at the lifeless form of his sister on the hospital bed. Nothing had changed. His mother was still aggrieved. David was useless and could amount to no good.

"Alright, doctor. Let's hope that mum comes back safely. Kids, let me drive you all home, " the radio repairer offered to Yemisi, David, Alex, and Demilade with concern laced in his voice.

***

The radio repairer arrived at their house by nighttime. NEPA had supplied the homes in the neighborhood with electricity. Hence the dark, void night sky was illuminated with speckles of light bulbs from various houses, giving the night sky a synthetic starry effect.

While the radio repairer drove past the houses by the neighborhood, David gazed out the window side into the streets, straining his eyes with hopes to find his mother on the road as the sun sank entirely below the western zenith, paving the way for darker clouds to envelop the sky.

When the radio repairer dropped Yemisi, Alex, Demilade, and David at their house, he hugged them. When he got to David, he gave him a consoling pat on the back before he stepped back into the driver's seat of his car and drove off to his house.

Inside, the living room smelled clean but looked a bit more clustered than usual and untidy. The curtains were still drawn to a close. The wire connecting the handset to the landline bounced off the switch hook, hanging below the dining table. The light bulb hanging from the living room's ceiling burned brightly.

Yemisi's eyes took in the surroundings as she moved her feet slowly — as though she were a stranger in her father's house. She touched the armchairs so delicately like never before. She was looking for signs, trying to feel the invisible — to decipher which chair Sindara had sat on precisely before she was taken to the hospital.

Her eyes roamed frantically around everything until they landed on the chair by the window side. She spotted a filthy pillow and an Ankara-patterned wrapper. Yemisi swallowed thickly on registering the fact that Sindara had been there. Then, she moved closer, wanting to feel the wrapper— for anything signaling Sindara— a faint scent, a strand of her hair... anything! But she stopped in her tracks when her eyes landed on a dot of dried blood on the floor. A few inches away from the bloodstain was an empty plate of jollof rice.

Yemisi fell on her knees and picked the plate up. She gazed at the ceramic for a long time — just like their mother had done. Then the plate fell from her hands loosely, shattering into solid pieces on the ground. Yemisi broke down into a fit of loud sobbing, her chest rising and falling. Blood dripped from her hands as a piece of the earthenware cut deeply into the side of her fingers.

Alexander and Demilade knelt beside Yemisi and wrapped their hands around her back, supporting and consoling her. Demi also seemed to be crying because her "sorry" came out in a soft, shaky tone. Alex, on the other hand, was trying to be strong but seemed to fail at it. From the side view, a tear had slipped down from his eye.

Their backs were all turned to David as he stood next to the wall, watching his family console one another from a feeling of sorrow he had caused. Once again, as he watched, unable to move or say a word of consolation, his invisibility was more real than never before.

The feeling of uselessness crept in again, and like the unwanted one, he ran into his room — the room he shared with Alexander, and he shut the door firmly. The door was not the only thing he closed. Every other thing — including Demilade's soft voice from a distance that repeatedly asked, "Is she really dead now?" could no longer be heard.

Once David was in the confines of his stuffy, dark room, he fell to the ground and started to pound his fists harshly against the floor. Engulfed deeply by anger, loud groans escaped his lips as his tears mixed with his sweat. It had been a very long day, and he'd been so tired. Hence, he couldn't decipher where that energy had come.

Perhaps it emanated from that tiny, gruff voice in his head that propelled him into a destructive mode.

You've ruined everything! Just continue to do what you are best at doing — destroy everything! Come on! Go ahead! You good-for-nothing bastard! Now you've killed your sister, and everyone is crying! Everyone is in pain, and it's all because of you! You don't even know where your mother is! If she dies, then you are the one who killed her!

The accusations repeated themselves in his head, and his anger increased with each passing second. That voice was so fitting that the truth it spoke angered him so much. It ate at his soul and destroyed every bit of normalcy left in him like venom from a viper. And so he turned on the light.

The first thing he saw was his school bag. He picked it up and flung it to the other side of the room forcefully. It was the new bag his mother had bought two days ago. Immediately, the contents in the bag poured out, books and pencils littering the ground. David began to throw and fling more things across the room, groaning, sobbing, and seething with regrets.

A few minutes later, the room was in total disarray and dilapidation — the wardrobes were empty, and clothes were scattered on the ground. A plastic cup that contained an unknown liquid mixture spilled to the floor. The pillow David shared with his brother had been wrecked — the foams splattered across the rooms like soft feathery objects.

And yet, David felt like he hadn't destroyed much. He was still furious and wanted to do more if it weren't for the door of his room opening abruptly. Breathing heavily, David turned. He saw the lean and suddenly mountainous figure of his father standing by the doorstep of the room.

A shiver ran down David's spine as his father's presence towered over him like the presence of a hailstorm that promised destruction. David looked up slowly and instantly regretted doing so. On his father's face was a wave of anger that robbed him of his stamina. Kelvin's gaze was steely, and his eyes narrowed in a fraction that could compete with a wielding saber — ready to kill. David wished he could sink into the earth.

But he'd wished too late. Now, Kelvin grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him out of his room. When David got to the living room, his father released his grip on his shirt and flung David to the ground.

David tried to find something to lean on for support. There was nothing, and so he fell face flat to the ground. Kelvin stooped low and pulled David up. This time he wrapped his hand around David's throat in a means to strangulate him.

David heard everyone gasp in reaction to Kelvin's outrageous display of anger. When he looked around, he saw his mother. She was back from where she went. Her eyes were swollen from excessive tears. She was also panicking, trying to stop Kelvin — as a means to defend David.

"I just came back from the hospital with your mother, and I saw the dead body of Sindara. You! You lied to me when I called you this afternoon! You told me everything was fine, but you killed my daughter!" he yelled.

For a split second, David felt the ground of the living room shake under the thunderous effect of his father's voice. But as soon as Kelvin's fists landed on his face, he was sure that the ground had shaken because it started to shake more often as Kelvin went ahead to beat the living daylights out of David.

Everyone panicked, gasped loudly, and tried to make Kelvin stop beating David so much. Folakemi was scared for her unborn child. Kelvin could quickly jab her in the stomach, so she cowered. Kelvin's display of anger was a sight that no one ever wished to see. Yet, David knew he deserved the beating.

So he let his father beat him, hoping he would sink into oblivion once his father was done. Minutes later, David felt like he was really going to die. His eyes, arms, and stomach felt too heavy and severely injured. He could barely use them. David rolled slightly on the ground, groaning and letting out short whimpers of pain. Then as he closed his eyes, ready for the cessation of his breath at any moment, he faintly heard his father's words:

"You are no longer my son! I am ashamed of you!"