In this too much School

We learnt how to flash aged feces with a liter of water. The trick was in the angle of the bucket. You didn’t need force, only precision, and a liter of water could carry away any amount of feces leaving you with brown-yellow-green residual, depending on what kind of food produced the flashed shit.

“This school is too much, why?”

From behind our window he screamed I was more frighten than the day the doctor had to part my tights in insert cold instruments there. It was more frightening than when I thought that maybe, a part of the creature was still stuck inside me, maybe an eye, or a limb, I wasn’t sure but it felt like not everything came out. There was something remaining in my stomach, for I was sure it wasn't still in my womb, maybe it fell outside the womb onto some other organ, at least in my mind there was something remaining. A week after after not being able to feel that my body was all mine. I went to the doctor.

“Can I see what you took out?” I asked.

It had been discarded that same day. Now I would ever know. The doctor wrote down a number on a prescription form. Go and see Dr. Nkansa, she will help you.

“Why?”

“Just someone to talk to, she is one of Ghana’s finest psychologists, go talk to her, okay? Tell her i asked you to come.”

“I am not crazy, I am perfectly fine, I just wanted to be sure your removed everything. I feel there is … never mind, you think I’m crazy.”

I left the prescription form on his table and turned to the door.

“Do you go to church?” he asked.

“ yes, once a year, on the 31st night vigil, I love the candles, my family is catholic.”

“ok,” he said.

He took another prescription form and wrote a number on it. Here is the number for Father Amuzu, he is both a Father and a psychologist, he is a very friendly and he isn’t based at the Legon hospital, you said the other time that you didn’t like hospitals. He has an office in the Mensah Sarbah Hall on campus, so you don’t have to go to a hospital. Take both numbers and use whichever you prefer but use one. And listen, I took everything out, it’s not like it was shredded, I took it out whole, you have nothing to worry about.”

I left the consultation room with a nod. And then I came back and said thank you. He only smiled. Nobody knew what I had done and nobody knew what had happened to me four months ago.

“This school is too much, why?”

I didn’t have to see him to know it was him. I caught an immediate fever and begun to bleed, I could smell the blood from down my vagina.

“This school is too much, why?”

My roommates stopped talking about the last person who went to the toilet and didn’t flash right. One of them was upset.

"the person didn’t even fill the one liter cook bottle with water for the next person to use."

They went to the window to watch him. They hadn’t noticed I had caught a fever. The lights were off and they had always said that I whispered in my sleep. I was crying and mumbling something, I think “stop.” They must have taken my sobs for whispers.

“This school is too much, why?”

He used to be a student in the zoology department. He got crazy while trying to cram for his final exams in 2004, and he has been living on campus ever since. Others say one of his cousins texted him about the sudden death of his mum while he was on his way to a beach party. He started talking to himself and to no one else. Nobody knows the true story. Sometimes you don’t see him on campus; no one knows where he goes. Then he appears noisy all through the night. He has been captured and sent to Accra psychiatry many times. Campus is where he wants to be. One of the girls put the light on.

“ei, what is wrong with her? She is shivering, bring water”

“Get a taxi,” another girl said.

“where are we going to get a taxi by this time.”

“We need to take her to the hospital. If she dies in this room, I can’t stay here anymore.”

“God forbid! how can you say something like that? I’m sure it’s just malaria. Don’t you have a friend who has a car on campus?

“Keep the towel on her head”

“She is bleeding.”

“ei maybe she has internal bleeding”

“Internal bleeding doesn’t show on the outside”

“oh I hear that sometimes, it does wai, my aunty died of internal bleeding after she had a car accident and thought she was fine so didn’t go to the hospital.”

“She hasn’t had an accident, she has been in the room most of today”

“you guys, we need to take her to the hospital.”

No one spoke to me or tried to find out what was happening to me by asking me. It was all speculations. One of the girls who climbed up her bed to pray, was convinced I was under a spiritual attack. It wasn’t that I could have answered if they had asked me anything, perhaps they knew this. I don’t know how it happened but I woke up in the morning at Legon hospital under drips. There was nobody in the room. There was on empty bed on my right. I tried to get up, I wasn’t ill, I was just afraid. I need to get back to my room, but first I needed to figure out how to pull the needles that connected with the drips out of my skin. I carried the drips with me and tried to walk out the door.

“This school is too much, why?”

He followed me? I caught a fever again and fell head outside the door, feet in the room. I didn’t blackout, I was just too afraid to be able to stand on my feet. Five security men, carried him pass my door.

“This school is too much, why? This school is too much, why? This school is too much, why?”

A nurse, walked pass me to him.

“call Dr. Nkansa?, he needs a tranquilizer, officers put him on the bench and nurse Grace, the student they brought last night is lying out her room, see what’s happening with her…”

She saw me? ‘This school is too much, why?’ was all that was left to ring in my head. Nurse Grace came at me angry.

“where did you think, you were going, why are you students so troublesome, one person has smoked wee and he is crazy, you too what is wrong with you heh? There is no child in Ghana anymore; all of you instead of studying are walking around with adult worries.”

She tried to lift me up, I was too heavy for the tiny nurse. She called the security men to help her. I couldn’t believe the same hands that had touched the mad man was going to touch me.

“No No No.”

“No, what?”

“please leave me alone”

“you want to sleep on the floor?, please officers, carry her for me”

Two of the men lifted me off the floor onto the bed and left the room. The nurse took my temperature and looked for something under my eyes. I don’t know if she found what she was looking for but she wrote something down on a card.

“Are you in pain?”

I ignored her question, turning to the empty bed on my right. She pressed my abdomen and watched my face carefully. My face was blank.

“Do you have a headache?”

The officers walked into my room carrying the mad man, he was now quiet, almost asleep.

“No, you can’t put him here” I said.

The officers turned to look at me and then at the nurse.

“Please put him down, he has been tranquilized, he will fall asleep very soon, you would have to take him to Accra Psychiatry after eight hours.”

“Auntie Nurse, can’t the hospital transfer him? It is not our job to do that ooo, we are security men on campus and he was disturbing some students so we brought him here, please, we can’t do anything more.”

“oh my God what is wrong with you?”

The nurse asked trying to turn me over to check where the blood was coming from. I was bleeding again.