Drawing my last

PROLOGUE

'God is this it, never thought it will end this way', these denials unarticulated reverberated over and over again in Leke's mind. He could just barely see the nurses, chatting away in his peripheral vision, oblivious to his controlled panic and struggles, even as he labored to draw breath, the menace of a public ward in a public hospital in third world Nigeria. 'Maami' he managed to gasp, pupils dilating in a frantic search, but she was gone, taking a lunch break after days of silent fasts and vigils on the deathwatch by her son's bedside.

'God is this it', same thoughts unchanged running amok in his mind burning away any semblance of peace. 'Peace' that word he clung to a lifeline to a drowning man, as tear droplets rolled down his cheeks and excerpts from the holy book flashed through his mind; 'my peace I give to you'. 'I have made my peace with the inevitable, at least I thought I did', he soliloquized. But it's just so hard to let go. 'Peace not as the world giveth' he recalled as his short remarkable life played out across his mind, 22 years of living drawing last breadth, boundless potentials yet untapped going down the drain.

'Olaleke, Leke, Akanni Omooba' his mother called gently tapping his cold and clammy wrists, 'cold hands, cold wrists, cold neck', Leke was gone, departed on a journey with destination uncharted. Grief stricken, with tears streaming down her face as the doctor affirmed her worst fears, doses of reality extinguishing her embers of hope.

Olamileke,

Akanni iya abike (only begotten of a caring mother)

O digba (farewell)

P.s: some words are in my native dialect Yoruba