A story written by BukkyDan (blessing.ogundele@yahoo.com)…

Sasha pushed her last slice of apple into her already filled mouth. Fear clearly written on her face, the macho man with a full beard standing close to her was not helping matters.
It was the ‘Main-day’, a day to detrmine if she’s fit medically after spending close to a week with different doctors asking her questions and the normal routine of fixing some machine wires to her body parts.
Dr Krishna had told her earlier, that her last exercise would determine if she would be allowed to see her family. Her family? She couldn’t wait.

“eat up fast.” the man jolted her.

“Ye..yes.” Sasha kept the bowl she was holding.

The man simply nodded fixing some charts on the wall.
Sasha watched him, her heart beating furiously against her chest, she just hoped she won’t say anything that would make Dr Krishna confine her into that room for yet another week.

“Have you seen an elephant before?” the man asked picking up a notebook.

Sasha hesitated, she wanted to be sure.
“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded.

“Can you point at it?” the man gestured towards the numerous charts on the wall.

Sasha walked weakly from her bed to the charts, she pointed at it, praying she did the right thing.

The man nodded, scribbling down some notes. He looked up only give her a hard stare, Sasha’s knees trembled under her weight, what was she going to do to prove to these people that her memory was intact.

“Maybe you shouldn’t ask me that, cos I know all the animals in that chart.” she tried her best not to stutter.

“Hmm, do you know what your father looks like?”

“My father? That a dumb question!” Sasha sat back on the bed.
“Eerrrm…sorry..I meant to say I do.” she quickly apologised as the man gave ‘the look’

“Descibe him.” the man continued to scribble on his note.

Sasha sighed loudly, the man was truly trying her patience, all those questions just to prove she isn’t suffering from memory loss?
“My father…he is tall…he should be dark too…”she paused to make a mental note.
“Maybe if you stop staring at me, I’d be able to answer your questions correctly.” she added.

The man nodded looking away.

“Don’t you have a name? You don’t know how to smile?” she continued.

“My name is Karpov.” He replied.

He asked her some more questions, which she either replied politely or she added some sarcasm.

“You didn’t ask if I know how to sing?” she asked mockingly as he started to remove the charts.

“Whats your favourite colour?” he asked ignoring her question.

“Green.” she quipped.

He stopped moving, he gave her a suprise stare.

“Why the look?”

“Green? Thats quite odd.” the man noted picking his books and other things.

Sasha held her breathe.

“Dr Krishna would be here in a jiffy, have a nice day.” he walked briskly out of the room.

Sasha remained in her position even after Dr Krishna walked in.

“Hope it went well?” He asked with concern. He had become close to her over the days, she had told him all she could remember about herself, and he had told her all he learnt from her father.

“Do you think I’m odd? Like…my choices are odd?” she blurted out.

“No, why do you ask?”

“That bearded man said its odd for me to love green.” she sulked.

“Don’t mind that, its just a comment.” the doctor assured her.
“so are you gonna tell me now.” he sat on chair beside her.

“Tell you what?”

“About the nail, the nail found in your vomit.” He spoke in a calm voice, he wanted to know everything.

“I think I swallowed it by mistake.” she looked down.

“Did you tell your parents after you swallowed it?”

Sasha stole a glance at him, he wanted to extract the truth from her. She peered at her palms as memories came flooding back.

She was just a liitle girl of five then, she was alone in her new bedroom which was given her; after Cassandra threw her out of the room they both shared.
She developed interest in the silvery metal and pulled it off the wall, she played with it and it ended in her mouth.
She ran to her parents room in tears after she swallowed the nail, her mother sent her out of the room calling her a naughty girl not bothering to listen to her story. With tears she ran to her older siblings but they won’t listen to her ‘story’

To Be Continued….