Her bones did not just ache—they burned. A strange heat crawled through her chest, and her breath came in shallow gasps. She reached for her wrapper and wiped her forehead. It was soaked with sweat. Her tongue felt like sandpaper. Her lips were cracked. Her throat was dry as harmattan wind.
She tried to sit up beneath the bridge, but her head spun and the world blurred for a moment.
Still, she forced herself up.
“I have to hawk today,” she muttered. “No money, no food.”
She reached for her wheelbarrow.
It was empty.
She had sold her last banana the previous afternoon. There was nothing left.
She limped toward the edge of the bridge, her joints trembling beneath her. The street lights still flickered above like tired sentinels. Smoke from roasted corn drifted up from a nearby gutter, mixing with the sharp smell of urine and petrol.
She ignored it.
At the junction where she usually bought bananas to resell, the fruit trader, Madam Chika, noticed her stumbling in.
“Mama Bridge, your eyes are red. Are you okay?”
Sarah tried to smile. “I’m a little sick. Just give me small bananas. I’ll sell and bring your money later.”
Madam Chika hesitated, then shook her head. “Mama, your hands are shaking. You have a fever. Go and rest. No bananas today.”
Sarah’s lips quivered. Her legs buckled.
“Please,” she whispered. “I haven’t eaten since yesterday.”
Madam Chika sighed and reached into a cooler, pulling out a sachet of water. She handed it to Sarah.
“I know. I won’t give you bananas on credit, but take this. Go and buy medicine. You can die outside.”
Sarah took the water gratefully and drank every drop.
Her hands still trembled.
Her vision blurred.
She turned and began the slow walk toward the small chemist shop by the roadside.
It was not a proper pharmacy—just a wooden kiosk with faded drug posters peeling off the walls. A young man sat inside, earphones in, scrolling through his phone.
When Sarah arrived, she leaned against the wooden frame.
“My son, please. I have fever. My body is hot. I don’t have much money.”
The young man looked her over and rolled his eyes.
“Old woman, I’m not a doctor. I’m just an attendant.”
“Please, just give me anything. Small medicine. My head is spinning.”
He pointed at a shelf. “How much do you have?”
Sarah brought out a small black nylon bag and unwrapped it slowly. Inside was a bundle of crumpled notes—the last of her savings.
“900 naira. This is all I have.”
The boy sneered. “You’re burning with fever and this is what you brought?”
Still, he stood and brought out three small items—two sachets of paracetamol and a bitter herbal syrup for fever and body pain.
“This will help. But you’re not supposed to be walking around like this.”
Sarah nodded, barely able to speak.
“Thank you. God bless you.”
He did not reply.
She left the shop, clutching the small nylon bag like it held treasure.
But she had spent everything.
And she was still hungry.
Back under the bridge, Sarah took the medicine with another sachet of water, then lay down on a carton that served as her bed. She wrapped herself in her faded wrapper and prayed softly.
“God, I did not ask for a mansion. I did not ask for cars. Just strength. Just one more day.”
She coughed—a dry, rattling sound.
Her throat was sore.
Her eyes grew heavy.
As she drifted off to sleep, she dreamed of her son.
In the dream, she was back in the hospital—the one where they told her he had died. She remembered screaming, the nurses holding her down.
But in the dream, she saw him.
A baby wrapped in cloth, carried away by a woman in white.
She tried to run after him, but her legs would not move.
She woke up gasping, her heart pounding.
“Agu,” she whispered. “My Agu.”
Tears slipped down her face.
By late afternoon, the medicine had cooled her fever slightly, but not her hunger.
Her stomach growled, twisting in pain.
She had nothing left.
No bananas to sell.
No one to borrow from.
No strength to hawk.
No food to eat.
That night she listened to the city buzzing around her—the laughter of young girls nearby, the roar of passing cars, the voices of boys playing loud music under the bridge—and she closed her eyes.
If I die tonight, she thought, I hope someone buries me like a human being. I hope I get to see Agu just once.
But fate was not yet done.
It was only beginning to open a door.
A door that would turn Sarah’s pain into purpose and bring light to the darkest chapter of her life.
Because sometimes, just before the miracle, comes the breaking.
And Sarah was at her lowest.
But the highest was coming.
The next morning arrived without ceremony.
No rooster crowed. No warm sun greeted her.
Only hunger.
Sarah lay on her side beneath the concrete bridge, her body curled tightly like a child trying to disappear into itself. Her wrapper barely covered her trembling frame. The ache in her stomach had grown sharper.
It was not just hunger.
It was desperation.
The sachet water she had drunk the night before was long gone from her system. The paracetamol had dulled the fever, but there was nothing to take the edge off the gnawing pain in her belly.
She had no money.
No bananas to hawk.
No strength to work.
No one to turn to.
Still, Sarah sat up slowly, carefully. Her vision swam, her legs ached, but her spirit, though battered, refused to completely give up.
She looked around at the others under the bridge.
A group of teenage boys were playing cards, laughing and trading crude jokes. Two girls with heavy makeup were brushing their wigs.
Life moved on around her—loud, reckless, youthful.
But at sixty, Sarah had no such luxury.
She stood, adjusted her wrapper, and began walking.
It was not a destination she had planned for. Her feet simply moved on their own through the busy side streets of Enugu, past motorcyclists, food stalls, and schoolchildren in uniform.
She walked like a ghost among the living.
A man bumped into her and shouted, “Mama, watch where you’re going!”
She nodded weakly and kept going.
Minutes passed, then hours.
Her stomach howled.
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