ROCKETS PART 2

PWACK, PWACK, PWACK!!!!!!!

Like thunder and honking and clapping all at once. I freeze for a couple of seconds, processing the situation and feeling my heart race. What kind of cough was that? It sounded so serious! It could be a COVID cough. But we are a tropical country. It can even be…what if it is…TB? Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no!

I fumble with the buckle of my bag. There must be a spare mask in there. God, help me. I am not financially stable enough to be on holiday while treating TB. I search all the pockets, and yet nothing. How can this be? How could I be so careless!

Goodness, have the germs reached me? Have they…

A worse hacking cough than the one I heard at first sounds right next to my ears.

KAK KAK KAK KAK KAK!!!!!!!!!!

I stop dead in my tracks and slowly turn to look at my neighbour. His hand is folded like a microphone in front of his mouth. There is a clear tunnel leading from his mouth, through that hand, to the taxi air. He glances unaffectedly at me, and looks back towards the front of the taxi.

His filthy hand knocks me as he reaches into his trouser pocket and pulls out some notes. He has change. 1k notes. Many of them. He starts to separate his fare, and I cannot look away. Look at all that disease money. Someone is leaving here with something they should not have. He puts the rest back in his pocket, knocking me again. I try to disappear. His presence just increases the more I attempt to become air.

He coughs a couple more times, and I am mortified beyond words. Rocket coughs, just like the first ones.

I am awash with germs.

I am swimming in germ river.

My vision blurs.

I am having a panic attack.

“STOP!” I yell at the driver. “STOP, STOP, STOP!”

I am trying not to breathe, but the classic manifestation of panic is the rapid breathing. My whole body is shaking. My skin is crawling, like a thousand ants are on a great trek to send me into a crazy fit. I cannot stop brushing them off.

“Nyabo, we have stopped. Tovaamu?” Aren’t you getting out?

I nod furiously as I jump out of the taxi. I try to open my bag, but my fingers are shaking so badly. I’m afraid I might have a seizure right here on the road. I need to get off the road.

I run.

Angry cries and filthy words fill the air from that tiny conductor boy-man, but I don’t care about this. I need to calm down and breathe so I can go…go to work. Go to work? Will I be able to go to work today?

I need to take a soda.

No, I need to bathe.

I pull off my scarf and sweater and start running back the way I came. It’s drizzling, but I don’t care. This is not enough to cleanse. I need to bathe in soap and water and alcohol. That’s the only way I can be sure-

“Rita!”

I am stopped in my tracks by the voice right in front of me. I had been so fixated on the ground that seeing this person I have known and despised for so many years gives me a new type of panic.

“Lydia,” I whisper under my breath.

She looks really put together this rainy morning, hair all neat in new Darling braids, nails so red and shiny, an umbrella covering her. A nice, strong, black umbrella. She is steeped in that nice, formal Monday gorgeousness.

“Cousin! Banange long time! Nga I’ve taken so long without seeing you! The other day, Auntie said that you were…” she pauses and her face scrunches like the scrunchie holding her braids. “Are you OK?”

My voice is stammering; my hands are rubbing everywhere. I am out of control. My body is doing things that I have no knowledge about. Right here, in front of Lydia. Lydia Loose-mouth. Lugambo Lydia. Lydia, the Family Megaphone. The one who told everyone at home back when I was in secondary school that I was acting strange and they took me to Butabika. That Lydia. The one that started a “crazy” reputation for me within the family. That…worm.

Meanwhile, the germs be multiplying.

“When did you leave the hospital?” she demands.

Nervous laugh.

“What?” I look everywhere but at her eyes. “I don’t…I …”

How do I leave? Just leave!

I step past her and flee.

I am acting strange. Stop acting strange! None of my family members know that I am out. Wouldn’t it be worse to be dragged back to a mental hospital, carrying death germs?