The foreigner walked into Rock of Ages Medical Center on a fateful hot afternoon in July, wearing a white agbada and shiny black palm slippers. His left shoulder bore the weight of an old, yellow guitar. He must have walked a long distance for his first request to the receptionist was if she'd be so kind to help him with a glass of chilled water, which he swallowed in one gulp. He looked around as though convincing himself of the suitability of the place.
“No, he was not sick; not like your kind of sickness anyway; hahahahhahahaha.”
“No, he was not here to see any patient.”
Matilda, the beautiful, middle-aged lady manning the front desk quickly lost interest. She moved on to the lady behind him. The foreigner walked straight down the corridor and took a left turn. The label on the door facing him read; "Consulting room 1." Directly opposite him was an open, square shaped field housing the Storex tank that supplied the hospital with borehole water. Some nice-smelling flowers grew there as well. To the extreme right, two rooms labelled "Female ward 1" and "Female ward 2" stood. Next to ward 2, a narrow walkway led to the male section. The foreigner smiled. It seemed he had found what he wanted.
He matched into the flower bed.
He struck a chord on his guitar.
Anita Ekundayo; deaf from birth in both ears was in the nursing station simultaneously talking down her husband and getting an ugly bruise under her elbow dressed up, when as she calls it, "the apocalypse" began. “Nurse Grace not only stopped responding but she carefully put the wet swab and scissors back inside the tray and matched out arms akimbo like a bewitched clay statue.”
“I shouted at her; you know how loud I get when I am talking so you can imagine but she couldn't hear nothing. I even tried to drag her back before she joined them but she did not budge at all.”
“Them?”
“Yes ke. All the patients from female wards, male wards, the ones in the consulting room, the people at the reception; the ones that came to visit their family and friends, even Dr Ogedengbe. I have never ever seen that kind of witchcraft before o.”
She quickly drew a circle around her head with her thumb and middle finger, before spitting at her left side. “All of them gathered around him inside the verandah.”
The foreigner regarded his disciples. They watched him in a frenzy. Unsatisfied, he struck another chord with an evil grin.
Waves of happiness coursed through the veins of the lost souls. It felt as though all that they desired had become a part of them. They shivered in the heat; cheeks flushed red, skin goose pimpled, happy beyond all imaginable limits. Like zombies in need of human nourishment, they gawked at him, wishing and willing him to play, begging with their eyes, their tongues lacking the power to form words.
The matron and Nurse Vivian who never saw eye to eye, held hands and wept in joyful bliss. Two ward orderlies kissed like their lives depended on it. They felt nothing as they bit off and chewed pieces of lip and tongue. The mortician wept profusely until he turned red. It was quite a sight to watch the old, bent man wail while making a solemn vow to release every single body in the morgue. Dr. Ogedengbe and a student nurse took off their clothes and started making love right there on the floor.
Thee foreigner held out his guitar to be worshipped. They all lined up to kiss and cradle it and Mr. Bayo; the gateman who stood at the end of the line, wriggled his thumbs; to show how impatient he was.
The foreigner stated at the gathering before him again and struck a chord. Then, he walked out of the building. His disciples came filing out behind him with their hands by their sides and their necks seemingly unable to support the weights of their drooping heads.
About ten kilometers from the gate of the hospital, a deep ditch had been dug by the road reconstruction company. The foreigner stopped here and struck another chord causing everybody in the street-standing, sitting, walking, driving, riding or running- to fall to the ground and embrace the scorching earth with overwhelming affection.
Yet again, the foreigner struck a chord and the first patient; Adedayo Bankole who'd had his appendix removed that morning, jumped. Next was Mrs. Ladipo with the bleeding peptic ulcer. Turn by turn, all the patients jumped until only the foreigner was left.
The foreigner then rested against the rampart, played high notes for almost five minutes, laid down his guitar and jumped.
As dawn arose the next day and the thick fog around the hospital perimeter cleared miraculously, not a single body could be found.