When I saw the smoke, I was struck at once, my throat tightened and hurt. I couldn’t even swallow my own spit. I gripped the door with my shaky hands while my heart raced at 360°. All my thought was my child locked up in one of the rooms, and his cry that broke out as I arrived. I battled the door repeatedly for some time, and when it refused to open, I jumped around the house, slide the louvers, removed the net while the fire razed and the smoke became huge. I wasn’t afraid to die, but his muffling between the withering of the fire made my mind travelled fast.
I ran out for help; my phone was also locked up in the smoke in my baby’s room and the estate was silent as a grave. I moved like wind, banging gates upon gates.
“Fire, fire, “I screamed with all my might, ” Egbami, egbami, omo min tin jono”, (help, help, my child is burning), I shouted repeatedly and my weakened legs transported me to the estate gate where the two security men rushed at me and held my arms while I tried to tell them that my child mustn’t die in the fire.
“My child must not die,” I kept saying, but it seemed not enough. My eyes kept flowing hurt and I began to choke with my heavy heart in my hands. My brain limped and my body numbed. I lost my senses that the blaring of the fire service tank and the running of the fire service men were like a drama playing before me intermittently. My mind was far away and the last I remembered was my baby in my arms in a white room on a creaky bed.
