QUARANTINE LOVE
Quarantine Love – Episode 2
©Kayode Odusanya
The place was longer than his mom had made him believe. They had been walking for five minutes now and still hadn’t gotten there. Toluwani was leading the way; her natural afro hair was packed to the back, and it bounced as she hopped along on the sidewalk. At a point she started stepping on David’s shadow on and laughing. He concentrated on his shadow for a minute, and realized he had actually lost weight. He had lost some muscle mass in the last couple of weeks, but he still would be considered a buff.
Every once in a while, a vehicle would drive by, but the whole estate was generally serene, with well tended small palm trees occupying the length of the road median, spaced at about 6 feet from each other. Their gated community was a big one, with lots of streets and cul-de-sacs. One major road ran through the entire length of the estate, with streets, crescents and cul-de-sacs branching off the left and right sides of the road like tributaries of a river. It was almost like trying to make your way out of a maze. He had started sweating a lot and his body shook. He just hoped he would know his way back home.
Toluwani had been talking nonstop since they left the house. It was typical of her, and he just nodded or responded with ‘uh-huh’ to most of what she said. All of a sudden, she stopped talking and looked up at him in silence. “What?” He asked.
“I asked if we would die if we get the Corona virus and you said yes.”
“Oh. Well. Don’t worry, we won’t get it.” He said, shocked his sister knew the concept of death. She was five years old and used voice command on their mom’s phone to search Google whenever she had heard a word or concept she didn’t understand. But he still saw her as the little girl that was just learning how to talk when their parents separated.
“Are you sure?” She asked and slowed down her pace to hold his hand.
“Yes. No one in our state has it. And everyone is more or less on quarantine right now.”
“Qua…”She was trying to pronounce it and looked up at him when she gave up.
“Quarantine; It means, everyone stays indoors to help reduce the spread of an infectious disease.”
She was quiet for a while before looking up at him and saying, “But we are not in our house.”
“Don’t worry Toluwani, we are one big happy family in this estate. As long as we are not in a big gathering, we are safe.” David was getting dizzy now. “Is your friend’s house still far?”
“That’s it.” She said, pointing at a big black gate a few houses away from them. She wiggled out of his hold and ran off towards the gate. He walked up to join her by the gate and smiled as she banged on it with her little knuckle. “Kehlani,” she shouted out in her tiny voice. A man opened the gate, with an angry look on his face, looking down at Toluwani. He changed his facial expression to a forced smile when he saw David. He was skinny, average height, dark complexioned, in his thirties and had a waistcoat on with nothing underneath.
“Good afternoon. My sister is here to see…” David was saying to the man and stopped to look at his little sister.
“Kehlani” Toluwani said, completing David’s sentence for him with a big smile on her face.
“Okay. Wait, I dey come,” The man said in broken English, and closed the gate gently. David listened to the man’s footstep walk away, hoping he won’t take too much time before returning as he was feeling worse now. He felt like he would pass out at any minute. A few seconds later, they heard footsteps approaching. The man opened the gate to say Toluwani could go in. She hopped in and ran to the entrance of the big white house. David nodded at the man, and as he turned around to head home, everything went blank.
“Hey! Hey!!” The gate-man said out loud as David slumped, hit the ground hard, and passed out.
