Eight Days To Live

One: I'm a junior staff

"Your office means business," her husband said.

"They do," the woman responded, not displaying any emotions. She also brought out a sealed white envelope addressed in print to Onyekachi Adelabu. She placed it on the table.

"What is it?" her husband asked, noticing the odd look on her face, but not the envelope she had brought out.

"They gave us these supplies of protective gears to manage."

"To manage?" He scrunched his eyebrows so tight, they almost touched. "I don't think I understand."

The woman exhaled. She didn't know how to share the news with him. Just a few days ago, he had been laid off because the factory where he worked had been closed. At first, they had been asked to work in shifts, then government officials stormed the facility and shut it down. Eighty per cent of the products that had been produced were set aside for distribution, while the other twenty per cent were given to some staff members to manage... to those who were going to be laid off to reduce operational, overhead, and staff costs. Her husband was one of the deadweights to be let go of.

He looked at his wife, who was yet to respond, then added, "Kachi, I truly don't understand what you're saying."

"The same way you were given cartons of juice, water, and other products to manage."

"What?" The man flared, as his eyeballs widened in their sockets. "Those idiots let you go? Do they not understand the work that you're doing?"

"I'm a junior staff."

Kachi eyed the envelope on the table, and that was when her husband noticed it, then looked up at her.

"But the junior lab assistants do all the work. Don't the management know that? They need all hands on deck to find a cure for this devastating coronavirus yet they fire hard workers. We are finished in this country."

"Calm down, Dele."

"Calm down?" The man forced a smile, albeit sarcastic. "I don't know how you can be calm knowing that they have retained senior staff to work, who don't know how to do anything."

"You ask if the management does not know that the junior staff does all the work. Yes, they do, but it's like asking them to fire themselves, then let the supposedly real workers work. It's not going to happen," Kachi argued. "Let them do the work. At this time, they will be forced to justify all the huge salaries they've been receiving. They have no other option than to work."

Dele was silent.

Kachi continued nonetheless, "The main issue, though, is with the pay. They can't afford to keep staff and still fund research and supplies. The operational costs at this time have tripled, as everything else has tripled in the market, strangely, due to the coronavirus. It's baffling. But the government is also channelling a lot of funds to hospitals because the doctors and nurses are needed to shoulder the outbreak. We, at the labs, normally work backstage. You know that already. And this is the time for doctors and nurses, not lab workers."

"Look, I trust you more than anyone in the world," Dele finally spoke. "You deserve to be there. You deserve to help out and find an anti-virus. This is not a joke."

Before Kachi could respond, murmurs were heard at one corner of the sitting room. Both Kachi and Dele turned to the source and saw their kids peeping through a door, leading to a room that wasn't theirs. It was Kachi and Dele's room, but they never for once complained when the kids went in there.

"Won't you come and welcome me?" Kachi called, and all three kids ran in, almost falling over each other.

"Mummy, what did you buy?" the oldest asked, and the others repeated.

"Something," she lied. "But since none of you welcomed me when I returned, I will give it to your daddy."

"Ohhhh," all three protested in unison.

"But mummy, we didn't know it was you at the door," the oldest, and by virtue of his birthright, the mouthpiece of the group, said.

"I said it was 'me'."

"But daddy said if they don't say their name, don't open the door."

Kachi turned to her husband, and cheekily asked, "Daddy, is it true?"

Dele didn't respond. He was absentminded and long gone in his thoughts. Her termination had hit him harder than she imagined. Between the two of them, brilliant workers, without any influence or connection in high places, after many years of work, their monthly take-home combined was not up to the meagre sum of two-hundred and fifty thousand naira. It was just enough for them to live by each month after setting aside funds for feeding, utilities, supplies, medical bills for the children; as the health plan of both parents didn't include the children, trimestral school fees for three, savings to buy a car and move into a bigger flat.

They lived in a two-bedroom flat, the same one since they got married nine years ago. It had been like a mansion to them when they were just two, but with three kids in the package, the place seemed cramped up and prices of bigger flats were commensurate with the word "big." And now, in this period of uncertainty, they had to put all their desires aside.

But Dele's present distraction was not linked to money, want, lack, or how they would stock up their storage at least for the next two months, it was because he feared what would become of his family, the country, and the world if nothing could be done about the virus. He stood up.

Kachi's eyes stood up with him. "Dele?" she called.

He snatched the sealed envelope from the table and headed to the door.

"Dele?"

He forced his feet, one after the other, into his knockabout shoes that sat permanently by the front door.

"Dele? What are you doing?"

He opened the door.

She stood up, and yelled, "Dele!"

The door slammed shut in response.