The Earth will reject her.

Photo credit: Todd Thompson

God sees the truth but waits — — Tolstoy

An uneventful solemn morning.
The morning, unpredictable as it has always been in any hospital ward, was serene. Almost all the clients were relatively stable in their medical conditions except for Maria who had been having intermittent respiratory crisis.
Maria has full blown AIDS with both lungs severely incapacitated. The X-rays made the conspicuous revelation. A Consultation letter had been sent to the intensivist who could be arriving soon but her breathing difficulty kept worsening by the minute.
A glimpse of her social history.
Married to Dick 8 years ago but their matrimony hadn’t been blessed with a child yet. Dick was her second husband, 34 years old as at the time of their marriage. She was 5 years older than him. Maria had never told Dick that she was ever married and had lost her ex-husband, a military man to AIDS two years earlier before she met Dick. Her first marriage was a sordid reminder of a distance love as her husband was on and off peace-keeping missions. Perhaps, he had contracted the virus during his peace mission trips and transmitted to her.
Selfish-Interest.
All those years of blissful marital life with Dick did not motivate her to tell him the truth. Dick had been a good spouse to her and did not deserve the damage she had caused him. She prayed fervently to God for a miracle on her husband's dear life because she was not sure if Dick has picked the virus. Dick has been healthy and has not exhibited any manifestation of the retroviral disease. Now that her condition was unstable instability, she battled with her conscience about whether to tell Dick her long-held secret or take it with her to the grave.
Confession of a dying woman.
Maria divulged her secret to the Nurse before the arrival of the intensivist ‘ I have been through multiple hospitalizations but I can sense that i won't make it this time around. I want to die in peace. Tell him to forgive me. I cannot fling this secret to his face and watch him scream in pain. I don’t have that courage to do it’, she narrated in tears.
The woman died.
Maria died from respiratory failure barely before she was taken to the intensive care unit for mechanical ventilation. After the doctor confirmed her dead, her corpse was covered with white linen and transferred to the last office room.
Two hours later, Dick entered the ward with some grocery in a mauve polythene bag. He wished Maria would regain her strength after taking the energy drinks and nutrition beverages he had bought for her. On reaching the spot where Maria’s bed was, he found out that her bed was missing.
The new breed.
Dick hastened to the Nurses’ station to ask about Maria. The two Nurses there exchanged prophetic glances and then, one of them directed him to the charge Nurse who was the right person to divulge the news of the death of his beloved wife. He joined the Chief Nursing Officer in her office shortly after.
He smacked his lips from pain after hearing the sad news which turned out irritating for him as well. He murmured, walked out of the office and down the ward’s aisle and back again. Lots of thoughts pressed on from every direction. He was very furious and he convulsed like a volcano and broke down in a river of tears. ‘I am finished. How can Maria be this callous?’ he hissed like an irritated snake.
‘I understand your plight. I am here to listen and support you’ the empathic charge Nurse told him. Dick looked at her in a dangerous manner and said: ‘You do not understand, Nurse. HIV and secret are twins'. Dick declared an unending war on women. He was now a different vengeful breed who was ever ready to transfer his aggression on any woman that would come his way. He began to shout out loud: I am finished, now i have HIV. The she-devil gave it to me.
‘I understand your pain and every commitment and sacrifice that you have invested into the relationship. It is only a laboratory test that can confirm if you have the virus or not. If you permit us, we will book for you an appointment for a pretest counseling after which a HIV serum test would be conducted in the outpatient unit tomorrow. This way, you could be sure of your status’ she told him.
The lunatic in him.
Dick remained silent, calmer now but with a ridiculous indifference. Like a lunatic, he suddenly stood up, dashed out of the office and ran toward the last office room and began to attack Maria’s corpse with a pair of scissors that he had found on the trolley beside the last office trolley.
The two nurses attending to the corpse ran out of the haunted room with fear written all over their expressions and they began to raise alarm. The security men came, restrained and pulled Dick out of the room. He shouted at nobody in particular and broke down in tears and resumed shouting again.
‘Maria, the earth will reject you. You’ll never find peace. I’ll haunt you’, Dick cursed the dead woman who was once the love of his life and while she was being taken out of the ward for the mortuary.
All became eventful.
The once tranquil morning turned out to be eventful. The charge-Nurse and some of the other Nurses in the ward sobbed and this solemnity influenced some patients to cry too.
‘The world is a mystery and this is why it has continued to surprise everyone’, one of the patients spoke calmly. She could be well over 80 years old.
The unclaimed corpse.
Four months elapsed but no one was forth coming to claim Maria’s corpse. Treatment and mortuary bills remained unpaid. None of Maria’s relations could be traced. Dick has varnished into the thin mysterious air like the ghosts of ancient tales.
Investigations revealed that the dead woman had changed her identity long time ago without any form of legal documentation. No one knew her previous identity and the reason why she decided to have a hidden identity.
Dick was the only living relative Maria had and now he had disappeared without a trace. The urban authority had no other option than to dispose of Maria’s corpse. She would be buried in a public grave yard. Will the earth truly reject Maria?

Note
A true life story. To hide their true identities, the names used here are pseudonyms and do not relate to any person, dead or alive. Any semblance in the plotted characters are merely pure coincidence.
If you like this story, comment and read another of my interesting piece on bulb:https://www.bulbapp.io/p/dba165bf-8a49-41b7-b35e-17dafa947dd6/tribute-to-honey-bees
This piece was also featured on medium and could be accessed here: https://medium.com/@mikhailikpoma/the-earth-will-reject-her-760dabbe07a1