It was a fine Thursday evening. Ambali and his wife were in their living room, delighting in their cosy companionship.
“Love life, enjoy it fully, and learn to accept your limits as a mortal,” Ambali said.
His wife smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “Philosopher… You should have studied philosophy, not agronomy.”
Ambali guffawed. “Don’t you know there is philosophy in everything?”
His phone started ringing just as the NTA 6 p.m. news was about to start. He leaned over the centre table and grabbed the sleek device.
He smiled and turned to his wife. “It’s your daughter.”
The woman grinned. “See you… Is she not your daughter as well?”
She returned her eyes to the TV.
“Hello,” came a firm, manly voice from the other end of the line.
Ambali gaped. “Yes, hello. Hello—”
“The owner of this phone, we’re looking for her relatives.”
“Yes, yes. I’m her father. Who are you, please?”
“We need you to come to Specialists Hospital.”
Ambali stood up like he had just sat on a burning coal. The phone fell from his ear.
His wife rose, too. “What’s wrong?”
He picked up the phone and pressed it to his ear. “Hosp— hosp— hospital? Which hospital?”
The caller had already hung up.
He darted through the door, but turned back and rushed to the bedroom.
His wife ran after him. “Who’s in the hospital?”
“Our daughter,” Ambali replied, fumbling in the pocket of the kaftan hanging on the wardrobe’s door.
“Our daughter? But she just called you.”
“No, no. Someone used her phone to call.”
Ambali grabbed his car key and ran outside.
His wife followed.
…
Ambali pulled into the hospital parking area and hurried towards the Accident and Emergency Unit. When he saw a nurse in the corridor, he stopped in front of her.
“Ma, ma. I’m Yusrah’s father. I got a call to come to the hospital”
His wife drew close to them.
The nurse stared into space. “Yusrah… Yusrah…” She shook her head. “Is she among the people involved in the accident at Crescent Bridge?”
Ambali shuddered. The breath in his throat cut. His wife started shivering.
“Accident? I… I don’t know. The caller just said I should come to this hospital.”
Just then, the nurse saw a doctor, hurried after him, and asked if he was coming from the Emergency Unit.
“These people are asking after someone named Yusrah,” the nurse said.
The doctor glanced at the couple. “Are you the girl’s parents?”
Ambali’s eyes widened. His wife held her chest.
“Yes,” they answered in unison.
“Come with me,” the doctor said, leading the way.
…
Inside the ward, the doctor stopped at a bed.
“Here she is,” he pointed at a girl.
A teenage girl with a bandaged head, legs, and hands lay stretched out on a bed, her eyes shut, her groans filling the air.
Ambali’s shoulders dropped. He stared at the girl closely, then turned to his wife. The woman’s brow furrowed. They shook their heads.
“There is a mix-up. This is not Yusrah,” his wife said, a sob escaping her shivering lips.
Ambali turned to the doctor. “That’s not our daughter. Maybe she has been taken to another ward.”
“All the accident victims are here.” The doctor pointed at a middle-aged man lying on the bed beside him. “This is even one of them.”
“But that’s not Yusrah,” Ambali’s wife pressed.
The doctor took a deep breath, looking around like something was amiss in the ward.
“Doctor, where is the phone you called me with?” Ambali demanded.
“The girl was brought in unconscious,” the doctor answered. “We went through the call log on her phone and saw your number.”
The doctor told the nurse to bring the phone retrieved from the bandaged girl’s bag.
Ambali swallowed hard.
The nurse returned with a brown bag and handed it to the doctor.
“This is it,” the doctor said, holding out a phone to Ambali.
Ambali examined the phone, turning it this way and that. “This— this is Yusrah’s phone.”
His wife snatched the phone from him. “This is her phone. How did it get here?”
Ambali threw his hands apart, breathing deeply.
“Call your daughter’s line,” the doctor suggested.
Ambali brought out his phone and dialled his daughter’s number. The phone in his wife’s hand started ringing. On the screen was a photo of them from their twenty-fourth wedding anniversary.
They looked at themselves, then at the ringing phone. His wife started crying.
“What’s going on?” the doctor asked.
“How did this phone get here?” Ambali demanded.
“The police found it in the girl’s bag at the accident scene,” the doctor answered, hoisting the handbag.
Ambali grabbed the bag and peered into it. None of the items inside was his daughter’s.
They stood in silence.
“Sir, where is your daughter supposed to be?”
“School,” he stammered. “She— she should be in her school in Jos.”
“Was she on the road coming home?” the doctor asked. “The manifest says all the passengers in the car were travelling to Lafia.”
“No, no,” Ambali said, turning to his wife.
The woman nodded, wiping her wet face with the sleeve of her shirt..
The doctor sighed. He pointed at the bandaged girl. “The phone was found in that girl’s bag. We would like to keep it.”
Ambali’s wife reluctantly handed the phone to the doctor.
The couple stared at the bandaged girl and headed towards the door.
…
When they arrived home, they found their front door open. They hurried inside, scanning the rooms, but everything was intact.
“Thank God,” Ambali sighed. “We forgot to lock the door.”
He sat beside his wife on the couch. He stared at the wall, lost in thought. He wasn’t sure they were expecting Yusrah today. Their school was still in session. But how come her phone was found in someone else’s bag?
He reached for his phone and dialled his daughter’s phone number. When the nurse at the hospital answered, he hung up. He rose and paced the room. He stood in front of the wall clock, watching the second hand move.
He turned and went back to the couch. He sat beside his wife again and began to pray with a sob. He prayed to Allah to protect his daughter, the only child they had. Done with praying, he wrapped his arm around his wife’s shoulder.
She had been hypertensive since the death of their second child. It had taken months of treatment to stabilise her.
“Yusrah is fine wherever she is,” he exhaled.
She nodded, leaned into him, trembling slightly.
…
In bed, Ambali wife lay beside, sleeping. He tossed and tossed, and when sleep finally came, it was a nightmare.
He woke in the middle of the night, sat up, and stared into the darkness. Everywhere was quiet, save for his irregular breathing, the chirping of insects and the hooting of an owl.
The dream returned — his sisters and other relatives wrapping a body in a white cloth. Mourners performing ablutions outside. Others waiting for the funeral prayer.
What does this dream mean? he pondered. A hooting owl…
He got up slowly and went into the toilet. Inside, he stood, backing the door. He broke into a loud sob, staring at the ceiling.
“Allah, for the sake of my wife, bring this girl back safely to us.” He sniffled. “We’ve lost three children already. Even when my family turned her into an object of mockery, calling her names for not bringing forth a child, she remained faithful, believing that you have a special plan for her. Bring back Yusrah to us.”
His wife woke and didn’t find him in bed. When she found him crying in the toilet, she broke down in tears and hugged him.
…
Ambali was standing in the middle of the living room, early the next morning, when he heard a knock on the door. With slightly shaking hands, he opened the door. A tall, dark-skinned man, in a blue long-sleeved shirt over black jeans, stood outside.
“Is this Mr Ambali’s house?”
“Yes, yes.”
Ambali’s wife came fumbling with her head tie.
“You’re needed at the police station, sir.”
“Station?” Then, he remembered his daughter and their experience at the hospital. “Okay. Let’s go.”
…
As Ambali drove out of the compound, the steering wheel felt slick in his palms. He wiped his hands on his trousers and gripped it again. The road ahead blurred for a moment, causing him to blink.
Lost in thought, his lips began to move without sound. “Hasbunallahu wani‘imal wakil…”
The words steadied him slightly, but his knee kept knocking against the dashboard.
At the police station, the tall black man led the couple to an office. A plump, fair-skinned ASP looked up from the book before him when they entered.
The tall man saluted. “They are here, sir.”
The ASP beckoned the couple to sit. Ambali sank into the seat. His wife sat on the wooden bench by the window.
“We’ve found something that we think is connected to you,” the ASP started.
Ambali and his wife stood up at the same time.
“Sit down, please,” the ASP pleaded.
The couple sank back into their seats. They spoke to the police boss for a few minutes about the situation of their daughter and their experience in the hospital.
The ASP shifted in his seat and shouted, “Bitrus! Bitrus!”
When another officer entered the office, the ASP said, “Bring that thing.”
What thing? Ambali wondered.
The officer returned and handed a small bag to the ASP.
The police boss informed the couple that a hospital alerted them of some accident victims, and a student’s identification card, bearing the address of their house, was found on one of the victims.
Ambali and his wife rose again with a greater force.
“You said your daughter is schooling in Jos?”
Ambali and his wife nodded in unison.
The ASP scratched his head. He raised the bag and said, “We found this on her.”
We don’t know Yusrah with this bag, Ambali exhaled.
The ASP fumbled in the bag and brought out an ID card and an ATM card, and said, “Yusrah Ambali Ahmad.”
Ambali rose. “That— that’s her name.”
His wife rose too, shivering.
“Let’s not conclude yet,” the ASP said.
The couple stared at each other and broke into tears.
The ASP rose. “Let’s go to the hospital.”
Ambali’s chest tightened. His wife held on to his shirt, trembling.
…
The police Hilux van led the way, with Ambali and his wife following in their own car.
The van drove to the far end of the hospital and stopped in front of a building labelled Mortuary.
The ASP spoke with a limping, middle-aged man. After a few exchanges, the man led them into the building. Ambali’s wife wanted to pull her husband back at the entrance, but changed her mind.
The mortuary attendant pulled a white coat off a nail by the door and fetched a pair of gloves. He led them to the refrigerated unit. He held the handle of the steel tray drawer and pulled.
Ambali’s wife’s legs wobbled. She collapsed when the man took off the white sheet covering the lifeless body.
Ambali looked at his daughter’s body — at the diagonal mark on her left cheek, the open gash on her forehead, her broken collar bone, and the cotton wool in her nose. Then, he looked at his wife as the police officers struggled to lift her off the floor.
The attendant covered the body and slid the tray back, the metallic sound echoing in Ambali’s head. He stood there, turning this way and that.
The ASP tapped him on the shoulder. “Sir, we need to go.”
Ambali nodded but didn’t move.
“Sir?”
He looked at his wife, still on the floor, two officers still trying to help her to her feet, but her legs kept buckling. She was making a low, continuous animal sound he had never heard before. He watched as if from a great distance.
“Let’s carry madam into the hospital,” one of the officers said, panting.
The heavy, urgent steps out of the morgue were a blur. The woman’s body, supported by the officers on both sides, was rigid, her mouth working soundlessly. Outside, she tried to raise her head, but her left leg wouldn’t hold her weight. She crumpled against one of the officers.
Nurses came running with a wheelchair. They took her vitals right there.
“BP is 210 over 140,” one of the nurses shouted.
A doctor appeared and asked Ambali’s wife to squeeze her fingers. Her right hand squeezed weakly. Her left hand didn’t move.
“Stroke,” the doctor said. “Get her to the ICU now.”
Ambali stood frozen as they wheeled her away, her head lolling to one side. A nurse guided him to a plastic chair in the waiting area.
His phone rang. It was his sister, Halima. He managed to explain what was happening.
When Halima and his cousin, Ibrahim, arrived, Ambali was still in the same chair, staring at the floor tiles. They spoke briefly amid tears and sobs.
“Brother,” Halima knelt before Ambali, taking his hands. “We need to make arrangements for Yusrah to be taken home.”
He nodded.
…
Yusrah had sat beside the bandaged girl in the hospital in the back of the car they were travelling in. The girl, a student in another school, was also going home for a break.
Soon, they started talking and discovered that they lived in the same neighbourhood back home. Their conversation shifted to movies, and the girl was excited to find out that Yusrah loved Indian movies, like she did. She collected Yusrah’s phone to see her movie collections.
“Wow! Felubakshi? I love this movie!” the girl exclaimed.
Yusrah smiled. “I’ve fine movies. Keep scrolling. You’ll see them.”
The middle-aged woman sitting beside them found their chatter disturbing and let out a long hiss.
The girls kept talking. Midway through their conversation, the girl realised that she was only talking to herself. When she turned, Yusrah’s head was tilted to the side, her eyes shut.
When the girl tapped Yusrah on the hip, she startled awake.
“Sorry. I dozed off.”
The girl smiled and continued her scrolling. “You have Mayanagar? And Girgiti? Wow!”
Yusrah went back to sleep after a short while.
Done transferring the movies to her phone, the girl shoved both phones into her bag, afraid they would fall off if she placed them on her lap.
She was looking at two goats tied to the roof of a moving car when she heard a loud bang. Their vehicle hit the back of a moving trailer and tumbled over to the roadside. Men of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) on patrol, half a kilometre away, responded promptly.
As Yusrah and other victims were evacuated to the hospital in the city, they ran into another accident scene. Another car had fallen into a ditch by a sharp bend. With the FRSC van filled, a pickup vehicle returning from a construction site came in handy. Three of the victims in the FRSC van, including Yusrah, were transferred to the pickup. Yusrah, barely breathing, passed on before they got to the hospital.
On arrival, Yusrah’s corpse and those of the two men from the other car were taken to the mortuary. The FRSC officials didn’t tell the hospital staff that Yusrah wasn’t in the same car with the other casualties, and they were so overwhelmed attending to the injured that they forgot her corpse was in the mortuary.
…
Ambali’s house was full of sympathisers. The women he recognised, and those he didn’t, sat in clusters. Some were in the kitchen. Others were reciting the Quran in undertones.
Later, Ambali stood by Yusrah’s door, unable to cross the threshold, listening to the sound of running water as they prepared for the ritual washing.
One of his cousins gently turned him away. “Let the women do their work.”
That night passed in fragments. He sat among the men, listening to their comforting words and Quranic recitations, but nothing registered. Someone pressed a cup of tea into his hands. It went cold before he remembered to drink it.
The next day, after the noon prayers, they informed him it was time for the funeral prayer.
Neighbours, relatives, and friends gathered. Even his relatives, mainly women, who hadn’t been on talking terms with his wife since the early years of their marriage, on account of her inability to conceive, shoved aside their hostility and came weeping.
Standing in one of the rows during the funeral prayer, Ambali kept looking at the ground and raising his eyes to the sky. The Imam’s voice — “Allahu Akbar” — washed over him, but his lips moved without any sound.
When the prayer ended, he accompanied the corpse to the cemetery but remained behind the circle that had formed around the grave. He broke into a wail when it was finally lowered into the grave. A friend held his hand and led him away.
Back at the house, people continued coming. They brought food and drinks. They sat with him, sharing memories of Yusrah — how bright she was, how kind she was, how she had helped a neighbour’s child with homework just before she left for school.
Each memory was a fresh wound.
…
By evening, Halima told Ambali that he should return to the hospital to see his wife.
The hospital corridor was quiet when he arrived. A nurse led him into the ICU. His wife lay on her back, her face turned slightly towards the window, her left arm motionless at her side. When he sat down beside her, her eyes found his face, and he saw the questions in them — questions he couldn’t bear to answer.
That evening, seated in a chair beside his wife’s bed, he watched her chest rise and fall. He reached for his prayer beads in his pocket, pulled them out halfway, then returned them.
The call to Maghrib prayers came through the window. His body knew the movements — he had known them for sixty-two years — but he remained in his seat. When he saw his wife looked at him, he looked away.
When a nurse came to check his wife’s vitals, she asked if he needed a prayer mat. He shook his head. When the nurse left, he tried to form the words of his usual evening prayer, but they caught in his throat. His daughter’s name came instead, again and again, until it became just a sound, meaningless.
His wife’s hand trembled in the sheets, the only part of her that could still move.
He sat in silence as the room grew darker.
Aliyu Yakubu is an academic and storyteller. He holds a PhD in Public Health Microbiology from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. His work explores grief, urban and familial decay, and moral ambiguity. His short stories and poems have appeared in literary magazines, including Lolwe, African Writer Magazine, Kalahari Review, Eboquills, Ta Adesa, Arkore Writes, Spillwords Press, Ariel Chart, amongst others. He is an alumnus of the 2024 Nigerian Academy of Letters Creative Writing Workshop. You can reach him on Twitter: @AliyuYakub55740.