Vode's nap could wait no longer. After lunch with Aisha, he bid her farewell and headed towards his room, finally conceding to visit the nurse afterwards. But fate had other plans.
As he walked, his phone rang. His mother's number flashed on the screen. He answered, expecting a routine check-in, but her voice was barely audible.
"Mom, what's wrong?" Vode asked, concern creeping into his tone.
She struggled to speak, her words punctuated by sobs. Vode's heart raced as he tried to persuade her to explain.
"Mom, please...what's happening?" he urged.
Finally, she managed to choke out the words: "Vode, come home...please...it's your father..."
Vode's headache vanished, replaced by a sense of foreboding. He didn't hesitate, dashing towards the school shuttle buses. He boarded one heading out of the city, forgetting his change in his haste.
As the bus drove through the winding roads, the driver turned up the volume on the radio. A news broadcast filled the airwaves: "Reports are emerging that a man was killed in cold blood while at his farm, though the identity of the deceased has not been disclosed."
Vode's mind was elsewhere, his thoughts consumed by his family. He got off at the next stop and boarded a bus headed home.
As he stepped off the bus, a childhood friend, Osas, rushed to embrace him. Vode's anxiety grew. "What's going on, Osas? Why is everyone looking so somber?"
Osas's expression was grim, but he offered no explanation. Vode's heart sank as he approached his family compound. The usually vibrant space was now filled with wailing women. His mother, an fair elderly woman in her mid fourty's, emerged from the house, tears streaming down her face.
"Vode, my son..." she sobbed, clinging to him.
Vode's world crumbled as she whispered the devastating news: "Your father is gone."