Malaria is ‘Normal’ in the sense that it is common. It should NOT be either.
In 2010 approximately 219 million cases of malaria were documented.
In 2010 between 600,000 and 1.2 million people died from the disease.
Many were children.
Agnes was one.
Agnes
She was born at twilight, on a goatskin rug.
There were candles to guide her.
She didn’t cry.
For a moment, I was worried.
Christiana said that was fine.
“When they breach this world peacefully they have no reason”.
She said.
Agnes looked around her in the warm huddle of my room.
And then.
Unfolded.
Flexed.
Unfurled.
A small, damp butterfly.
Agnes.
She saw me, and I her.
And I believed in God.
In Allah.
In Buddah.
We shared the wonder of each other’s presence.
Wrapped in the gentle whisper of the flames.
I hold her now.
When she teethed she bit my chin.
I jiggled rhythms with my jaw
and hummed tuneless melodies while
She, Agnes, dribbled joy.
Our lashes touched.
We smiled.
I thought it was an earache.
That twilight.
On the goatskin rug
When Agnes shook her head from side to side
And screamed.
So I held her close.
And fed her.
She clung.
She cried.
Higher and louder.
I craved pain.
To lessen hers.
I thought it was an earache.
She got hot.
So very hot.
It frightened me.
With damp cloths I sponged her down.
And snapped.
At my man.
My fear became his. He went for help.
Christiana.
Christiana found a bite.
A bite so small it hardly seemed to matter.
But it did.
With nails of poison it ruptured Agnes and all around who bore witness.
My heart convulsed.
As Agnes did.
There.
Before us.
On that goatskin rug.
Once upon a time she liked its harsh tickle against her toes.
My man. He would take a corner and brush it against her leg, pleated with fat.
Together they would smile.
Christiana talked too quickly.
Too loudly.
She could not face me. Nor I her.
So I turned from her.
And from him.
My man.
Agnes oozed diarrhoea through her nappy
and moaned.
Sometimes she cried, but it was not the same.
She no longer demanded my attention.
The bite claimed hers.
We shared the twilight, the dark and the dawn together.
Once?
Twice?
Christiana left. When?
My man.
He sat close by.
Old.
Silent.
I talked to Agnes.
I told her stories she had heard before.
Her chest bubbled up and down.
Up and down.
I sang to her.
My voice grew hoarse.
Sometimes I cried.
Quietly.
I put a yellow ribbon in her hair.
That single curl.
A question mark.
Her skin matched its hue.
She lay small, a wilted buttercup.
And died.
Agnes.
I hold her now, on our goatskin rug.
Her name is Agnes.
I have no words left.
EO’D
The Burren and Beyond 