Everyone saw it, the dark
blue Toyota Vitz with the bloody back seat. Everyone also noticed how
the two men handled the old man; like used diapers, pinky fingers
sticking out, noses facing away trying to smell something on their
backs. The rumor started immediately the tiny car pulled off the
emergency parking, and soon after, everyone knew the story of the man
who bled from everywhere.
The collective gasp of
the doctors almost sucked all the air out of
Mombasa when one of them suggested that the 61 year old man might be
ailing from Ebola.
The man, who's bleeding they could not stop, was placed in a shoddy
quarantine and handled with two pairs of gloves and two masks, for extra
care. Later, when the tests came back, Peter Simiyu, the Coast Director
of Medical Services, wiped his brow and breathed a sigh of relief, "We
can now celebrate," he told a nurse as the old man was moved,
unconscious, to the general ward, "at least his severe bleeding will not
kill us as well."