The Choosing

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It was a bright Monday morning, and Sibi woke up a nervous wreck. Today was the day of her Choosing.

She got up, showered, and made a quick breakfast that she couldn’t bring herself to eat. Her hands trembled as she called her mother to let her know she was leaving.

Her mother whispered a short prayer for good luck, her voice tight, weighed down by drowning hopes.

“Your cousin passed, and the whole family got a stipend. Your father would have been so proud,” she said.

In the matatu, Sibi sat by the window, religiously crossed four fingers and started whispering a mix of prayers. Her old black and white Converse shoes made it impossible to cross her toes, but she tried anyway.

Hail Marys tangled with the kind of village chants her mother would deem blasphemous; a rosary for protection and a curse for luck. If her Catholic mother heard her now, she’d probably try to exorcise her through the phone.

Outside, the city revved with activity, but Sibi was lost in thought.

What if she passed?

Her mother would be overcome with joy. The neighbours would come over to help prepare a feast, and there would be ululations, dancing and celebrations for days. She’d be ready, and that would be it. Her life would no longer be hers.

She dreaded being 24.

Sibi was jolted back to reality by the conductor banging on the side of the matatu to signal the last stop. She looked back, and everyone left on the bus was her age, with the same anxious look on their faces. She wondered if any of them had slept the past few nights.

As she stepped off the matatu, the conductor gave her a slight tap on the back with a knowing smile that made her skin crawl.

Before them, a tall, looming building with blue-tinted windows held their fate.

As they walked to the gate, a woman hurried past, head down, a red pin on her chest. The crowd around Sibi parted, as if she carried a contagion. A Fail.

“Still free,” Sibi thought, with something that was not pity.

They walked to the gate in a quiet herd, showed their IDs and appointment letters, and were all led through metal detectors into a sterile waiting room. It smelled sharply of industrial-grade alcohol and was so silent that the buzzing of the fluorescent lighting tubes felt deafening.

A young man came in with a clipboard and called out one of the ladies. Her face was sullen, and she looked like she had been crying for days. Someone whispered that she was retaking the test.

“Didn't believe it the first time,” another said. Sibi’s stomach stirred.

The rest were told to wait in silence.

Sibi drowns in her mother’s words, wiping her hands on her thighs a thousand times. She’s brought back by a warm hand resting on the back of hers. She looks up and she is met with the prettiest eyes she has ever seen, full of hope but seemingly sad. The lady rubbed a thumb against Sibi’s hand and whispered, “… hands are cold…“ She could barely hear over the buzzing bulbs.

Those damn bulbs.

Sibi managed a small smile, and the lady let go. Her stomach churned some more, not just from nerves this time.

When her name was called, Sibi stood, barely holding herself up. The hallway the nurse led her through seemed to stretch forever before they came to a stop and entered a room colder than the other rooms.

It had a single measuring station in the middle with white tiling all around. The nurse motioned to a chair.

“Please place your hand here,” the nurse said, pointing to a screen with a palm outline. “It will only take a minute.”

Sibi pressed her hand down firmly, half-hoping to break the machine. The nurse noticed this and gave her a faint, tired smile.

“Relax, the system knows what it’s looking for,” she said.

The fuck does that mean?

Sibi could feel the machine pulsing below her hand. It was a steady, sure pulsation. Almost human but still mechanical.

She looked ahead and saw a poster with a pregnant woman and the words A Fit Mother for a Fit Nation. She wasn’t smiling. She had this vacant look Sibi’s mother had every time she talked about the Choosing.

The device beeped, and the nurse smiled her practised smile.

“You’ll receive your results soon. Please don't call the institution, we will be sure to contact you,” she said.

Sibi nodded and walked out into the sun, feeling heavier than before. Behind her, she heard another name called out. The woman rose, and the line never seemed to end.

As she reached the gate, she whispered in almost prayer,

“Please let me fail.”