There Sits a Champion

Bisi watched the cloud float pass from her seat inside the plane, the gold medal around her neck looked strange and out of place, she still remembered about eight months ago when all she thought about was how she was going to make it to the next day without killing herself.

Being a cripple has its own challenges, but what angered her the most was the constant unsolicited pity that she constantly received from people around her.

They felt that her life was wasted that the highest achievement she was going to attain was if she bore children. She was living with her sister Carol and even though she did not complain, Bisi knew that she saw her as a burden.

Everything changed when, Alex moved into their building, he was different from the others, he did not see her as someone who was to be pitied, and his counsel made her rethink many things about her life.

He was the one that made her start playing tennis again, they were having a discussion one Sunday evening and she told him about her college days and her she won the national championship in the NUGA games.

He asked her why she stopped playing and she stared down at her two withered legs, he smiled and told her that the fact that she was in a wheel chair does not make her hands stop functioning.

When coming back from work the following day, he bought two bats and some tennis balls, he rigged up a table behind the house and played tennis with her every evening when he came back from work.

He came back from work one evening and told her that she has to go for the Paralympics trials at the stadium that weekend, she gave a millions excuses and he rejected all of them, Saturday came and he took her to the stadium, she was nervous at first and lost the first two matches, but with his encouragement she pulled through with barely two points.

The following week was a flurry of activities, she went to the stadium everyday for the qualifying rounds, she cried throughout the night on the day she was told that she was among the athletes going to Brazil.

Now looking back, she was glad she met Alex , she touched the gold medal round her neck and fell asleep.

Follow @ogochukwu for more content