Cancers that attach to beautiful flowers

Her lithe beauty was both incongruous but yet strangely at home as she picked her way through the crowded marketplace, expertly and delicately sidestepping rotten pieces of fruit squashed into the dirt. The well-to-do housewives visiting the market left their air-conditioned cocoons for brief periods of time in search of items they couldn’t find on supermarket shelves lined with imported goods. Their wealth seemed to ooze crudely from their overly moisturized pores as they lifted their spotless kaftans quickly and roughly out of the reach of the grasping hands of children begging for coins and the eager grips of market-women desperate to make a sale. She, on the other hand, elegantly extricated herself and flashed her flawless smile in apology. It was almost as if she knew that others couldn’t resist her, even though regrettably there wasn’t enough of her charm to go around. She paused every so often as she wound her way through the market, taking a deep whiff of Asana’s spices and agreeing with Aunty Vida on how ripe and juicy her tomatoes were this season.

She lugged her basket bursting with produce back to the waiting 4×4, and unless you were watching excruciatingly close, you would probably have missed the slightly uneven edge to her gait, and the exhausted puff of air she expelled as she heaved her wares finally into the boot of her car. She sat back against the cool leather and inhaled the new car smell that still clung to the car’s interior. She had come home from her final (and probably most stressful) semester at Stanford to find the sleek Mercedes resting in the driveway like a blinding white birthday cake awaiting the cutting. It was more so a lure, a bribe to stay at home and continue pursuing her medical career rather than returning to the States which she had grown to call home over the past couple of years. She declined to drive it at first, what would she look like, a “small girl” cruising the streets in a “big man’s” car?

She stared tiredly at her reflection in her rearview mirror. How could people fail to notice that she was slowly fading; her rich cocoa skin had this persistent grey tinge that couldn’t be banished with the oiliest of shea butter creams. Her parents were of course aware of her “unfortunate” illness, which is how they chose to conceal her terminal condition whenever a relative asked after her. They explained away her frequent hospital stays as weekend getaways to their home in Aburi, and excused her promptly from her dinner parties the minute they saw the vague glassy look invade her eyes and a slight gag following every bite of food.The irony of her situation left a bitter taste lingering in her mouth. Her dream to be an oncologist wavered in front of her like the air vibrating immediately above burning tarmac on another humid afternoon in Accra. “Cancer patients? Isn’t that going to be too depressing?” How could she explain to people that studying to be an oncologist would be like having the ultimate playbook to defeat an opposing team with one crucial page missing? She had all the flashcards and cheat sheets (one page only!) to pass any exam. Yet, the tumors raging along her spine did not answer favorably to the doctor’s neatly laid out strategies to conquer her illness. Medicine, the noblest profession according to her parents, had been foiled for the final time. Her dazzling smile was feeble now as she looked down at the tissue soaked with her coughed-up blood. She pushed the car into gear and maneuvered onto the busy street. Hers was a beautiful decay, perfect teeth and all.