Baby has always been confronted with the mortality of man. She is twenty-five and her father is just kissing ninety.

Her friends say she shouldn't be so scared, 'he is a strong man, he can take care of himself', but she doubts the army makes strong men.

Doesn't the institution take them strong and spit them out broken glass, using candlewax to stay sane? Baby's father burns himself when he thinks she is not looking.

He has a bad leg, you know? He fought in the civil war too. In the Asaba massacre, he single-handedly fought and beat a soldier who had a gun, and was christened David.

Her David is frail and tells her every day that he is on his last leg. His Bathsheba closed her eyes when she pushed Baby out, and she never got to see their colour. Her David claims they were the prettiest.

Her David danced with her when his spine was pillar-strong and could bend at will. They danced salsa and tried to dance to rap. They danced to everything – the lady on his favourite radio station who Baby suspects he had a crush on.

Dancing picked her fears and poured them into the air between them, and her David, intuitive as an Eagle, would pick each worry and dance them away.

His back? What issue? See him contort into positions her body could never attempt.

His skin? Darling, black is everlasting. A few sags here and there speak only of wisdom.

She has not found her Romeo, but because she needs her David to walk her down the aisle, she has lied to an honest man, to strangers and friends. She attempts to lie to herself too, because her David would never believe what she does not believe and she must love the man he would hand her over to.

The preparations are seamless, the fittings, the dance rehearsals she refuses to attend and the venue. Her heart has resigned to its fate but the timid smile on her David's face turns the resignation into hope, little by little.

Maybe it would be enough to carry her through a lifelong contract.

Her David and his Bathsheba did not marry for love, but when he speaks of her she sees stars in his eyes and hears a timbre reserved only for gods.

She is standing straight on this gay day, smile wider than the open arms of the praise singers and arms in her David's elbow. He is standing straighter than he has in a long while and isn't this a win?

The music is soulful but he shimmies a little by her side and she cannot help the laugh that escapes– it is bright and young, like they were sixteen years ago. He laughs along, baritone and rich. Green like life.

When he hands her over, she wipes the single tear that tells of an unsure heart. Her honest man would let her see her David whenever she wants, but her heart knows it would not be the same.

She says 'I do' and he whoops. Where did this man get the strength?

Baby's husband dances with her at night, in front of strangers and friends. Her family watches with tears in his eyes.

She is awed by her husband's moves, dancing seamlessly to the beats of the drums. His eyes stare into her soul and whisper a promise, 'we would dance'.

When he wipes her tears, her eyes whisper back, 'I do'.

Baby feels good when she has her David's hands in hers for their dance, because she knows with certainty she felt a pang when she left her husband's arms. Maybe she will learn to speak of him in a timbre reserved for only him and all things revered.

Her David sees something in her eyes and winks, busting those moves like he used to.

She listens to the cheers and claps, watching without worrying he would have a slipped disk. He says it hurts like hell.

They dance the night away and when he spins her around, watching the moving bodies around, she sees a kaleidoscope. Her life with her David is pretty and pure. It has always been him and her, always.

Maybe the kaleidoscope says her life with him as she knows it is ending.

She has never been good at interpreting things– that was Joseph's strong suit.

When Baby opens her eyes, it is bright. The static is loud in her ears and her head throbs. What is this? Her punishment for deciding her life of roses with her David was ending?

The sight of the doctor is jarring. What happened to her David?

"Where is my father? What happened to him? Is it a slipped disk?"

His sombre eyes watch her, harbinger of doom.

The minutes of silence allow her observe where the needle has pricked her arm, the drip looming above her, grim like the reaper, and the weariness in her bones.

"Where is my father?"

When her David trudges in, skin glistening under sunlight like an avenging angel, she smiles.

His watery response is painful, like the feeling when she moves her limbs.

They hug and wail their pain, grief jumping into the air between them, inhaled and clamping around their lungs.

When her husband makes camp in her hospital room, probing the doctors for any slight change and its meaning, she calls his name with a timbre that is strange to her ears and he stares at her with a galaxy in his eyes.

They fall off with his tears and she catches them, saying a promise they both know she cannot keep.

This disease has spread into her blood.

On days when her David would walk into the room, back straight as age would allow, walking stick regal and face set, she would let out a sigh. Maybe he would live very long after all.

"Hello, Soldier."

He picks her up and sways them lightly to a tune no one but they can hear. She is not scared he would fall.

She is six again, in the arms of her father who enjoys everything Bob Marley and screams at the television when Muhammadu Buhari appears on it, veins and spit attesting to his hatred.

She is seven and her father bought her a tiara for her birthday, claiming she is a princess from a land far far away. She never did believe him– he claimed her father was a king, yet refused to wear a crown himself.

She has come to learn that not all kings wear crowns we can see.

When he drops her and her legs plant into the rug, strength seeping into her blood from the earth, she shimmies. His mouth barks out a laugh, but his eyes remain vigilant.

Baby takes his hand and moves them to their secret tune, praying strength into his bones and the youth she cannot have into his years.

She ignores the pain and weariness– his Bathsheba closed her eyes on a bed, she will close hers while dancing her youth.

She knows her David would not let her hit the floor and her husband would cry, even though she wrote in her letter that he should not, so she lets go and spins one last time.

One last time.