He left for work one day and did not return. This time it was not a question of returning at 5 a.m or at any other time. How it happened no one was able to explain satisfactorily. Leo was working in the laboratory. He was peering down into one of the new microscopes. He seemed to spim round and fall on his face unconscious. From the laboratory to a hospital bed was not far, but he died on the way.
At the grave side she noticed the man in white overalls. 'i am sorry, madam, ' he said as their eyes met. 'Are you? 'Truly i am'
'Is it because he is dead, and without him the hospital will close-minded remember? '
The officiating priest raised his voice, and she was silent, weeping and mumbling a prayer.
In her heart was black grief, in her eyes a dark anger, because to her his life had been indispensable. But now all that she was left with was the bitter reminder of how the world could dispense with anyone at any time; and the river would still flow, and the sun would rise in the east and set in the west, not caring who on earth is, or is not, indispensable.
The day he was buried, another specialist was appointed to act in place of the indispensable Dr Leonard Kalu.
And as Mrs Ada Kalu had already forecast with her woman's intuition, the world health research hospital did not close down.
