Long at last I saw an old woman coming from the opposite direction. Since I entered the village I had walked for a considerable distance without seeing a soul. That was strange; the village would be bustling with activity at that hour. The woman was looking down, but I could make out that she wore a grave face. I was about to call her when she abruptly looked up. Our eyes met. Trojan, mother of god! Her hair stood on end, and with eyes popped out, she took to her heels, shouting phrases I did not understand.
I was more befuddled now and I tensely yawned for some explanation. I determinedly ran after her. But it only worsened matters. She started to splint with such velocity that even Usain Bolt would envy. That jolted me. ‘This old woman is dead serious.’ I thought. I excruciatingly increased speed and caught up with her. Nevertheless, before I uttered damn a word, she fainted.
‘What the hell is happening?’ I madly thought again as my confusion plummeted further.
I perused the vicinity for help but still there was no soul in sight. I confusedly left the woman and scuttled towards my parents’ house, the excitement I had earlier on now in total shreds.
You see, I left my house in Manase for my village in mid-morning a very ecstatic man, the joy that started four days before. My wife, Anitra, had told me she was pregnant after an agonizing wait of five years.
To confess it, in this five-year period, we had thoroughly and desperately tried every means plausible to get a baby. Talk of holding prayer vigils, visiting renowned prayer houses and famous hospitals, and despondently even visiting witchdoctors, or trying fisi. We did all that but to no avail. And all that happened amidst sizzling ridicule, especially for my wife. She was taunted and tormented to the bone marrow, as if the problem could not be with me. Heartlessly terms like deadwood and dwale rained down on her. Even at church, where we were to find solace, some unsaved mouths unfeelingly called her Sarah or Naomi.
Our anguish seemed perpetual until we stumbled upon witchdoctor Yonseboo; and whether it was coincidence or not, Anitra fell pregnant within days of starting to administer the witchdoctor’s concoction.
And as I fêted this news, that morning I received a parcel that contained an air ticket and a letter, among other things. The communiqué announced that I had been awarded a scholarship I applied some months ago. ‘You will leave today by a six o’clock evening flight…’ among others, it stated.
So I left for my village to bid farewell to my parents, full of excitement, only to stumble in this bizarre atmosphere.
Now as I neared my parents’ house I heard wailing. Curious, I peered through some shrubs and saw people and a police land-cruiser at the compound. My heart raced as questions madly chased each other in my head, ‘Has someone died? Who can that be? Why didn’t they inform me about the illness? Or was it through a fatal accident? …’ Hey, I was wrestling with madness.
But if I was afraid of being mad, the next moment insanity completely knocked me down. I heard in the dirge that I was the one dead. My heart somersaulted and I collapsed to the ground. ‘What? Me dead? How?’ Fuming questions cruised inside me. Then it drowned on me on the weirdness I witnessed since I entered the village. I was dead and people were at my funeral; the funeral of their pride that went through university; the village’s role model. Their adored son they earmarked as their next MP.
“But I’m not dead,” I crossly told myself. I got up and stomped to the compound.
What followed was an unprecedented pandemonium. People ran helter-skelter in all directions. I moved quickly into my parents’ house and trapped my mother, some relations and two policemen. My mother instantly fainted. On the middle was a corpse I believed caused the whole chaos, covered with a blanket.
“I’m not dead!” Mystified I yelled at visibly paralyzed relatives, who looked as if they had just seen a zombie getting in. My scream yielded nothing.
“I’m saying I’m not dead!” I dementedly screeched again, thinking hard. I quickly removed my left shoe to expose a unique toe-less foot.
“Check if this whosoever is like this!” I entreated. Nobody moved.
“Please, you people!” I cried. Some convictions showed on the people’s faces, but again no soul moved.
“Please,” I entreated again. One of the policemen removed the blanket to reveal a charred corpse I instantly recognized as that of witchdoctor Yonseboo. He was wearing a jacket I gave him two days before as my token of appreciation. And, obvious to me, when the foot was checked, the toes stared back at everybody. I gazed at my relatives with a ‘how-dare-you-think-I’m-dead-without-properly-checking-just-because-someone-is-putting-on-my-jacket’ glare.
“This made us to come here,” the other policeman interrupted my thoughts, as he showed me an almost burnt out passport.
I instantaneously, but painfully, remembered keeping that passport in the jacket since collecting it. I did not properly go through the jacket’s pockets when I gave it to the witchdoctor. I saw my world cruelly nose-diving. I only had just over four hours remaining to catch the flight. I fainted.
No comments:
Post a Comment