He
sat, his back pressed against one of the rough damp walls of the thick darkness
engulfed room.
Suddenly
the downward spinal aching began as had been in the past seven days. And again as
all the days for the past week he started to sweat profusely, the sweat of
anxiety, for he knew they would soon be there; the men dressed scarily in red
from head to toe. He tightly closed his eyes this time around trying not to
look at them. He found he could not. They opened like they were remote
controlled. He was facing them again.
“You’ll
die poor.” They again said in unison behind their masks. They were the same
words as had been in the past week, their voices smacking total mockery. And
suddenly they were gone as they appeared.
Mauro
walk up with a start. He had been dreaming again! He cursed loudly, forcing
himself into an upright position. His heart thundered, and like in the dream he
sweated copiously. He now sat slumped on his tattered creaky bed, the only
tangible piece of furniture in the bedroom. He tightly closed his eyes, as he
did in his dreams, and opened them wider trying to make things out in the thick
blanket of the darkness engulfing his room as in the dream. The effort produced
minimal results.
The
dream started a week ago when Mauro decided to visit a witchdoctor. This was
after visiting renowned churches and many famed men of God in the land to help
him, a hard-working man and a proud holder of a Business Administration, to secure
employment or secure some funds to start some small scale business, with
nothing happening.
“I’ll
never continue like this,” he agonizingly challenged, forcing himself to snub
the dispiriting message the men in red had been bringing to him, as the jumbles
of thoughts of how the means to have some decent living seemed to have
conspired to stumble every time he tried one danced mockingly in his mind. And the
words of the hooded men stuck in his mind like supper-glue, and he knew he was
doing a bad job of convincing himself that things would change for the better.
But Mauro was more than determined to press on.
Two
days later, one late evening, Mauro sat fretting in some scaring hut of a witchdoctor
in a village many kilometers away from his home. The hut was sultry and semi
dark, reeking with odors of different tree roots and leaves. On one corner was
an old repulsive owl that hooted now and then gruffly and wryly and looked as
if it would pounce on him any time. It was a creature that sent chills of fear
screaming down Mauro’s spine. If not that the owner was with him he would have
run away.
And
talking about the owner himself he was not palatable for Mauro’s eye. He
was shabby and emitted a revolting stench, a rancid odor of stale sweat. Mounds
of dirt grimed on the creases of his tattered clothes. A dirt necklace seemed
to strangulate his thin and elongated neck that appeared to protest the heavy
mass of his baldy bulge head that possessed big jug-handle shaped ears. His
eyes, enslaved in protruding sockets that were pronounced by black bushy
eyebrows hooded like some fierce bird of prey, were elusive, humorless and
dull; they emitted a penetrating haunting and hounding gaze.
Suddenly
the owl leapt. Mauro froze and recoiled in horror. He started to hate himself
for visiting the place as his heart thundered with raw fear. Suddenly the
witchdoctor started to pour out instructions, chief of which was the ritual.
“…kill
a madman using this knife and collect his blood in this bottle. Bring the blood
to me within three days. Then, only then, your poverty will be history,” the
witchdoctor said in a void voice that seemed to come from a deep bowl, handing
him the items. Minutes later Mauro came out of the bloodcurdling hut and
started on foot his long journey back home.
Meanwhile
around the same time several kilometers away at the Boma, Asilo, a regular
imbiber was making his way into Sangalala bottle-store. By the time he was relenting
the time was around 23:30 hours, the very same time Mauro was reaching the Boma.
Asilo
staggered out of Sangalala bottle-store and abruptly troubled thoughts of
cold-blooded robbers terrorizing places around the Boma area at night vividly
hurled his mind. However, a smile hovered on his lips as the plan he had used a
number of times to hoodwink would be attackers crossed his mind.
Mauro strolling home tiredly could not believe his luck when he saw the madman,
carrying cloths on his head, coming in front of him. He wasted no time but pounced
and within minutes he had collected the blood. But before leaving some items
that fell from the madman’s cloths caught his attention. He cautiously checked
the items using his pocket torch. Mauro’s energy evaporated. The items were a
passport, driver’s license, and an identity card that showed the man called
Asilo, was a government employee. Mauro needed no more evidence to tell him he
had not killed a madman, but someone trying to trick would be assailants. Mauro
cried bitterly as the words of those three hooded men hit his mind so hard.
