TITLE: The Tri-paternal son EPISODE: 15 AUTHOR: Mynd Lekan cursed under his own breath. He knew he should have envisaged something like this happening but the previous operations around here has been without any problems so he had assumed all will be well. The men however looked nothing like the chiefs he had meeting with infact if he was asked to describe them, he would call them witch doctors. They had on the uniform of cults of the old days and he has been in villages long enough to know what they looked and dressed like. Their faces showed they were old and their eyes were almost shrinking intotheir sockets. He shook his head at the engineer and asked; “Why did you not handle this yourself? Why bring me all the way here when you could have just told them to go away that you could not stop the blast?” “I am sorry sir but they were determined to see you” “I have to do everything around here” he thought to himself and he walked towards the old men He looked back towards the men and he nodded, telling them to give them some space; the men might want a bribe and as much as he was not prepared to give them, he was not interested in disgracing the old men in front of his staff. He greeted them and said; “You asked to see me sirs. Is there a problem? You do realize that this place has been marked off limits for the main time as any moment from now we will be blasting this rocks and if anything goes wrong, we don’t want any causality” One of the men spoke up; “I hope you realize what you are doing young man. I hope you know the consequences of what your actions are” Lekan said; “I am aware sirs be rest assured. By blasting this section, we can grind them into little bits and they will be used in construction sites, to build roads and they will generate funds. Funds which some of it will be used to develop this place more. It will go into building new classroom wings, help with the water supply, provide more jobs, help the government supply you with fertilizers and farm implements for your farms, and send the intelligent ones of your children to universities to come back and add more valueto the life around here. If those are the consequence, my good sirs, I am fully aware” The old man smiled at the young man’s intelligent and said; “This hill has been marked by our ancestors as forbidden and no one is permitted to take even a piece of rock from it else there will be disaster. This danger has been there since the days of our ancestors and the three of us have been charge with the protection of this hill. It must not be opened” Lekan was not new to stories like this, he was actually expecting to hear them say something like the hill was inhabited by a god who protects the village or perhaps that a village lives inside the rock or another silly story but this man was not hitting the point. He was in no mood to be delayed anymore and so he asked; “Is there a reason why the hill is off limit? There has to be a reason and besides, we have taken pieces of the hill when we wanted to analyze the properties of it and nothing evil happened so I don’t get your point” The old man said; “This is our warning and message, leave this hill and go for the rest or you will regret your actions. Heed the words of the wise or end up in your folly” and they turned around and left. He stood there wondering and thinking “That’s it?” No “we would not leave here and if you will blast, you will blast us with it”? This was the first time he would encounter resistance so easy and he liked this village for that. He turned around and called the engineer. “Do you have a security guy you can spare?” “Yes sir we have some we can. Is there anything wrong? “No just that we will need two men to follow those old men and make sure they are out of the protected area before we blast. I don’t want some old person dying on my watch. He called at the old men and asked them to wait as he walked towards them “Sirs, as you are aware, there is a range at which you are allowed here and I will have two of my men follow you. They are not going to do you harm, but to ensure that you are safely out of the protected area so as to avoid any complications” The old men did not utter a word but turned around and kept walking at their pace Two men were drafted to follow the old men.Not force them but just to walk behind the old men and report back when they got out of the perimeter. Lekan looked back at the engineer and asked; How are we doing? Is everything in place?” “Yes sir, we are good to go and we can even still blast at the time we wanted to in the first place. All we need is the all clear by the men behind the old men and we are good” “Okay, I will be watching from the office and don’t forget that you and your men also have to leave here. I know it is a silly reminder but just get out before you blast” He turned around and walked towards his car while calculating the tons of rocks he was expecting from the little part of the hill to be blasted Ojoade had walked most of the last two days and it was beginning to have a toll on his legsand feet. For food he had fruits and tubers from the forest itself and he drank from the rivers and streams he passed through. After half a day of walking away from his village, heheard the first calls from the plants as each ofthem has a particular voice and he heard them first of all faintly then louder until they were almost screaming. The stream also had a voice and so did edible fruits and tubers. He however made sure he did not touch any fruit or food which he thought was planted deliberately so as not to steal from another person’s farm. He had started collecting plants and he was almost done but he needed one more thing. Just a particular plant whose voice he had notheard since he walked out of the village. He needed the plant to cure the pregnant woman and she was one of the reasons he came to pick the plants. Just three leaves will be enough but he could not even hear it’s call.It was almost as though it was dead. He felt tired and knew he needed to rest a little as the sun was high in the sky so he found a huge tree whose undergrowth was free of weeds of spread his blanket on the ground. He made a circle with Taba seeds as this kept snakes and other reptile away due to it’srepugnant smell and he laid down on the cloth. Before long, sleep took him as he drifted into a long dreamless rest. He woke up what felt like hours later to feel a shadow covering his eyes from the sun. A shape that did not feel like a branch was standing over him blocking the dun from himand even with his eyes closed, he felt it’s presence. Instinctively, he felt the powers he had always had come alive in himself as he felt a bolt on his fingertips ready to rip out and lash at whatever it was that was in front of him. Slowly, he opened his eyes to see the shape of a human being in front of him, the human appeared to be a child as Ojoade got into a sitting position but still the lightning was in his fingers, even his eyes felt like it could emit flames the way they burnt. He had heard that the God Sango could do that but he never could do for reasons he did not understand. The human appeared to be a child not more that 13 but something about the child made him uneasy. The boy did not have any cloth on. Instead, it had a dressing made of dried woven together to cover its privates. The head was a little deformed and the stomach was bulged. The human appeared to be male and in his hands was a little mat. Ojoade need not be told what was standing in front of him. it wasa bush baby. An human child whose mother had died in her pregnancy. When pregnant women died in Yoruba customs, they would be taken deep into the bush to be buried but sometimes, spirits wake up the child in them and they are born and raised by the spirits until they are able to fend for themselves. The only possessions they have is their mat whichthey never part with. It is also rumored that anyone who can collect a mat from them will be rich as the mat will deliver money to the person daily. Ojoade eased up a little as creatures such as this have not been known to hurt mortals without provocation which is mostly when the mortal try to steal the mat. Ojoade knew the creature would be far older that the age he calculated perhaps older than he himself. He looked up and asked; “Good afternoon, what can I do for you?” The creature looked towards him and spoke in a low voice; “You are sleeping in my sleeping place and I want to sleep” Ojoade looked around and said; “Apologies, I am just a traveler looking for a plant, I did not know this is your space” he got up and started packing his blanket when the creature spoke again, “You would not try to take my mat from me would you?” Ojoade looked and said; I don’t need your mad, I have mine and it is comfortable for me, you can have your space, I will go find another place to lay my head and hide from the sun. Again, I am very sorry” And Ojoade packed his blanket inside his luggage and started going away without looking back until the creature called him back. “Old man, what plant did you say you were looking for?” Ojoade said the name and the creature replied; “Follow the voice of the river. She is the reason you can’t hear the plant as the voice of the river hides it. On the banks you will find the plant you seek” Ojoade nodded and said his thanks and followed the river as he was instructed with the hope that he would find the plant he seekand go home to his son spiritualists and the initiates and not his. “I don’t understand this old one, how does a little girl’s possession concern me? I don’t have the skills for this and I am hardly experience in it too” The old man got up, walked towards the door and replied; “I did not ask you to come help remove whatever spirit is in her did I? The spirit is her is my doing what we need you to do rather is translate what she is saying into a language we understand” The oracle had heard of initiates doing that. The take out spirits from rocks, trees and put them in innocent kids in the hopes that the spirit would speak to them about the things of old and how to create more dark magic. Sometimes though good magic but both ways, it is evil and scary. Most of the times, the young child runs mad forever and the remaining times, the child would die. And when considering that a lot of times, the spirit ends up not telling them anything useful, it was risky business and a very wicked one too but now, the initiate says his help is needed in translating the words the child is speaking which can only mean the child is not speaking the language of humans. Possibly the child was speaking a language reserved for the gods and the initiates could not understand it but why take such a child to the village market? The spirit could just escape from the child’s body and they will have a whole lot of trouble on their hands but he followed him anyway On the way to the market, he noticed that a lot of people were heading home and just a few people were going in the direction of themarket. This was strange because at this timeof the day the market had more visitors but he remembered that there was supposed to be a blast coming up so most people would rather be home where they consider safe than risk being crushed by a piece of flying rock at high speed. They almost got to the market and he began to notice that most stalls was deserted and some women was even running away from the market as though she was being chased by the devil himself. More and more people were fleeing and it seemed like they were the only two people going towards the market center. When they almost reached the centre, he noticed what made people run as even him felt hesitant to go any further. The initiates were having a ritual right in the market centre and in broad daylight at that. “This is rare” he said to himself and then he corrected himself “This is wrong and impossible” when he saw what their ritual was, There was a large circle drawn on the ground with a white powder there were menin white all standing on the sides of the circle, no doubt members of the cult. All of them old and their eyes showed no emotions. He knew its significance, it meant the area bounded by it was not in this world. A spirit or sprits were being held inside the circle and the circle would keep them there for as long as they want. Any break in the circle and it loses its potency and the spirits will be free to escape. But within the circle was something else. Three girls were inside it and running around screaming in what seemed like pain. The oracle knew the spirits within the circle was moving out of one into another and causing the pain and it was certain that those three girls would die. It was not possible for them to survive this, in another corner were some women screaming. He assumed them to be the mothers of the children. Their tears are in vain now as they are being used. As he came up to the edge, one of the girls looked to him and started running towards him but stopped at the edge of the circle and started chanting in a language only a few people in the world could understand and translate. The girls continued talking and thentheir voices came in one synchronized tone while the old man who brought him whispered to him; “Translate” They seem to keep quiet and then they started chanting again. Chanting the same things they said earlier as Ifaferanmi tried to listen but the words were lost on him. The translations were more of him being in a trans than him just hearing words and sayingthe meaning. All of a sudden, his eyes started feeling light as he lost all feelings and in his body. His mouth opened and words started to come from his lips. “And the dark one shall be released His prison ripped open and his bonds broken He shall come with revenge against the children of they who locked him away And he shall come with his power and rage Death it shall have on one hand And fire on the other None shall be able to stop him None shall be able to stand in front of him As his power shall visit his enemies His darkness shall cover the sky And the hearts of all shall cower He comes……. The evil one comes Watchout for episode 16
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 13:48:09 +0000
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