Somewhere Far East, a clan was ceded to a blue-eyed seductress after the guillotining of their chief by the same lady. The allegation was strong and the superstition that every blue-eyed lady was a witch, prospered in Mpala. The witches were described to boast of the beauty of a combination of Aphrodite, Hera, and Athene; the rumours that they carried the sigil of the many face gods grew wide and beyond. Their charm was in their eyes. According to the mammoth practice and credo of Mpala, these witches smeared the pith of many chiefs in the East with their alluring voice. The myth and legends I read from the only library in Mpala called the witches, sex sirens habile at dancing on and off the pintle of powerful leaders in the East.
The old scrolls mentioned that Pemphes, the greatest ruler of the East, had used physical lures to tame the last blue-eyed seductress; it mentioned that her charm did not work on him because he was a bastard of the East who drugged his father (the late king) to mount the throne. He became the greatest ruler because despite his truculence, he had driven a blue dagger deep in the stomach of the witch till she chirped like a crow, and lay waste like a stack of red meat. This alone tickled the nine clans and birthed the blue-eye festival for many years.
The festival was almost as big as the red harvest. Some gossipy had that the red harvest was bigger because it fell around the season of reap – “the gods were wise”, as I had always said whenever there was cause to assay reasons for the swell during the red harvest. My brothers loved the blue-eye festival because of its free-spiritedness. Ladies paraded the city unclad covering their eyes with blue chiffon. I watched uninterestedly from one corner when my brothers made advances to those ladies, promising them a royal wedding and mighty princes. Their sugary words were enough to soak the ladies in their own sacral fluids. As the women heard the enticing words, they laughed to the sensual badinages, and were in total glee when blandished to share with my brothers, wine glasses and wild sex. The look on my brothers’ faces always had me giggle till my belly hurts; they would rise from their chambers with swollen faces, their curly hair ruined from too much womenhandling, their breath very distasteful, and there was humour in how long they stayed in the closet vomiting like a pregnant woman. “Can we see father like this now?” they would ask. I swallowed the drums of laughter in me and told them, “excellent! Dad would love to see you now”. It never ended well with father because of how acerbated they made him, yet they foolishly insisted I tell them how smart they looked after wild nights with salacious ladies and strange girls sailing from the North.
A certain month came knocking. The horror in April and the tales of how the mighty Iroko had fallen to the ground to join his forefathers covered the entire East like the blue sky. The native doctors said since the late King had no heir or any worthy bloodline, the most senior of the nine chiefs’ rule the East in the meantime before their god voices who wears the crown. This was how Igolo came to be the ruling clan for many years. But the fear that a blue-eyed witch may resurrect, resurrected because Pemphes had died.
Hundred years later, Mpala remained among the three clans of the East that never experienced a blue-eyed seductress but they overindulged sorely in fear of the unknown. The awoken fear of the clans dwelt even in the heart of the new king, King Jarius. He had a dream one evening, gathered the nine clans, and disclosed his dream to all – the interpreters and clairvoyants were assembled to crack the maze which evinced a boy being swallowed by a black snake with bright blue eyes. They said the seductress would come again at a time unknown in form of a blue-eyed girl possessing the charm of Empusa and parading a tail having a snake head at its tip like Chimera from the legend of Bellerophon at her rear. The seers even said her hands would be aureate like a king’s cup, taking in form a face long and narrow like Cleopatra of Egypt. The seer kept on with every description and followed from his flaming tongue was a claim that the enemy had spies in our midst. He blew out fire from his mouth and called out every male bastard of the nine clans. The king stood akimbo wearing garments of great fear. His silence was so loud that I could hear the trembles in his heart and the jargons his brain struggled to give meaning. He was possibly hoping the boy in his dream was not a sign of his last days.
The bastards totalled thirty-four, me inclusive. I was Chief Mpala’s bastard, weaned by his beloved wife, and had a little feel of royalty in my many imbizo with my father, his legitimate sons, and his courtiers. But that very day of my assembling was one that did not accommodate soft pats; every bastard was held by the pintle and castrated. The blood of our manhood was gathered in a golden colander and not a drop of blood escaped from its holes. A thread ran through our lower body giving our lost part a gash of close semblance with a woman’s vagina. They did this savage act as custom demanded during the hovering of a demonic warfare. We were to watch the nine clans like spirits falling no prey to beguiling words of strange blue-eyed women. I was broken that day. I combated the thoughts of having watched my scrotum pounce on the ground and crushed like spilled raw eggs. I combated the fate my shoulders had signed and worn as signet to its grave. I wept.
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Forty-two weeks besieged the East already, and so did loathsome news sidle to every ear of each clan. The king had died of poison, his eyes had turned blue, and his head was carried like fruits by his own hands. The air was fouled and every nose smelt the perfume of a blue-eyed seductress as the decollation was suggestive. Rumours had gone round the nine clans that there was a diabolical forerunner of the ancient witch hence there was the growing need for some of the castrated city-watchers to end their watch on the high walls and join the clan guards in halting the turmoil growing thick like the success tale of a Chinese bamboo.
The following week recorded similar odious news; the heir to the throne had his head rolled out of his body and no mouth told the identity of the killer. The fight for who wields the crown ensued amongst the nine chiefs. Mysterious royal deaths were met with royal holidays and stretchy dirges from mourning mothers. The politics that followed was like the tummy of a wine-obsessed herdsman, its hideous practice spread across the East like a venereal disease. Commoners and courtiers were slain like sheep with dancing weeping blades – their offence was in engaging in one dispute or in assaying reasons why the murdering clan chiefs were incapable of becoming the true king of the East. Many seers took to their heels but the tempestuous waters they journeyed by, swallowed them up before their frail feet witnessed the white sand of the West. Other clairvoyants in the East were paraded naked by the nine chiefs; their heads were for charity to the crows after it was up a spike. The turmoil was in its apogee, the lack of a leader and tussles for which clan rules, reflected in the splintered government.
Two attacks on Mpala had my watch end, and I took to my hills in search of refuge. The lust of the East reeked of greed and animosity – the doom of the scroll was now breathing. “I better throw my legs toward South where my mother lived. But first, I must get to the small house my father erected in my name in Mpala 200kms away from these high walls. I really must go see mother with the necklace she once wore on my neck that she remembers me. I must act fast lest my head be found and severed completely.” I had said to my perturbed self.
Approaching Mpala, I detached myself from the cloak of the watch guard to cause no attention towards myself. My sword remained in its sheath affixed to the leather belt worn firmly on my waist. On my head was a red cap, and covering my tattooed arm was a faded sweatshirt I had worn replacing the cloak. I literally saw people running helter-skelter as though they were chased by something. The transformation in Mpala inundated me, I gasped for air seeing carcasses on the earth with maggots having its great feast all over humans – the rumours of the treacherous turmoil was true and sore. But some news never got to the wall; some news the eyes were ashamed to feed the mouth and mouth, expected not to divulge to the ears.
“Who is it I see, Tika? Behold our bastard brother coming with a sword after hearing our father’s head is up a spike with odour we smell despite the length of the pole of Riotu clan.” Andre said as Tika cackled. I was taken aback at the shallowness of their hearts and the stranger I had become to them. I asked them amidst their giggle, “Can you give me the name of the killer? I want to dismember his head and birch it until its brain’s worms weep for safe exit. I will have Chief Riotu’s tongue drawn out of his piehole and chopped for him to swallow. The baby chicks will chirp piteously at his writhing when I peel off his face with my blade.” Shocked was I at their cackle. Tika babbled something as Andre spoke, laughing so hard that I began to fear he was possessed. “Are you not supposed to be burying your head in shame? You stand here with a gash between your two legs preaching about vengeance. I see you have forgotten that it is verboten for ladies to draw sword. Oh! You still think yourself a man? How dim-witted you have become”. Andre was saying all that before I cut him short asking he saved me the slurs. I walked few kilometres away with a weeping heart handling rejection. There was a loud scream from behind and on turning back; I could see my brothers drop down like they fell under anointing. I ran back to their dead bodies and bleeding eyes, it was a ghastly sight. Strange things indeed were happening.
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Whirlwinds everywhere in the East, the unusual occurrences my five senses stomached. The north was known for dryness and the East for its archipelagos, but all that filled my body was dust and the hot air of the sub-Saharan. In bizarre times did the East face. My sweat pore excreted liquid due to my long walk to the house my late father built for me; my sweats bedewed the earth and vanished almost immediately, there was no well to drink from, and my taste bud suggested I bite the flesh of fresh corpses I happened on occasionally. Mpala was splintered. “This is probably the same fate of Riotu. I pray their chief wakes up today in abyss.” It seemed relieving cursing him as it took my mind away from the acridness of dead bodies and the buzzing of overfed flies.
“Water, water, alas I can drink life into my corpus.” I said faintly. I found the key to the lock used on the tap, unlocked it, and flung its key away with so much desperation like a zombie eager on a kill. Engaging the tap became one of the most horrific moments of my life. Blood flowed out of the tap gently, and on getting to the ground the soil became blue and the withered plants became sweet gales. Sweet gales then turned into creeping things, I could not believe my eyes. I saw my house collapse into a bushy land in dire need of ranching. To have thought that was enough for a ghastly evening, there were voices coming from the ground, “Come home! Come home!” I ran for my life without caring in which direction.
Just when I thought my end had come. Just when I had cursed myself for being so unfortunate and a limpid obloquy to manhood; just when I could see my wraith walk away from my flesh in tears but thankfully with the lost pride once dominating my lower circumference, my late third leg, I saw a bus driving towards me at breakneck speed. The blue bus parked in front of my lifeless state jamming unfamiliar music unknown to the East. A group of lousy commuters with rascally appearance shouted, “Can someone pick up this fresh meat before familiar birds part with his eyes?” and earbashed loudly about the stories of princesses in the East. They took my sword weighing its cost with their wild eyes, and embarked on fists-fury to determine who keeps the sword. I figured they were jailbirds of the South when two hefty men reeking of cheap liquor pulled me into the bus singing prison songs accustomed to Southerners. They poured water on my face laughing at how I opened my mouth yelping as if a splash of oil had found its way on my arm to cause a pang. I cursed a little but stopped when I could not put up with the heavy slaps and nocent jabs they rained on me like I was the object they could offload their life’s regrets and early shortcomings. I was in a bus filled with hungry savages; I really should have been left to die in the sands than journey back to the hell I ran from, but what did they care?
“But how come they journey to the East? They are not soldiers. Could they just be ignorant set of humans looking for a new place to settle where there were no traces to their criminal records? How did they manage to omit in their grand plan, the important part where the East knew a great curse caused by a blue-eyed witch where the rolling off of heads was the trite occurrence?” I thought inwardly. Night had blinded the drunk driver as the headlights of the bus were faulty. The journey was put on hold for that reason. What troubled the quietness of the night was the babbling and jabs of the Neanderthals amongst themselves. I tried to catch a sleep, before the morrow brought her misfortune, when I heard my name from a mouth – the breath of which was a stone-throw from my bleeding left ear. “Paschal, take me home!” the voice had said.
The darkness in the bus could blind a man who inexorably widened his eyes to see through the duskiness of the earth. The night permitted only the attentiveness of the ears to connect to a million intercepting sounds. From the cricket sounds to the swear words from drunk lips in the bus at such odd hour, my ears heard all. The voice had come again. From the high walls where only males were companions and foes, to the long sojourn even until my time with the jailbirds, I never lost touch of the voice of a woman. The voice I heard was womanly. She knew my name. My stiffness and silence must have troubled her as she held me by the arm. The grip was firm; I started guessing she was a farm girl or a hunter’s daughter. She said a few more words this time, calmer and alluring. “Who are you, woman?” I managed to ask softly. She retorted that all things would be explained if I took her out of the bus. She said we were riding with the undead and that once the hour mark hits twelve, the skins of the drunks will break and they would grow fangs like sabre-toothed cats. “This repartee of yours is infantile. Can you just help your head with some sleep? I never was a fan of mythical narrations, they bore me.” I had replied harshly. The snoring of the drunken men made my voice unheard. In hushed tone still, she retorted that we would be infected after one bite and become an undead if we failed to run for our dear lives. “The hour is nigh, Paschal.” She said.
I scratched my skin and feared my skin may break soon. I could feel so much fear within me as she kept talking about the undead, my past, and really personal things I never told my brothers – like how I once peed in my nanny’s tea because she spanked me a lot growing up. I then asked her, “How do you know we are soon to midnight? Pardon me; I never really passed the night time sidereal time classes or attend the Big Dipper or Plow lectures.” She giggled slightly and mocked me for being a descent of a pre-industrial clan. “I have a watch, Paschal”. She said still in hushed tone. I asked that I see her watch but she started crawling away murmuring foreign languages. Her voice grew thicker and the night became abnormally breezy. Her eyes turned blue as she screamed on top of her voice. Instantly, the snores became roars and all I could see were yellow pair of eyes from every corner of the bus. She started crying saying it was time to die.
Several claws had gone up my face in the dark. Teeth were all over me and the dark could not hide the sight of the spilling and splashing of my blood all over the bus. The bites suddenly stopped when they reached for the gash between my thighs. Maybe it was verboten to devour a broken man lacking his genitals or maybe they got scared I was a monster in a man’s form but with a woman’s cunt. They all ran out of the bus chirping like birds. I looked back and the blue eyes were no more but quiet sobs gave the conviction that she did not run along with the lions. I managed to sleep despite the lesions I suffered.
Morning came. I yawned and stretched like the night rest was filled with tidings. I flung my eyes around the bus in search of the woman that knew me deep; I clearly had a billion questions for her. She was nowhere to be found. I stepped out of the bus holding my wounded left shoulder and grinding my teeth against each other because of the activities of the night. I stood by the bus and on stretching my neck westward; I saw a naked image rubbing her skin with her hands but shining like kissed by a sun. Our eyes collided and she started a graceful walk out of the woods, walking towards me revealing her full teats and hiding nothing from my fallen eyes. She hugged me tightly and did not mind that my arms on her back had fallen to her rear. “Take me home Paschal”. She had whispered into my ears pressing her breasts against my chest. Her voice was delicate, it sounded different from her hush tones of the night. She was with the most beautiful face I had seen or worshipped. Her looks carried the conflicts of innocence and a vixen. She really wanted to go East, and I figured she was the witch tales sang would come to rule the nine clans. My “who are you”, was met with “you know what I am.”
But something created a gap unfilled. This blue-eyed witch was using an innocent attractive girl’s body. She attempted bewitching me to play by her rules but she forgot that bastards born of a woman from the South and with the royal blood of a chief in the East is resistant to the bamboozling of sorcery. I played along like I was already bewitched and inwardly thinking of how to free this beautiful girl from the possession of the witch. The best bet was to take this blue-eyed witch to the white temple of the East. I readied the bus and told her it was time to continue the journey.
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The sun was scorching and it meant our arrival was in the afternoon. The East was now a dumping site for skulls and fresh corpses. I held her by the hand pacing up that the stench of bloody fleshes piled in a long queue, does not ruin my nasals. Passing the brick walls of the temple, I shouted that I had the blue-eyed witch – it was a big gamble, “what if the priests were all dead?” I feared. She turned at me speaking angrily in foreign dialects and lifted my legs from the ground bashing my head into several rocks she could see. She was very powerful; I had no chance of coming out her wrestles alive.
My nose sang its farewell song to me as the jabs it sustained shattered every of its bone like the split government of Mpala. The ground trembled as she uttered foreign tongues. The bites were already enough hell for me as well as the castration, but I saw the hairs on my skin rise like a raw yam when the ground started swallowing trees around me. I started crawling and screaming she stopped her chanting but she started causing my skin to crack slowly. Unexpectedly, three arrows had found its way into her stomach. The blue-eyed witch started removing the arrows from her stomach and making scoffing sounds that only meant the wielders of the bows were going to pay dearly for their chutzpah. But more arrows kept going up the air and raining down on her aggressively. It became a matter of seconds to see her writhe and groan on the ground.
We were taken into the temple where the witch was going to be sucked out from the anus of the woman I had already developed mushy feelings for. She was made immobile with heavy chains and padlocks. Books were opened and chants went on as red-robed priests surrounded the witch holding red lit candles. I watched the clock and the sweats dripping off the seven priests after a futile two hours stared at them and moped at the extant blue eyes of the witch still possessing the body. One of the priests suggested enchantments and after eventual concurrence, they opened a book of dark magic laying aside the book of prayers. An hour more brought some news; the voice of an old sorcerer started to speak through the mouth of the woman of my dreams. The blue-eyed witch was sucked into a jar and sealed with a small fitting wood. I ran to the fair belle lying lifelessly after the priests walked into giant doors in the temple. The blood on her stomach was finding its way back into her system. I saw no blue eye gazing at me, her pupils were black and she opened it wide lucidly because she was afraid. Her beauty was like never before, and her nakedness could fall all gods the East had bowed to. “Trust me. I won’t hurt you”. I said, covering her with a red robe and showing her the witch in the jar that possessed her. She looked at me and said, “Take me home.”
We were out of the temple but had not walked far when hounds started chasing us. We ran a long distance without a stop and gasped for breath after the hounds suddenly stopped chasing us. I wondered what made them stop chasing us, only to realise that few kilometres ahead of us were dybbuks running towards us like four-legged beasts. They were strange creatures having their heads twisted the direct opposite on their necks. She told me her name was Amelia without me even asking; she started a conversation despite the horrific deaths that awaited us seconds away. She planted a kiss on my lips when I apologised I could not take her home – I never even knew her home.
I dragged her to the gate of the temple hoping the seven priests could stop what befell us, but it was too late. The jar was already broken when we got inside the temple, and the heads of the seven priests were separated from their bodies with their eyes, blue. I stared nonplussed. I held her hand looking away attempting to run somewhere else with her to avoid gnawing. But her hands were sorely cold that I had to look directly into her eyes to savvy what was happening. Amelia had been possessed again; her eyes were blue. My eyes became bleary and my head was swollen having seen enough grotesque images. Her cold left hand broke and a golden spear grew out of it. Into my heart did the spear go, I fell, and she climbed on top of me about to use her fangs on my jugular.
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With all immediacy, I woke up from the nightmare. It had indeed been a perturbing adventure. It was still very dark and the reading lamp beside my bed was dead. I was screaming back into reality sweating profusely. This was the tenth nightmare I had in six days. The nightmares all began after I saw a scary movie with my former nanny, Talomi. Talomi was fired by my parents when they realised I could barely have a sound sleep after I watched rip my cocks with my head resting on her laps. She cried bitterly when she was paid off and refused me helping her pack. She only kept on with the belabouring, “I have no place else to go, I have no home. Who will take me home?”
When I had stopped with the screams as the lasting scare lessened, I used my left hand to survey my private part to be sure the mare did not wake up with me. There was no gash but a lot of blood gushed out from my navel. I held my belly dragging my frail bones towards the window to shout for help as my parents had gone on a week trip. She was out there in the woods, staring back at me with shiny blue eyes. Talomi never went home.
MR. OBEEZY
Sometimes the screams replaying in our minds are deaf-threatening; they are lasting pangs giving cues of impossibility surviving every affliction they bring. Maybe when it hurts, the best defence mechanism is a robust rejoices in the echoes of vile mentality and pledging not to show people your tears, your scars, give up your pride, your…you name it. I chanced on something. The picture was blurry last night for reasons suggesting a soaked or leaked eyes leaving the object in so much vagueness – apparently, no limpidity means I chanced on nothing. But this myopic black ink prefers to glow through the foyer of uncertainties with white hopes to scale through black broken bottles, nurse red wounds. Though no longer a believer of the Black’s curse – the obloquium celebrated like religion or rite by my race ever unburdened by genius.
