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| Courtesy: flickr |
Today’s
Prompt:
You strike up a conversation with a stranger
in the check-out line at the grocery store who, as it turns out, is not a
stranger at all.
Word
Count: 2,447
The
check-out line at Andise (/Andy Say/) Mart, A-Mart
for short, was like one of the chimney trains typically featured in WW2 flicks
of yore; long-drawn-out and flat out slow-mo. Plus, the air conditioning unit
was blowing hot; the heat was coming off in waves and it hummed aloud in
monotone. It made customers shoot it wary side-glances as if they expected it
to explode in their faces without notice.
Sweat ran all over Idara’s face like
the surface of a windowpane during a shower. She groped in her handbag for her
towel and her elbow connected with the spine of the woman in front of her. It
was a faint brush and would be ignored under certain circumstances but the heat
and the bore in the store blew all things out of proportion.
“Careful there,” the woman whose
name was Angeline said.
“Sorry,” Idara said, patting the
other woman on the back. “Just getting my towel. It sure’s getting hot in here.
Looks like somebody left a door open and let out all the air conditioning. Just
the kind of stuff some people are apt to do in this kind of situation.”
“Besides, that air conditioning
unit’s singing a different tune today and management better start dancing.”
“I suppose it’s kind of doing
the complain-to-management-thing all by itself.”
“It’s so sad we’re forced to
endure the situation and to imagine we pay for services in cash.” Angie said, mouthing the word cash as if it wielded magical powers. “We deserve better.” Her face
was streaked with sweat and she dabbed it off with the sleeve of her shirt.
“Ugh, ugh, says who? The
customer is always right if and when management says so.” Idara bellowed
laughter and Angie joined in.
“That’s funny.”
“How do I get the feeling this
line is advancing at a crawl or is it?” Idara asked her new friend.
“I get the same feeling. But
it’s probably the heat that’s getting to us. Over there, that’s three happy
customers heading out the door. Looks like we’re moving, after all.”
“More like three-happy-to-finally-get-away-from-this-asphyxiating-atmosphere-customers
to me. Now, that’s a bit weird.”
“What is weird?” Angie said.
Idara
had stepped out of line and her gaze was fixed on something down the aisle
behind Angie. Angie followed her gaze.
“Last I checked I was bringing
up the rear of the line, eh… I didn’t get your name.”
“Name’s Angie, I don’t recall
you giving yours, either.”
“Idara. That’s pronounced He Dar Ra (like the Egyptian sun god).”
“That’s a tough one. No offence.
What does it mean?”
“No offence taken. It’s Ibibio and translates as Joy.”
“I wish you could wave a wand
and spread a little bit of that
around. Might animate the zombies in the house,” Angie said, hands flailing in
the air, waving an invisible wand.
“Sorry, but I’m so not into
sorcery. I really wish I could that, heck I need it myself.” Idara smiled and
turned to stare at the crowd mustering at the tail end of the grocery. “All
these people and I don’t see an Emergency
Exit just in case, do you?”
“What emergency? Who’s scared of pumpkins going off like hand grenades or
lettuce leaves that suddenly animate and wrap themselves around you? Maybe, the
canned beans might pop out of their cans and grow giant stalks that reach all
the way up to the clouds?” Angie laughed her head off while she made these
silly suggestions so did Idara, her audience of one.
“Seriously though, from the buzz
of that air conditioning unit, anything is possible,” said Idara.
“You know, you might have a
point there.”
“I do?” said Idara in mock shock.
“How so?”
“Can I tell you a story?”
Idara
shot a quick glance towards the counter, which looked a 1,000 miles from where
she stood. “Seems we’re gonna be stuck here till the next century. Shoot the
stuff.”
And
so Angie went on to spin a yarn that would awaken sleeping dogs that should best
be let alone.
“Not quite six years from today,
I was a guest at an event where we had to stand in a line. I think it was a
house party but I’m not sure. Anyway, it wasn’t the kind of place where you’d
expect an accident or an emergency
like you said it. But sometimes, bad
things happen and we can’t stop or change the outcome.
“So there I was and I can’t
retrieve from memory, a single reason I was there. But I have a vague idea I
might have been there to catch up on old times.
“The house was an expansive and expensive job. A mansion. The owner’s
wife had decided to gather her friends and friends’ friends together. She
called it a social…”
“Facebook thing,” Idara completed her sentence for her. “Only this
was for real, not on the internet. Her name was Inuen Ndo (/Innuendo/) and she
was…”
“‘Always at your service!’” The women spoke the last phrase in chorus
and burst out laughing. They looked like a bunch of kids waiting their turn at
Santa’s Grotto.
“I’ll be darned. If this ain’t a
small world,” Idara said.
“Have I just found myself a collaborator
in crime?” Angie was utterly amazed and it had no association with Idara’s
shock eons ago. It was genuine awe.
A
tumor of memory appeared in Idara’s mind and began to take shape and grow in
form and size. She grasped Angie’s shoulder with the hand that wasn’t occupied
with a grocery bag.
“Wait, wait.” It was a decibel
shy of a scream. “Weren’t we supposed to do
something if anyone of the guests stumbled upon another?”
“Something,” Angie’s brow creased in a frown. “Like what do you imply?”
“I mean, it was supposed a game, do you not remember? A fatal game.
The darned occasion was designed by an evil mastermind as some sort of devilish
game.”
“Hell’s Own Tour,” Angie said.
“Whoever ran into another after
the event and if the two managed to
invoke the memory of that lethal evening had to make a return…”
“Make a return trip to the
mansion of Mrs. Inuen Ndo and complete the
game.” Angie completed Idara’s sentence.
Memory
had returned and with it a haunted, sick terror that put the metallic taste of
fear in their mouths.
“Brrr,” Angie said. She was done
laughing. “I don’t think we ought to go back to that place after the horrible things we witnessed. Thinking about
it is creepy enough as is. I’m just starting to get my life on point since the game and its aftermath and now this?
You’ve got to be way in over your head to think of stepping a foot within the
walls of that palace of death again. Somebody was probably looking out for us and
saved us from being pushed off the fringe into the pit of destruction.” Angie’s
frame picked up a tremble. She probably did not notice. There was way too much
going through her mind.
“Girl, I never mentioned going
back, not there, not anywhere near there.
It’s a thought that crossed my mind about that day. I don’t believe that hoodoo
stuff in any case.” Idara punctuated her speech with a wave of the hand.
“Girl, you better start
believing,” Angie said. “After surviving death row, I’m just glad I’m still breathing
right now.”
The
women had used up their speeches and now waited for their brain to cook up
something. Silence rushed into the pause and held sway. The whirr of the A/C
grew and became intense, concrete and magnified in the pregnant intermission.
“What do we do now? We can’t disrespect
the memory. Should we allow the spirits of all those dead folks wander
aimlessly? We need to help them find rest.” Idara may not be into hoodoo/voodoo
hocus-pocus but she wasn’t totally unbelieving.
“They died trying to save their
butts.”
“That’s mean and a nasty thing
to say. They died for us.”
“They died their own deaths,
nobody else’s.”
“We wouldn’t be here today if
not for the substitution game,” Idara
said.
The Substitute Game
otherwise called Hell’s Own Tour is a
game of death, which their host the suicide, Inuen Ndo introduced them to. “For every human being on the face of the
earth there is a substitute.” Her voice boomed through the speakers at her
husband’s mansion. “That’s the reason I
perceive life as a game of soccer. You
can be substituted.”
The women (it was an all-women
show) had cheered and greeted the address with a smattering of applause. Had
they known, really had a deep-seated knowledge, what fate awaited them, they
would flee to the mountains, which surrounded the mansion.
Inuen
Ndo (whose name translates as Bird of
Marriage), after making her declaration asked each ‘contender’ to get a
partner, somebody with natural traits matching theirs. It boiled down to traits
as insignificant as identical voice tones.
Of course, the guests considered this an interesting kind of sport. It all ran smoothly
until the blood hit the wall.
“You are all witnesses to the
fact that there are way too many substitutes in this world to allow room for creativity
and originality,” Inuen Ndo said, after the contenders had each selected a substitute.
The observation was greeted with cheers and laughter. Inuen Ndo separated the
group into the two; the featured players on one side and the substitutes or ‘excess’ as she called
them on the other. Inuen Ndo collected the excesses
then asked the featured players and guests to excuse them and wait outside.
The fun was over; here was tragedy right on schedule.
Inuen
Ndo’s husband had been cheating on her for a long time he’d taken getting
caught for granted. But as it always happens when people push their luck, the
bastard had been caught by his wife. She had discovered the reality about their
marriage and confronted him. Mr. Ndo had told his wife in plain terms, “For every woman on this planet, there
exists a substitute.” Then as if to spite her, he added, “You have just been substituted.”
The
guests and featured players got
outside to wait and hope for the game to be taken to new levels of excitement.
The
explosion ripped the roof off the house and shot it into the skies like surface
to air rocket launcher. It scattered debris and spread it wide over the
vicinity. Many of the women waiting outside the mansion collapsed in a dead
faint. The house was ablaze with burning women, mouths opening and closing in
screams that were never uttered.
After the fire had piped down, Inuen
Ndo’s husband, Mr. Ndo’s remains was discovered in the house by authorities,
strapped to a chair in his bedroom and charred by the fire. The surviving
guests at the party understood the situation perfectly. If jealousy had made
Inuen Ndo raze down her family mansion taking herself and her infidel husband
along for hell’s own tour, it was all right. But why the hell did she need an
entourage?
The
women met at the foot of the hill leading up to the burnt-down Ndo’s Mansion.
They had no previous experience on putting restless spirits to rest but they
were strengthened by determination and personal resolve.
They had decided to revisit the
Inuen Ndo’s palace of sacrifice
because after their meeting at the grocery, they had been tormented by
torturous nightmares of women clothed in flames with mouths opening and closing
in wordless screams for help that never came.
Idara
had called Angie up and the two women agreed to meet there, at the foot of the
hill where the burnt-down mansion stood, not yet revamped. They’d both heard
the voice of the suicide host, Inuen Ndo telling them, ‘You must perfect the sacrifice.’ They had no idea what the sacrifice was nor did they have any
plans on what to do when they arrived at the foot of the razed structure. Idara
consulted books that dealt with fetish
subjects at the local library and she got her head messed up a lot more than
before she went to the library.
“Got any ideas what exactly
we’re supposed to do when we get up there?” Angie asked Idara as they walked up
the hill towards the house. “Even their ashes-what was left of the corpses-are
no longer there; they scuttled them away for the first mass burial this town
ever witnessed.”
“I don’t know what to with it
just yet but I brought something along with me.”
Angie
sprang at it. “What is it?”
“Not just yet. It’s kind of a
secret, somebody might hear us.”
“Who in this god-forsaken place
is going to hear us? There’s nobody here.”
“Hush.”
The
wind picked up in a hurry and grew fierce. It whirled at the center of the
debris, rose up and rushed at them like a striker turning for home. Angie broke
into a run and Idara was on top of her holding her down.
“Stop. Be bold.”
The
wind did not fling them away when it got to where they stood wide-eyed. It went
round them in a circle. When the women moved forward, it parted and created a
portal made of moving air.
“I don’t know if this is what
you wanted or not,” Idara said as the women came to the rubble.
“Who the hell are you talking
to?” Angie hissed the words to keep whomever Idara was speaking to from
overhearing.
“Be quiet.” Idara’s hand was in
her pocket fiddling for something. Soon, she held up a pouch and raised her
voice. “But I got this and I want you all to know I’m not coming back if it
don’t work. So you tell whoever or whatever’s bothering you on the other side
of the veil they better be ready to accept this offering or they can get themselves a real witchdoctor.” She spoke
the next words out loud like she had mustered up all her courage. The clouds gathered,
churned, and turned black over the rubble.
Idara
was still speaking. “You can be the salt of the earth or you can be salt that
turns soil to crap. And with this salt” she sprinkled some on the debris. “I
release your spirits.”
There
was a sound like a loud bang and then there were faces coming out of the ruins.
They rushed past them into the shadow. One of the faces returned and whispered
in Idara’s ear. It was just two words but it meant the world to the distraught
women.
The
spirit woman said, “Thank you.” And then it was gone with the wind.
Eneh Akpan
June
7, 2013
