MALEDICTION (5)
The Inhabitants of loliwe have a folk tale that parents used to love telling their children before bed. It was the story of demons that came out during thunderstorms. "But just not any thunderstorms." They would emphasize, "Storms that had purple lightning."
A phenomenon that is caused by magic, or so they say. Whatever the cause might be, all that is known is that if your up late at night while it rains and you spot purple lightning outside your window, you might want to close your doors and pray to WERE that whatever it was wouldn't find you.
In a horrific twist of fate, those folklore of demons that come for you in the night were true for all the villagers that night. Creatures with malformed faces and ashy bodies layed waste to the entire village in such a short time.
Those that were indoors were only able to survive for a short amount of time, as the creatures realized they didn't have to use doors to get in. As such an entire section of the village was destroyed, nothing was left but scraps of rubble and metal pieces.
As the horrific moon hovered above the sea of blood, it would appear as though it looked down on them from the sky above, its red gaze cutting through the calm air giving rise to tension that was brewing among the locals.
Somewhere beyond the village, a man ushered a few people into a cabin owned by a few of the knigts that went drinking that night, well at least their home is being put to good use, seeing as they'll never use it again.
Some of the locals were able to flee from the attacks, not because they were able to fight off some of the horde, but rather because they were closer to the outskirts of town than most of the others.
"Ingia, hurry." The man was about to shut the door until a woman tugged at his sleeves.
"Ngoja(Wait), I need to go get my daughter." She exclaimed.
"No!" The man screamed shoving the woman back, "We can't have them trailing you back here."
CLICK!
He closed the door shut with a bang, and stood their trying to protect it.
"Kama ukonafamilia ama mtu yoyote huko nje, best forget about them (If you have any remaining family member out there best forget about them.)"
"Wacha ujinga! (Stop being an idiot)" The woman shouted, "If my daughter dies out there I wanna be her when it happens."
"We mmama!(Woman!)" The door man began, "Hatutakufa juu yako. (We're not die on your account.)"
The woman was about to raise her fist in protest but quickly realized if it turned into a scuffle she won't be able to win. She grummbled a bit before turning her back to the man and walking to a corner where she sat.
Beside her were a couple of men drenched in sweat and blood.
"Seems you've had it rough, mama Njeri." One of them was a boy, perhaps as old as Njeri, she hadn't seen him around so couldn't really call him by his actual name.
"Yes, well things don't go as expected." She breathed in heavily.
"By the way, Njeri ako wapi(Where is Njeri at?)" The other man asked.
She didn't answer, for a really long time she didn't answer. "She was with me."
In all that running around she could've sworn she held her daughter's hand, she grabbed it firm, she felt their fingers interlocking as people began to run and the madness started. Somewhere along the way she grabbed nothing anymore, her hands empty. When she turned to look, too many people were running into her, she fell onto the muddy road.
"That explains the mud."
"Njeri is a tough cookie, she'll be fine."
The woman just looked at him and said nothing. A mother's senses are never wrong, not in the slightest. She feared for her daughter's life, especially if it was in the hands of demonic beings that even the priests weren't able to purge.
She clasped her hands together for a short prayer.
"Mama Njeri unaomba sana (Mama Njeri you pray too much)" Suddenly a conversation she had with the other women a few months back at the market.
"What else can I do?" She asked, "Besides, si tunahitaji mtu wakutu simamia kama binadamu(Besides, we need someone to stand in for us as human beings.)"
"We can't do everything alone." Another woman came in, "However, we can certainly try."
"Sindio(Of course)" Another chimed in, looking from side to side to see if there was anyone listening in on them, "If you ask me this white 'God' is a bunch of made up lies."
"Jeny!" Mama Njeri looked around, "Please usiseme hivyo(don't say that), you know what they do to people who say that."
"She's not lying, why burn someone at the stake, why call them a heretic if what you're preaching is true? Why get rid of them if you want them to be touched by 'God' or whatever."
"Walai, napia, huyu mungu wao anatakikana kuwa mwenye mapenzi ya dhati, but the way these men treat us is like pigs in a mud farm. Hitting up, raping our children and forcing us to keep quiet. I've even heard stories of nun's molesting our orphaned boys." ("True, now that you mentioned it, isn't their God suppose to provide everlasting love?"
"It feels like their making things up as they go along and hoping that we won't notice."
"Huh?" She remembers storming out that day in a fit of rage, she left her fish simmering in what little oil she had left. Later sending Njeri to pick it up.
"Hao wamama(Those women)" She remembered murmuring to herself in bed that night, "Don't they know that sort of propaganda was bad?"
She has always been a stickler for the rules, never wanting to break them.
"But everyone else is doing it." Njeri would try and argue, but her mother would quickly shut it down.
"We are not everyone."
She doesn't know when it started, when she became such a decrepid old lady. She had no rights in this village, non of the women did.
'Maybe if we were just to work hard enough, even just a little then my daughter could go somewhere better.' She prayed to the highest of gods. And perhaps her thinking was flawed, perhaps these white people and their white god could all just go to hell.
'I thought if I could just believe in it, just a little. Then maybe, just maybe if I had just a little bit of faith, then things would go our way.'
"But no, things didn't go her way, did it? Your husband gets fired from his job, begins drinking heavily, threatens to rape your daughter, threatens to beat you, is afraid of the knights so sleeps with a machete."
"Yes."
"Your daughter, never had a proper education, can barely speak both her native language and English. Your afraid she can never become anything, that she'll never make anything of herself, she'll become another you like her you became your own mother. You're afraid she'll never leave this forsaken place."
"Yes."
"Huh?" The boy next to her shook Mama Njeri who was whispering something under her breath.
"Are you ok?"
"Huh?" She looked at him, shocked, "Oh, I'm sorry, just day dreaming."
"I can understand, things aren't easy."
When she came to sit down, she spotted a piece of wood that seemed to be loose on the floorboard. Instinctively she removed it, after sitting for a minute she got up and slowly walked tot the door. The cabin was quiet big and spacious, well, it was either that or there were fewer people that she had originally counted.
Either way, she left the living room and went into the main hallway where the door was located. The doorman was still sitted there.
"Huh? Mama, I told you I can't let you go anywhere." He sat with his feet up on a stool, getting comfortable.
"Are you going to let her die here?"
"No."
"Huh?"
She raised the wood she had in her hands, and before the man could react in anyway she hit him on the head. He fell down unconscious. She let the wood fall onto the ground, she then opened the door.
A cold breeze swept across her face as she shivered slightly.
"I'm not waiting today."
She then walked out of the cabin, back on route to find her daughter.
A MOTHER'S RELEASE FROM THE GRASP OF HER OWN BLIND FAITH.