“Tonye, Tonye, I’m at Omagwa airport, please just wait…I’m on my way.” Tarami’s voice was a mixture of fear and confusion, while I didn’t bother to respond, when she called again an hour later. Immediately she ended the call, I put down the phone and continued staring blankly at the television screen.That particular day was a Saturday, followed by Sunday…by Monday the countdown to the initiation would begin…just a matter of time.Less than an hour after I spoke with Tarami, there was a knock on the front door, and I could guess who it was.“Calm down, just calm down…everything’s okay…stop crying…sit down.” It took me more than twenty minutes to pacify her, before she stopped crying and sat down with a wet handkerchief.“Mum is dead and gone Tarami…she won’t be buried, nor would any party, wake-keeping or church service be done for her. I had her cremated.” I’d barely finished my last sentence, when she shouted me down like someone in frenzy.“She’s been what…do you know what you’ve d
The phone rang the second time before Tarami answered it drowsily with her eyes barely opened.“Who …who’s on the line?”“I’m sorry to wake you up at his time, it’s me…its Taribo.”She immediately sat up on the bed, rubbing her eyes and pushing away her blanket.“How was it, what happened…you’ve been on my mind since you left.”“Listen, I’m not ready to answer all your questions, but the freaky initiation went on well. ‘Stage one’ is complete, that’s all I can say.”“So where are you now?”“I’ll see you when the time’s right…”“What do you mean when the time’s right, can’t you come over to my office?”“Even if I came to your office, you won’t be able to see me.”The line went dead, while Tarami stared at the phone screen, which displayed the time duration of our conversation. The time on my wristwatch showed sixteen minutes past six in the morning. The initiation had taken the whole night and the entire morning. Strangely enough,I neither felt tired nor drowsy, while I kept walking f
I walked confidently with every stride, before stopping at the end of the car park. Students were nowhere in sight, as some of the non-academic staff could be seen walking to their posts and offices to resume duty for the last working day of the week.Almost ten minutes later, a blue SUV slowly rolled into the last space in the car park. On closer observation, I realised it was a Ford product, big, stylish with tinted glasses and definitely expensive.I couldn’t say this was part of the initiation ceremony, since the initiation had been concluded with congratulations from the goddess of prosperity herself. I looked at the ring on my right hand as I brought the katana closer to my left side. Some moments later,I realised it was rather unnecessary as a lady came down from the driver’s seat in the SUV, came round and faced me after removing her sunglasses.“Good morning your…your Utmost Prosperity…”“Good morning Mr Tamunoonye. A wonderful day it is… or would I say, a perfect morning?”
The goddess looked sober as she stood akimbo, while scanning the entire compound.“From the moment an initiate joins Ebie, he or she is to ‘deliver’ persons of certain categories whenever the ‘need’ arises.”“What are you talking about, your Utmost Prosperity?”“What I mean is that an initiate does not ‘deliver’ any kind of person and expect the right results. The person to be delivered must conform to the category the initiate has been assigned to.”She soon turned and faced me like an elementary school teacher, explaining an important point to a confused pupil.“Take for instance your friend Timmy – he has been assigned to ‘deliver’ only single ladies, whether they’ve had children or not.”I smiled at her last statement, because as someone who knew Timmy very well, I didn’t need anyone to tell me that he’d been assigned to a befitting category…“You… since you are a new initiate and possess an age which is not a multiple of perfection…you’ll be assigned to deliver persons who are ca
In the next four to five weeks that quickly went by, I began to learn a lot of amazing, frightening and horrible things about Ebie, sometimes through the book that disappeared into my abdomen. There were ‘things’ which I came across, but I’d decided against mentioning all of them, and simply tagged them ‘wonderful.’ There were also things which I learnt from my fellow initiates, some of whom had been initiated years before and some who’d been initiated when I was still a crawling baby. One of these things was an event which happened in the first week of August. It all began when I walked out of an event centre after an art exhibition was concluded. A male caller informed me that my cargo from Europe had been cleared. Further, it was awaiting my collection at an automobile showroom, somewhere near Waterlines House. He also informed me that I had to get the key and particulars from a particular courier company, before I could get my cargo. For reasons best known to me, I decided to ob
It was quarter past eight in the morning as I stood in the ‘normal bathroom’ brushing my teeth and preparing for the mock prosper. I didn’t have a single idea of how it was going to be, though I wanted to hurry up and be done with it. “A very quiet place…body must be stable and motionless…” I was recalling what the half-naked lady had told me while reducing the air conditioner, before sitting cross-legged on the large bed. I was lucky that my neighbours had already gone to work before I started my ‘activity.’ I didn’t even want to have anything to do with them because I felt everyone should keep to himself and herself, while God kept everybody. I checked the wall clock one more time before I started, and it showed forty minutes past eight. I got prepared, became motionless and for reasons only I myself could understand, focused my gaze on the portrait which showed the goddess arm in arm with her ‘twin sister’ in an orchard, posing for a painter. They were dressed in eighteenth centu
It was exactly two weeks since she had seen that vision on that fateful Thursday evening and the entire image of all she saw remained evergreen in her memory. With barely fifteen minutes left before the commencement of today’s Faith Clinic, she sat on one of the plastic chairs in the church and read her Bible.Although she prayed alone at home and sometimes in her office, she felt better and more relieved afterwards, whenever she prayed among her brethren or preferably with members of her prayer band.Suddenly, Deaconess Amadi felt a sudden chill, followed by thunder and lightning. She was surprised nobody else reacted to the sound. Maybe she was the only one who heard it.Closing her Bible, she decided to take a quick walk outside the church for fresh air when the chill enveloped her again. She quickened her steps until she was out of the gate, watching several members hurrying into the church.“You must be Deaconess Eleanora Adams, the one who sees visions?”She turned sharply to he
“I’m fed up with all these…my dear. I’m not going to that church again until this whole thing is over.” Chief Wellington Adams was surprised as he watched his wife pace the room looking frightened.“You heard your Pastor, everything is going to be fine, don’t scare yourself to death, it’s all a matter of time.”He soon gave her a bear hug which seemed to last forever, while her heartbeat soon returned to its normal rate, and thoughts of her vision and meeting with the goddess seemed distant from her mind that particular moment.It was the first meeting in October, as every initiate’s invisible double in the orb seemed to be rattled by the rage of the goddess of prosperity. My invisible double believed he was the only ‘exception,’ due to the hatred I felt for her.My desire for revenge at that moment seemed to boil like volcanic larva with every passing second. Thirty minutes into the meeting, she let out a piercing scream, as her body exploded.Her body soon came back together, piece