Father Eugene has just finished the evening mass in which he shared a message of obedience with the faithful. As he was about to tie the raffia doors that protect the entrance of the hut that served as the local parish, the heavens opened it windows, and rain which he could have sworn that was the heaviest in his life began to pour. He could have effortlessly argued that even when he was serving as his master’s dog in the coldest part of England, he had witnesses no rainfall as powerful as this. He realized that he had no choice but to go home to protect himself from the snares of nature, as he remembered that he was no longer a kid who can play in the rain.
The harsh weather at the plantation, have crushed his bones, worn out his muscles and the cracks of the watchman’s whip have reduced the crown to a simpleton. Slowly, guided by his lean shadow, he began to proceed to the shanty he calls home, after escaping back from the land of the English, two decades ago. Fate had it as he was ordained and sent to be a priest for a parish in the middle of nowhere.
Crickets were beginning to lend their harmonious voice to the daring croaking of frogs. As he began to approach the structure he called home, he could see even with his failing eyes that his room was dimly lit. He clearly remembers that he wasn’t that rich to leave his lamp on all day, definitely someone must have broken in. “Who could have broken into the home of a priest?” he thought aloud to himself; he faithfully moved towards the structure, with the hope that if God permits, he would be able to talk the intruder into leaving him in peace, as he thought that the intruder has nothing he can take except a few ill-fitting cassocks and tunics that was donated to him from the bigger parish in the village before the village, before the village before the city.
As he entered into his home, he could see with his failing eyes, a feminine structure seating on his chair. He summoned courage, to walk up to the lady whom he immediately recognized as Celestial, the village harlot Queen. He could remember how on numerous occasions, he had preached to her to change from her immoral ways and become a Christian. He had to leave her when it seems that the demons possessing her doesn’t seem to be cowed by he that is in him.
“Come to me, I have been waiting for you”, she said in a cold and sultry voice. Father Eugene despite years of serving in the land of the pig skinned demons as he fondly calls white men remembered the saying of his fathers that “it is not without reason that the voodoo cult decides to go on a ritual procession in the market square at noonday. He trembled with the remaining strength in his body, and tried to stand but his knees began to fail him. “Holy Mary Mother of God” he shakily began to mutter under his breath with his last remaining strength, as the light skinned human goddess began to caress his dry bald scalp. “All men in this village, young and old, frail or strong, senile or fertile, kings and slaves have I tasted, but you seem to evade me!” she said in a soothing cold voice like that of a fairy who drank from the water fetched from the stream before dawn. “Please I’m just a fadah” was all he could mutter with a voice like that of he who had just seen a thousand ghosts. As she began to dip her hand into his private region, with a bid to tame the ferocious dragon that lies underneath who is already apprehensive for action for its first time. Father Eugene went numb and fell on his knees. She placed her ears on his chest to check. Alas! Holy Mary saved poor Eugene from the claws of the Harlot Queen of Ummuno Village.
MICHAEL GOLDSWORTH
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