The prophet springs to his burnt feet. “May the ram’s sperm become yours and turn into a child from heaven.”
“Amen!” Regina and I scream, still locked together but without pleasure.
“I pray in the mighty name of Jeeeesus Christ.”
“Amen!” I exclaim and collapse onto the mattress, offloaded. My wife heaves a loud sigh.
“You may stand up and go,” Prophet Elijah says. “I can assure you, Mr. Timothy, that she’ll be pregnant within seven days.”
#
One month later, Regina tells me she’s menstruating yet again. What a barrel of bad news! I feel like dashing back to that mountain to catch the prophet and reclaim my ram.
“Elijah is a sham prophet,” I scream at Regina. “He’s a thief. I’ll slit his throat today and set his dirty dreadlocks ablaze.”
“Tim, take it easy,” she says.
“Where’s my machete?”
I grab the machete, about to leap out of the house but Regina grips my elbows, asking me not to go. “Calm down, calm down!”
“Calm down?”
“If you didn’t kill the witch doctor, why would you think of killing the prophet? Look, I’m also disappointed, but we must keep our hearts and heads swarming with hope.”
She drags me to the kitchen and shows me white sacks of palm nuts, up to thirty of them. I don’t know who has put them here; several tenants use this spacious kitchen. Five of the sacks are empty, lying on top of the full ones. Regina starts folding the empty sacks one after the other.
“I sold the contents of these five sacks two days ago at an inflated price to our neighbour’s wife,” she says. “She paid without even bargaining.”
I slowly place the machete on the floor and squint at her. “I don’t understand why you’re showing me these sacks of nonsense.”
“It’s my new business, Tim, and it’s very profitable. You know that red palm nuts are in season now, don’t you?”
“I didn’t know.”
“If red palm fruits aren’t harvested early, birds and squirrels will damage them in the bush.”
I jog my brain, scratch my stomach, and stare at the ceiling, wondering what the sacks and birds and squirrels have to do with my sperm-count problem. But I notice my anger suddenly begins to plummet down. I exhale loudly.
‘What seems to be an easy path usually is the most difficult to navigate.’ ~Unknown
An interesting read!
I commend you for this beautiful piece. It was funny and entertaining, yet informative.
I like that you highlighted Tim’s negligence of a possible solution, all because of money, only to patronize a ‘holy service’ offering little or no assistance towards his aspirations. This is the stark reality of many men in Africa who believe in supernatural healing than their scientific counterpart. Running campaigns for awareness for men’s health while making provision of access to finance, will go a long way to solve these simple issues.
At the point I read that Tim had chimpanzee balls for a meal, I reclined and thought, “how many more animals to go?” Lol.
I await your next short story. Well done!
Wow! A beautifully crafted master piece. Bravo!