“What kind of healing session leaves you covered in blood?”
“It’s the new cure for my low sperm count.”
She sighs, covering her nose. “And what type of blood smells this bad?”
“The blood of Jesus Christ.”
She frowns and stares down at me. “I don’t believe it.” Her hands now on her hips. “Please be serious. What happened to you?”
“Reggie, I’ve come from the prayer mountain, and the prophet there wants to see you.”
“Nonsense.”
I’m not surprised at her disbelief. Although a Christian, she’s never been a church-going, Bible-reading type, like me. She prefers working hard in the sun to kneeling hard at the altar. My people say that if a salesman has once deceived a woman, she’ll never listen to a marketer again, even if the product appears genuine.
“The prophet has sworn to transform my faulty testicles into God’s testicles, capable of producing strong babies,” I tell her. “Both of us must now go and have sex inside the church so that Jesus Christ will watch and give us a beautiful child.”
She frowns again as if she’s just received a cash-withdrawal notice from her bank without her instruction. “You sound like a drunken man, Tim. What’s wrong with you? Are you unhinged?”
‘Reggie, we’ve got nothing to lose. Please believe me. Help me to help yourself. I’m begging you.”
She flops down on our spring mattress, which makes a shrill sound under her weight. As if to clear a cobweb of confusion covering her face, she rubs her hand over it, shutting her eyes for a moment, inhaling and exhaling loudly, before opening them again.
“When do you want us to go?” she asks, looking up at our wall clock.
“Tomorrow night.”
“You’re not making any sense but I’ll do it, if you think it’ll work.”
“There’s no one like Prophet Elijah, I tell you.”
“If you say so?” she says, shrugging.
My stomach roars. “Sweetie, I’m hungry.”
“Let me dish out your food.” She rises from the mattress, placing her hand over her nose. “But you must sleep on the floor tonight. I don’t want blood on these bedcovers; I only washed them yesterday.”
#
It’s drizzling when Regina and I arrive at the foot of the mountain the next night. It’s compulsory for every woman devotee—patient—to bathe in the stream before climbing up. Bathing gets rid of her worldly impurities before meeting the clean prophet. I wonder if men don’t have earthly muck too. I beam my torchlight as Regina strips herself naked, dropping her skirt and blouse on a jagged rock. There’s a bar of soap that the prophet keeps in a bowl on the bank of the stream. She lathers herself, scrubbing her face and arms and legs and torso, and lingers on her armpits as if those parts contain her worst bodily filth. When she’s done, she rinses herself and leaves the stream. She cups her hands, scraping water from her face and flinging it away. Her lips tremble from the Christian song she hums, Amazing Grace. She puts her clothes back on, and we start to climb up the steep track that leads to the holy house. I hold her shivering hand.
‘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!