Jinxed

admin Oct 26, 2018 3584 0

The day she started teething

Her mother noticed something very unusual

She quickly called her father

"Please come and see what I am seeing"

Her father opened her mouth and shook his head

"What manner of child was this?"

Her father carried her to the elders of their compound,

"What can we do to stop this growth?"

The elders observed the child critically

The two upper front teeth were clearly visible

The natural pattern of teething for every child is for the two front teeth to break out from the lower gums

But in her case the two front teeth broke out from the upper gum

This made the child a powerful child by tradition

According to legend, anything the child said would come to pass!

The most damning aspect of it, was that such children did not live long

Her mother begged the elders to help her

This was her sixth child and the only one that had survived the 30 day mark

All her previous pregnancies had resulted in stillbirths

The elders weighed their options

It was rare to find a child who would grow the upper teeth first

It was equally true that some of the children grew up to be normal children

But there were one or two instances in which such children wrecked untold havoc on communities and families

If such a child pronounces a curse, regardless of its target, such a curse came to pass immediately

Such a child was feared even by witches, herbalists and wizards because there was no remedy to whatever they proclaim.

Even the child cannot take back a curse once it has been proclaimed

The only way to know if the potency of the two front teeth of every child was to wait until the child started losing his or her milk teeth

If the two front teeth went the way of the other milk teeth, the teeth was not a problem but if the teeth refused to fall out with the other milk teeth, it was the real one!

Angry mothers had been known to coach and incite such children into pronouncing curses on kings and kingdoms to devastating effect

To be on the safe side, such a child must be put to death!

Her mother begged

Her father begged

Tears flowed!

The elders gave them an option

Take this child far away from us

"Cross as many rivers as you could, relocate!"

They were given a month to move away from the community

They had no option!

One of the elders visited them that evening

He counselled them not to tell anybody in the community they would be relocating to that the child had grown two upper teeth first

They were also counselled not to go to any herbalist, shaman or spiritualist to seek an antidote to the power of the child because more often than not, the herbalist would covet the two front teeth and could kill the child to get it

The teeth were an essential and rare ingredients required to make some potent charms

They left very early the next day

They resolved to stay somewhere far away from friends and relatives until all the child’s teeth had grown, so that people wouldn’t notice that the child had grown the two upper teeth first!

Their plan worked

They stayed in a foreign land for twenty five years

The husband worked as a labourer in a farm while the wife worked as a petty trader

When the child was eight years old and began to lose her milk teeth, the two front teeth remained solid!

Her parents paid attention after that, urging her never to curse or swear

As soon as the child graduated from high school, she told her parent she would like to a tailor

She was immediately enrolled as an apprentice to a successful tailor in their town

She learnt a lot from the ladies around her and her mistress

She learnt about love and how it could make or break a woman

She had kept away the opposite sex for many years, but it was time to test the ropes

Her first boyfriend was a baker

He was a nice guy who was really interested in her development, but he had tribal marks and spoke in a very funny way.

She was not proud of him

Often times, she would visit him at the bakery in the night when people wouldn’t see them together! She never paid him a visit unless she was broke and in need of some quick cash

After some months, she left him, "if one would eat a frog, it is better to eat the one with eggs"

She met another guy, a carpenter! He had a stable income, dressed well and spoke in a more refined way. But he was a womanizer!

Almost all the ladies selling carpentry materials, tailors, bread hawkers, cleaners and so on shamelessly parade themselves as his girlfriend.

He slept with whomsever he wanted, whenever he wanted!

She couldn’t join that long queue

Then she met and fell in love for the first time!

He was a student!

He just finished his OND and he had a bright future!

He was undergoing his Industrial Training at an engineering firm.

They met one day at the bus stop.

It was late in the night

A bus came, but it was filled up and had space for only one more passenger

He offered to wait for the next bus

She asked if he would prefer to sit and carry her on his laps

He agreed

It was a pleasant ride for her

They alighted at the same bus stop

He showed him his house and walked her home

The next day she was at his house early in the morning, waiting by the gate

There wasn’t much talk, there oughtn’t be, it was natural!

He was very serious minded and hardworking

They had been together for five months when she noticed that another girl was somehow lurking in the shadows

She asked him who the girl was

He told her the girl was just a neighbor

She told him the girl looked at her somehow whenever she visited

He laughed it off!

A week later, she met the girl on her way to his house

The girl hissed at her, called her "an husband snatcher”.

The girl: Don’t think you are anything to him anymore, he came to toast me! I am the item on the menu now! You are his past and I am his present! Get that into your head”

The lady was very confrontational and saucy

She decided not to make a scene, but she was highly embarrassed and hurt

She met him at home and asked him if there was anything between him and the girl

He denied it

She asked him again “Did you “toast” that girl? (Meaning, did he ask her out)

He denied it again

She looked straight into his eyes and pronounced a curse

“If you sleep with another lady apart from me, you will never make it in life”

Whoa!

She forgot that in one of their lovey-dovey moments, she had spilled her guts like Samson! She had told him the circumstances surrounding her birth and why her parents had to live so far from friends and family members

He couldn’t believe she cursed him!

Then she took the curse a notch higher!

"If you had ever toasted that girl or slept with her. May it never be well with you!"

He got angry!

“Why were you cursing me? Are we married? Are you my wife? I am not longer interested in the relationship! Take back that curse.”

She laughed!

“I will not take the curse back! What I have said, I have said!”

He slapped her

She slapped him back

It became a scuffle

They were in his tiny room

A student’s typical room