Forbidden Mystics

THE BALKAN MOUNTAINS, BULGARIA: 1703 AD 
 Bratislav Aćimović looked out the window to see that despite his servant Ivanović's early warning he still hadn’t gotten out on time. Now the villagers were already gathered in front of his castle, yelling for his blood while attempting to break down his heavy door. How dare they repay his good deeds with insolence and betrayal? Most importantly, how had Bojan found him after all these years? And what had he told the villagers that got their hackles up? All these were his thoughts as he limped quickly towards his study and to where The Book of the Забрањена мистици [Forbidden Mystics] was hidden.

Many years past, back at his home in Tara Moldovei, Bratislav had been a promising apprentice under the tutelage of his mentor, the great alchemist Bojan Aleksijević when the Book of the Забрањена мистици which had been lost for centuries was rediscovered. From the moment Bratislav set sight on it, he knew he had never craved for something so much in his life like the way he craved the book, so one night he broke into his mentors study, stole the book and ran away. 

The Book of the Забрањена мистици possessed unimaginable powers and was said to eventually bring the vilest of lucks to those who read from it. It was so powerful that if used inappropriately, it could spell doom for the wielder and Bratislav's mangled and scarred body bore testament to the results of his dabbling with things beyond human comprehension. It was also said that the powerful secrets the book possessed were so seductive that everyone who had read from it never let it go and had eventually walked on the path of self destruction.

To Bratislav's credit, no one had lived this long dabbling with the book's mysteries, and as he got to his study a feeling of regret blanketed him because it was just when he had began to make headway in his understanding of the mysteries enveloping the safe passage through planes by way of a portal that Bojan found him. 

But what terrified him most was that he was being forced to use the dangerous and tricky incantation he hadn't perfected to escape.

The Book of the Забрањена мистици wasn’t known to be explicit with its instruction. So the complex incantations for travelling between and through planes must be recited in the right sequence before the silver like doorway portal would open. But that was just one side to the complex spell because you also needed to master the ways around the maze the portal takes you through, else you end up in the wrong place or worse.

But at the moment Bratislav didn’t have time because he could hear the sound of rushing feet in the castle, an indication that his door had finally been breached so he opened the book and began to recite the incantation that would open the portal. 

Twenty minutes later, profusely sweating and still battling to get the incantation right, the villagers arrived  at the door of his study and began to break the door down.

And just when Bratislav thought all was lost, he felt the slight tinge at the tip of the fingers thats usually associated with the use of strong magik right before the air in front of him shimmered to reveal a silvery and misty doorway. Relieved and triumphant, Bratislav took a deep breath before he quickly limped with the book in hand into the mist and thus his salvation.

Icy cold air fervently whipped at his skin as he suddenly found himself at the entrance of a dark temple covered in smoke and mist. At the top of the temple, a strange trapezoid sign closed by a horizontal line at the top and surmounted in the middle by a circle was inscribed on the wall and Bratislav’s first thought was that he had transported himself to the end of the world. But the persistent icy cold and razor like wind that was laying siege to his body temporarily dispelled those thoughts as he hurried for the comfort of the temple.

He pushed the temples door open and found the temple filled with men. But his relief was short lived for it was quickly replaced with shock at the sight that beheld him. As opposed to his very light complexion, every man here was dark skinned and heavily built. Their heads were clean shaven, they were stark naked save for a piece of loin clothe covering their chests and they moved about their business like there was nothing wrong with the unabashed display of their huge genitalia's. 

After the initial shock wore off, he attempted to talk to them but he was completely ignored as they moved about with lifeless eyes that stayed fixed and faraway. Furthermore he noticed that they all walked with a slouch and that they all seemed to move around like they were only going through a motion.

While still trying to ponder the mystery he found himself in, they all abruptly stopped in their tracks, cocked their heads at an angle and stared into space like they were listening to an instruction before they all turned towards him, acknowledging him for the first time with their unseeing eyes.

THE TEMPLE OF TANIT: THE CITY OF CARTHAGE, TUNIS. 203 BC

He suddenly woke up to the insistent chanting of Tanit  before he realised that he was now naked and suspended midair in trapezoid shaped chamber. He was horizontally held by his hands and feet by two pulley like device with a heavily built man standing beside each one.

There was a raging hot pot of water boiling a little distance away and gathered around him were the silent and seemingly lifeless men that attacked him earlier. This time they weren't alone, for an equal number of dark complexioned women who were dressed like some sort of priestess were also present. 

While he pondered his present predicaments and plausible escape, the scariest and largest woman he had every had the misfortune of meeting entered the chamber and the other women’s chanting intensified. She was a towering monstrosity with very sharp and long fingernails that bore a resemblance to claws. She also had an abnormally oversized and flaccid set of mammary glands and deformed feet that had an uncanny resemblence to those of a predatory bird. At this point he knew something was about to happen because as the monstrosity began to chant a whole litany of words towards Tanit, a kind of spiritual frenzy hit everyone and a sexual orgy begun.

Then as if on cue, the men standing beside the pulleys he was tied to began to unwind the pulleys simultaneously.

He let out the most heart wrenching scream as every joint in his deformed body began to snap like dried twigs in autumn. But his screams only sent them into a deeper frenzy as the most obscene sexual shenanigans enfolded before him. Despite the abject pain he was experiencing, he shamelessly still managed an erection and when the monstrosity he already began to tag as a Head priestess of some sort saw it, she walked over and began to scrutinize his erect genitalia with predatory awe before she whispered an incantation, pried his mouth open and cut out his tongue. He was still gurgling in pain when she whispered another set of incantation then ripped out his heart with her bare hand.

SEVERAL DAYS LATER:

Within the deep recess of the temple, in her private chambers, the high priestess moaned and crooned in pleasure as her oversized and flaccid breasts were being suckled on while fingers stroked her labia and clitoris.

His oily, light and scarred body gleamed like the morning sun. He was also naked save for a piece of loin clothe that covered the gaping hole in the left section of his chest and as he eagerly suckled on her mammary glands like a new born babe, she stroked his shaven head in pleasure and told him that the ritual had made him for Tanit and thereby hers to do as she wishes.  Then she roughly shoved him to the floor, shifted her monstrous size to enable her straddle his already large and erect genitalia, before she began to vigorously ride him.

Deeper within the recess of the temple The Book of the Забрањена мистици lay in a box filled with odd assortments, patiently waiting for its next victim. It would lay there gathering dust for a century, a millennial or it may never be found again but patiently it waits because it feeds of our human weakness for power. It waits to corrupt anything that reads from it, it waits to destroy anything that dreams of it.

 

The African Woman

Babatunde's eyes glowed with excitement as he blew the flames off the candles on his birthday cake, and the joy I felt was the only kind a mother would feel for a son she had gone through thick and thin to raise. My mind flashed back ten years in time when I conceived him and the circumstances surrounding his delivery and tears of gratitude flowed down my eyes unrestrained.

**********************************

The weather that faithful day had been scorching hot and an accident which occured an hour before had ceased all automobile movement. The worse were the sounds of different automobile horns blaring impatiently and the smell of burning rubber as clutches and brakes were being stamped on with reckless abandon. I was seated on the side walk because the tarmac was emitting so much heat that easily infiltrated the little protection offered by my over worn rubber soled slippers and because all these conditions made life uncomfortable for both of us. God knows that so many times over the last few months I had almost given up hope but the thought of my husband was the only thing that kept me going. 

  My sweet smiling husband whose bushy mustache and horn rimmed glasses made him look funny and aristocratic at the same time. He who never let the worries of the world dampen his spirit, he who always had a word of encouragement for me whenever I was down, he who…………

 My reverie was suddenly disrupted by the incessant demand for "pure water" by the occupants of one of the Luxury buses stuck in the traffic and when I tried to get up from the side walk to compete with the other hawkers I suddenly felt a sharp contraction in my stomach.

 Hunched and squinting in pain, I began to count to twenty in the hopes that the pain would abate. But by the count of twenty, when the pain hadn’t abated I began to get worried. Furthermore I was already attracting unnecessary attention from the paranoid Nigerians, who were casting furtive glances my way in preparation to take flight at the first sign of presumed trouble.

 I tried to show them that everything was fine by getting up but a stronger contraction hit me in ripples and  my lower back began to slowly seize up. It was like the muscles inside were slowly twisting harder and harder and when I couldn't take it any longer, I crumbled to the floor screaming for help. But as expected my cries were ignored as my fellow hawkers took flight and the cars caught in the traffic began honking in panic and desperation.

 As contractions after contractions riddled my body with excruciating pain, I began to wonder if this was how it was going to end. I began to wonder that life wouldn't be fair if after all I had gone through to keep this pregnancy, I ended up losing it by the sidewalk for the whole world to see. And just when I began to succumb to the unavoidable feeling of hopelessness and despair, I felt hands probe me as a female voice shouted that my water had broken.

And so began the horrid task of searching for an hospital that would agree to admit me without asking for any financial form of commitment on my part. The doctor at the first hospital took one look at my contorted body and rejected me and so did the next two hospitals till I was finally admitted into the general hospital. By this time I was in so much pain that I was desperately wishing for deaths embrace.

 Adekunle who had already been contacted, came as I was being wheeled in for delivery. He assured me that everything was going to be fine and that he would be here with me throughout. God knows that those words were part of what gave me the energy I needed to survive the hell I went through.

The first sign that something was amiss came when the doctor said that the baby had its arm up over its head and they had to manually move it, before he then later realized that it was the umbilical cord that was wrapped around its neck. So after seven excruciating hours of painful pushing and having me in every position imaginable, it was soon discovered that my baby was now stuck in the birth canal and they therefore had to perform an emergency cesarean section.

 Half an hour later, I was losing so much blood like a gutted pig, delirious and slowly slipping away that the doctor began to worry for my well being. I remembered howling at my husband in accusation, I remembered blaming him for my present predicament, I remember telling him that I was so sorry because I couldn't do it and I remembered the smile he gave me before he patiently reminded me of how we had lost two through miscarriages and how we had so wanted this child badly. I remembered him holding my hands and appealing to me to be strong. I remember the soothing words he offered me. I also remember that despite the pain, he almost made me laugh at the jokes he cracked and just before I slipped away, he kissed me on the forehead and promised me he would never let anything happen to me or our baby.

I woke up fourteen hours later to find Adekunle by my side and the first thing I asked for was my baby. He held my hand and told me that it was a boy and he was in an incubator.  He also said that the baby was a miracle because upon delivery he was blue and hadn't been breathing till oxygen was given to him.

 Adekunle told me that I gave them quite a scare when I lost consciousness and the doctor couldn't get a pulse from me for almost half an hour. He said that upon my revival he had to donate blood for me quickly because of the large amount I had lost.

 I stayed in the hospital for two weeks because of mine and the baby's critical condition. I don't know how Adekunle managed to pay the fees because I knew things were very hard for him but he did and I'll forever remain grateful to him.

**********************************

 

Still trapped with the ghost of my past, Babatunde suddenly squeaked incoherently in joy, and I looked up to see that the reason for his joy was the entrance of Adekunle who had a package under his arm. Babatunde didn’t give him a chance as he was already all over him in excitement, gesturing if the package was  his and my joy grew in threefold because the two people I loved the most were here with me.

 More tears streamed down my eyes as I watched Babatunde blunder around showing off to his peers the gift my twin brother Adekunle bought for him. It hurts so bad that he reminds me so much of his father who had died seven months prior to his birth and at the same time I am so happy that I at-least have a part of him in our son. It was also the reason I  named him "Babatunde" which in Yoruba means "Father returns". 

Now that God has smiled on us and things have gotten better because from hawking sachet water in traffic, I now own shops, I made a promise to myself again that I would do everything within my power to raise him like every other normal child despite his limitations.

 We first noticed something was wrong when at age three he could only manage to say a few words and couldn't make complete statements. Then he started school and couldn't keep up with his peers academically. After several visits to the doctor he was diagnosed  of having Cerebral Hypoxic injuries as a result of the cut off of oxygen to his brain during delivery.

 I was devastated, heartbroken and shattered by the news but I loved him all the more because he is special in his own way too. I see the beauty in him even if his brain has probably been damaged beyond repair and he reminds me so much of his late father who  has so far kept his promise to watch over us. Above all he is my flesh, my sweat, my heart, my blood and my beloved child.