IS IT WORTH IT?

My name is Bisa and I am not a spiritual person. Well, that was what I thought.

My life ended when I decided to follow a friend of mine, Khiro, to see a spiritualist.  

His name is Ifagbemi.

Khiro loved the finer things of life but he was too lazy to work for them. He decided to get money the easiest way he could think of.

“bobo, abeg you fit follow me go see one baba like that. I get one runz for him house.” 

He said to me that fateful day as soon as he showed up at my place not telling me the actual reason why he wanted to go there.

He smelled like feaces.

I later found out that he had jumped into a dumpster to avoid being lynched by a mob after he had snatched an old woman’s purse in the market close to my place some minutes earlier. 

He had unfortunately met with this “gift” in the dumpster

“na for garage e dey?" I had asked him. 

The only place Khiro did runz was in the garage at the other side of the road and I had gone with him on many of those. His runz usually involved running errands for the garage bosses and getting tips for it.

“noooo.  He say make I come im house and as I no wan go alone as per....” he shrugged

 Out-of-the-garage runz meant more tip, so I followed him.

To this day, I wish I had continued blowing the groundnut that I had bought to drink my garri and said "no” to Khiro. 

Lack of what to do and the idea of getting a tip that might be more than the occasional 200 Naira we got from the garage bosses clouded my judgement.

Little did I know that I would leave with more than I bargained for. 

The one behind that is one whose name I fear to call out to this day. 

His name is Ifagbemi.

Ifagbemi’s house in simple words could be described as magnificent and unusual.

It had features that I could only have dreamt about seeing in actual life. 

A very old man came to let us in. He had a wrinkled face with bulging eyes and a slightly drooping nose. He never spoke a word. He pointed to us towards a vast corridor and turned to leave.

The corridor was wide and long with very expensive looking chandeliers hanging from a white ceiling. One peculiar thing about the corridor were the life size statues of men and women that lined both sides of it. 

Each statue was in a state of frozen terror. Eyes wide in fear, mouth open in what looked like painful shock. Some had their hands in front of their faces as if trying to ward off an attack from something.

The most disturbing one I saw was that of a little girl who could not have been more than seven or eight. She clutched something like a toy to her chest and her mouth was in an open O. 

Her expression showed immense fear that would make any human being in their right senses turn around and bolt but like the nonchalant fool he had always been, Khiro reached out a hand to touch one of the statues.

“e real so?” he asked

Quickly, I slapped his hand away

“you dey craze?. How ca-” I had begun to say to him when a voice that ran a shiver through my spine interrupted

“Depends on how you look at it” it said. The voice was void of emotion. It sounded like something that came out of a drum when you spoke into an empty one.

That voiced belonged to Ifagbemi

Ifagbemi was not just a handsome man, he was a sight to behold.

His face was flawless, he towered above us at 6ft5” lean and strong. I know this because I am 6ft in height, and he looked nothing close to a baba, like Kamal had said.

To my own unbelievable shock, I felt a longing for him. It was as if his aura called to me. The fact that I was a seriously straight man did nothing for it.

His presence made you want to go to him and pledge your spirit, soul and body to him. 

His hair was a brilliant white, it flowed to his shoulders and it seemed to ripple as hair would in the wind but the corridor had no windows.

It was at this point that I should have run out of that building but stupidly, I stayed

“come. I have been expecting you” he said and he turned away from us

Khiro and I found ourselves following him.

The corridor led to a vast sitting room, he told me to wait and motioned for Khiro to follow him

Minutes later, Khiro came out looking both elated and downcast at the same time. I asked what the problem was but he never answered. 

I was to find out years later on one of my visits to Ifagbemi the reason why he had been downcast.

I was next to go in. 

We entered into another sitting room, one smaller and less lit than the first. More life size statues decorated the room.

"what do you want in life Bisa?" he asked me

"huh?" I asked stupidly, wondering how he knew my name. Everybody that knew me, Khiro included, called me Gidi, after a slang that I was used to saying.

 I thought for a while but I didn't understand what the question meant.

"everybody that comes to see me wants something. Wealth, health, Love...Death"

It took a full minute for me to finally understand what was happening. Desperately, I cursed Khiro for leading me to it and scolded myself for not bolting when my instinct had told me to.

"I don't want anything" I said

"wealth, health, love, death" he said again, "choose!"

"I don't want anything, sir" I replied again, the fear in me was beginning to take hold, I tried to get up from the seat but couldn't. 

Something was holding me down.

"you have passed the threshold. You must choose" he said, his eyes darkening 

"Sir, please, I don't-" I began but his movement cut me off

In a blink, he rose to his feet and thundered “choose now or join them!” He threw out his hand

The statues in the room, or rather what I had thought were statues,  began to move. Slowly.

They seemed to be doing some form of weird, ritualistic dance. 

They stretched out their hands towards where I was seated. An unseen force started moving my chair towards them, I struggled but still couldn’t get up. 

They held their hands up to a ceiling that had turned into what looked like an inverted pitch black bottomless pit and let out a  screech, a heart wrenching sound that tore through my mind and brought it to the edge of insanity.

I struggled harder in my chair, breathing became difficult as fear consumed every part of my being. 

Against my will, I continued to move towards them. I looked to where Ifagbemi was standing but he was no longer there. Somehow he was now standing behind the floating, dancing statues that were pulling me towards them. 

His eyes were swirling orbs of red. Orange flames licked at his hair but didn't consume it. He raised his head to the ceiling and opened his mouth. Another inhuman mind rending screech came forth. Then what looked like a hand slowly rose out of his open mouth....

...to be continued






"I am as my creator made me. If he is satisfied, so am I"





Stories posted on this blog are fiction and a product of the writer's imagination. They do not refer to any person or persons. Similarities to real life characters are purely coincidental.