KIDNAPPED! (almost)

So there I was. Walking down the road to my house. I was coming back from the saloon, I had just done my hair and if I might say so I was looking quite presentable; I checked before I left the saloon.

Before I start this narrative I have to define juju or jazz (as the more fashionable people call it). This is a mostly African phenomenom. It involves the use of native occultic powers (not anything like Harry Potter) to disturb peoples lives eventually the lives of the users of jazz.

Well so there I was walking down the road when this car- a very battered green Peugeot- pulled up beside me. I kept walking as I have been told never to talk to strangers. 'Excuse me sister' the man in the car said. I kept walking. 'Excuse me sister!' I reluctantly turned around. The man in the car is what I have always thought an igbo (marijuana) smoker would look like. He had eyes that were noticeably red. He was wearing a striped long sleeved shirt that was straining at the seams which was tucked into dirty khaki trousers; the top buttons of his shirt were undone and vile looking hairs were peeping out. In short he was just generally looking bad. If I were closer I am sure I would have realised that he smelled. I was about to keep walking when he said 'Sister (I have never minded random people calling me sister but at that moment it really irritated me) I am looking for Metropolitan Hospital. Three of the children in my parish got hit by a car yesterday and they were taking there. I am a reverend father (at this point I should have realised that this dirty red eyed man could not be a reverend father as he didn't have a collar and he was just too dirty). At this point these thoughts were not running through my head when I said 'No, I'm sorry I can't help you, I only know SCIAN (a nearby clinic).' I fancied myself as the good samaritan and I was even using funne (accent) to talk to the man.

I was about to go when the man said 'Sister please call that man next to you so I can ask him.' I mumu (idiot) went to call him. Before I could say excuse me though, the man turned around. Here, I should have guessed that something was not quite right but as I have already said I was quite the mumu then. So the second man came to join our discussion. The location of the hospital was asked for. He said he didn't know it.
The Reverend Father (supposedly) : 'Where are you from?'
Second man :Abia state
Reverend Father :You?
Me : Anambra (what a pitiful thing to lie about. I'm from Imo state.)
R.F : Are you a christian?
Second man : Yes.
R.F : You?
Me : Yes.

Here the Reverend held out his hand and said 'Bless you in the name of the Father.' Second man shook his hand and did the sign of the cross on his chest. The R.F extended his hand to me. I didn't want to not shake it as that would seem rude but meeeeeen that hand was ugly. The skin on his palm was yellow and there were so many lines criscrossing it. I stared at it for like 30 seconds and then reluctantly placed my palm in his. He clutched it and then drew it into the car ( all this while he had been sitting inside the car with his engine off). He shook my hand for like another 30 seconds. Probably the longest handshake I have ever had. He was actually leaning forward as he was shaking my hand; squeezing it tighter; my poor fingers couldn't breathe. While he was shaking me I looked straight into his eyes and there was pure evil in them. At that moment when I saw his evil eyes(how cliché) in their red sockets I knew he was trying to do something to me, I wasn't quite sure what but I knew it wasn't anything good. Its quite weird but I gave a tiny smile because I could see he wanted his jazz to work so badly because he was squeezing my hand so tightly but it just wasn't working. Na God o.

The sensible part of me finally surfaced and I thought 'hasn't this hand shake gone on for too long?' I pulled my hand out of his vice like grip and said politely- it is a wonder that I still had the manners to be polite, I thank or maybe blame my mother - 'I'm sorry but I have to go now.' I began to walk away. The R.F called after me 'Sister wait! I have a vision for you.' My sensible self fully in control now wanted to laugh at this remark. Obviously this so called reverend father had forgotten about his parishioners who were dying in the 'Metropolitan Hospital' (it doesn't exist) and was now interested in telling me his visions for me. The second man called after my retreating figure, 'Can't you see (bad grammar. He should have said 'Can't you hear) he is calling you.' I didn't look back but kept walking, 'Let her go jo' he said finally.

When I got to the corner I turned and gave one last look at them. The second man was leaning into the car -I remember vividly his red long sleeved shirt, khaki trousers and bathroom slippers - and was probably commiserating with his partner on the loss of such a presentable person. They were probably wondering how their jazz failed to work. Obviously they had met each other before.

When I had taken a few steps out of their sight I began to rub my hand vigourously against the side of my jeans. I was trying to remove any trace of the vile man from me. By the time I had reached the gate of my house I began to see it all as a joke and was trying to tell my gut to go back to where it belonged. 'Those men tried to outwit me (I didn't exactly know how) abi? They didn't know what was coming for them.' I stepped through the gate and entered the house. I told an aunt of mine what happened. She said 'tell your mother'. I told my mother what happened. She didn't say anything much; she laughed as well.

I finally told my cousin who was the only one who made a big deal about my event. Once I said there were these people who stopped me on the road she screamed and said 'Chibundu thank God o. Thank God.' She kept saying this through out my narrative. When I finished she then told me what would have happened to me if those men had gotten a hold of me.

If it is not yet clear to you then I'll explain to you what they were trying to do. They were both trying to hypnotise me. They normally do it by just saying a few words to you but clearly God was stronger than any local god they were getting their source from. The R.F even shook my hand and nothing happened. Usually by that time you should be in their car and on your way to God knows where. They may take you to a place and show you illusions of money and then tell you that if you go and pack all the jewelry and money in your house (you would probably get the jewelry from you mother's cabinet and the money from your dad's) they will double it for you; normally when they take the money from you they disappear and the hypnosis goes as well. Or they may just take you and use you for a ritual i.e they will kill you and sacrifice you to a god but as I said God protects his own. What I remember markedly because my cousin and I were supposed to go to the cinema together that afternoon was she said 'That's how I would have come back and we would not have found you at home.'

Anyway, when my cousin told me what could have happened to me I was scared! Really and truly. I hadn't seen it in that light at all. I started crying immediately and just kept repeating 'They would have carried me away.' The tears coursed down and the mucus dribbled but I was just thinking 'They would have carried me away and nobody would have ever seen me again.' I had a feeling that those men did not mean to return me when they took me. Every time I remembered his eyes I started crying afresh. My cousin when she saw the effect her words had on me began to say 'Don't cry' but I wouldn't stop. Well I did eventually stop and then we prayed and then I went upstairs and then we went to the cinema.

Honestly I did not want to go to the cinema but my cousin said I should not let evil people spoil my life. I gave thanks to God that day. If not for Him. In fact, lets not even think about it. My cousin was the only one who made a fuss about me. When I told my father he just said 'Daily Lagos life. We thank God' and as always he was right. That's all we could do. Thank God.