Market Spirits
The sun shone brightly on the lake. The water was cool and refreshing when he dipped me inside. Three times he dipped my head in water whilst screaming some incoherent things.
I opened my eyes to sneak a peek at my oppressor. His face had a funny, serious look on it that I almost laughed. He had a brown, ragged loincloth tied around his waist and in between his legs. His legs looked strong and well-formed like the trunk of an ukwa tree. His skin was the colour of baked clay, with bulging veins running through it. My eyes traced the veins from his leg to his stomach, to his neck, and finally to his face. The expression on it was even more intense now. The scattered white hairs on his face and wrinkles on his forehead made it even worse. He looked like the monster mama used in her stories when I was a kid.
“What is so funny?” His hoarse voice brought me back to reality
“We are trying to appease Agbala for your foolishness, and you are here looking at my face and smiling”
I stared at him without uttering a word
“Hei! So it's true”, he exclaimed, “The market's spirits have taken you”.
“You are such a stupid child,” He continued, “Even a child knows better than to mess with the spirits of the marketplace. Or you think your fancy education would save you from the abomination you have committed?”
I slowly drifted back to reality. Yes, that was why I was there in the first place. Because I did not believe my cousin, I had looked between my legs to see the floating spirits, but had found something else instead.
I knew in my heart that Eke would not do anything to hurt me. We had an understanding, and it could be said that we were lovers. Everyone said that I had been possessed by a market spirit, but the truth is that I had fallen in love with a market spirit. I had fallen in love with a snake, and it was the best feeling ever