Each step I took would raise a slight puff of dust as my flip flops penetrated the thick film of powder on the road. The sound of rubber gently hitting the underside of my foot was louder than usual partly because I was walking briskly but mostly because my senses were being stretched to their limits. There were only 3 or so houses close enough to the road that could provide me with any sense of comfort. I knew that in a worst case scenario, an encounter with you-know-who….at the very least people would hear my screams.
My plan was to make it between these “safe zones” and spend as little time as possible in the relatively darker areas with head-high grass. I made my way through the first 50 or so meters rather quickly, keeping a watchful eye on the swaying blades of grass to my right. I figured that if I was gonna get attacked, it would almost certainly come from beyond the wall of grass, which seemed so innocent in the day. Our fence was on the left so I was pretty sure nothing would be coming from that end. I avoided its shadow though and kept what I regarded as a safe distance from the grass on the right… I ended up walking straight through the middle.
I made it to my first “safe zone” intact, a bit sweaty and shaken but otherwise ok. I could hear the reassuring sound of the neighbours’ conversations from behind the wall as I walked by. It was a few seconds of respite for my hardworking heart… furiously beating at my chest from the inside. I knew that a second stretch of deserted road was literally just around the corner. Much longer than the first, it also had a couple of half constructed homes along the way.
These homes under construction were particularly terrifying at night as they cast ominous shadows. I started my walk, or was it a slight jog? I can’t really recall… but somehow I was moving and getting closer to where i wanted to be. I remember the growing sense of relief I felt as I approached the main intersection that connected the side street I was walking on with the main road. I could hear faint sounds of the conversations that drifted through the wind…I thought I was home and dry, my heart slowed down a little, my neck relaxed just a touch…and then I felt it…
A sharp gust of wind hit me from my right; I could hear the movement of the grass as the wind picked up dust and stones and swept them right across my path. My clothes billowed in the wind... I FROZE….too terrified to run away as my legs were too weak to move and were barely propping me up. I couldn’t turn around either and check out what was going on because I didn’t want to see whatMIGHT be there…I thought to myself, “This is it…” my end has come, I’m going to be killed by a man-hating spirit… I heard what i thought was the rustling of clothing and I thought she was making her way over to me…but I still couldn’t move or turn around...
As I processed the situation, I tried in vain to recall all those koranic verses that I’d memorized for such a confrontation but I couldn’t remember a single thing… Arabic wasn’t my first language and I always sucked at it so I desperately searched my brain for an alternative …something that would be as effective at warding off evil…
Just as a side note, you should know that I’m descended on both sides of my family from conservative Muslims…my ancestors had waged jihad to establish an Islamic Kingdom, with the capital at Timbo, my ancestral home…
…yet in my deepest hour of need, when my brain was blanked and my feet paralysed by terror, I called out “I am covered in the blood of Jesus, you cannot harm me”… over and over again…I waited to be struck by evil, my heart was racing, my palms were sweaty as I held a fist, my neck ached from being held rigidly in one position. My mouth kept repeating that intoxicating chant. As if I was in a trance, my mouth moved like it had taken a life of its own... everything seemed to slow down, like my life was put on slow motion... my senses were so heightened I could swear I felt each hair on my skin move, I could hear myself breathe, I could smell the barbeques from the shacks near the intersection…
After waiting for what seemed like an eternity, the wind stopped, the grass calmed and everything went back to normal…I lifted my head up and ran as fast as i could… all the way down the hill. Even though I’ve never been renowned for my athleticism, i ran extremely fast and didn't feel out of breath or tired when I got to the stores.I bought my food as quickly as I could and I started on the return journey…
Emboldened by my earlier “victory”, I was a lot calmer as I negotiated the little dusty side street on my way home… By calmer, I mean I jogged instead of ran home invoking Jesus and Allah (I was starting to recall some things) along the way. I got home tired, dirty and just plain relieved to be intact and alive.
Looking back at that incident a decade later, I can’t explain what really happened that night. I tend to think these days that all the ghost stories must have made my brain overreact and imagine sounds… after all strong gusts of wind are not uncommon in a seaside community. However the African in me will always wonder… what if the wind and dust was actually her “appearing”…what if I had actually managed to defeat an evil spirit…somehow to think that I had repelled the Yellow Woman makes me feel rather good.
THE END