dial episode 45

DIAL
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Sequence 45
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©Aaron Ansah-Agyeman
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Okomfo Basabasa stared at me balefully, ignoring the pitiful cries of Maame Ntiriwaa.
“You committed a taboo, stranger,” he said in a vicious tone. “By touching the King’s woman, you’ve broken one of the most enshrined customs of this land, and because of that, the gods have judged you, and have passed death on you!”
“Do your worst, evil man!” I hissed at him with a venom of my own.
“Guards!” Okomofo Basabasa cried angrily. “Cut him free from the pole!”
The burly people moved around me, and a moment later they cut the cords binding me to the pole. I realized then that there were cords around my body too, and so although I was free from the pole, my legs were all tied up, and so were my wrists.
The guards held me tightly, and then Okomfo Basabasa lifted the lid once more off the basket of venomous snakes! I could see their black shiny bodies, and the blood-curdling sounds they made as they moved within the basket in frenzy, their evil eyes flickering like diamonds, their forked tongues beating furiously.
The Okomfo took a heavy metal bar and rapped it sharply against the side of the basket, causing the snakes to leap with maddened frenzy.
“Put his head inside the basket!” Okomfo Basabasa said, and the King and other old men made grunts of agreement.
My blood froze!
What sort of macabre death was this?
They were going to actually push my head into that basket filled with snakes! Those vile reptiles were in a frenzy, and they would strike me to a slow agonizing death!
“Oh, Yao, Yao, oh Yao!” Maame Ntiriwaa wept bitterly. “I’m sorry, Yao! I’m so sorry! God will punish you for this, you evil men!”
“Shut up, you demon!” Okomfo Basabasa screamed, pointing the metallic bar at her.
“Please, don’t do this, my Lord!” Adobea cried and fell to her knees, holding the king’s leg desperately as tears streamed down her face. “This doesn’t deserve death! I beg you, please let him just leave the village, please!”
“It is too late, my Princess!” Okomfo Basabasa said. “He ate the palm soup reserved for the king. He pays with his life, because the gods say so!”
So, finally, was this the way I was leaving the earth? This horrible and painful death? Where was Nana Bosomba? In the face of my bravado I had been waiting for him to appear, to deliver me again as he had! Hadn’t he warned them not to touch my body? Why then, was this happening? Was he still angry because of the Dial List I hadn’t mentioned in my apology?
So here I was, a twenty-six years old multimillionaire, the youngest richest man on the continent, now trapped in the body of an old man, about to die a heinous death!
Surprisingly, apart from the fury I felt against this vile Okomfo Basabasa and that King Obiba, I wasn’t afraid. I found it tragic – in a way – that I had the Dial List on my computer in my mansion, and I couldn’t even get to it, to revel in it for the last time, or delete it outright.
It was of no importance now. The most regrettable feeling I had was of Maame Ntiriwaa, and how she was going to suffer after my demise. I knew they might also kill her, and my helplessness in helping a great woman like her really filled me we gall!
About four men held me tightly, even though I was tied, and forced my head toward that basket of death. I clenched my teeth as my head got to the edge of the basket, and I could see the deadly mambas striking out angrily and fiercely, waiting for my head!
And then, finally, I heard his voice.
It was calm, and it was soft, but there was no denying the fury behind it.
“What’s going on here now?” Nana Bosomba asked quietly.
The men holding me gasped and threw me, and I fell into the sticky mess of sheep blood on the floor. I saw Okomfo Basabasa turning round completely, apparently searching for the voice of Nana Bosomba.
“Bosomba Nana, you have no business here!” Okomfo Basabasa shouted. “We know this man is under your spell, and so we sought the oracles! And the oracles accepted that this man crossed our customs, and so whatever is being done to him is by the gods of the land…you have no power to come here! If you come here, you will face the wrath of the Oracles, and you know it!”
“I know the rules, and the laws, and the customs of the Oracles, Basabasa!” Nana Bosomba said, and his voice came from the walls of the palace, as if he were hidden within the walls.
“And so what are you doing here, Bosomba Nana?” Okomfo Basabasa, highly agitated, screamed as he peered at the walls.
“I also made a petition to the Oracles, my son,” Nana Bosomba’s voice said through the walls. “I’m not there, no, my dear. I speak from my own abode. You know that if the Oracles didn’t find my petition to their favour, I could not interfere in your business!”
“You cannot interfere, Bosomba Nana, because this is a case of custom, and it is being judged by the gods of this village!” Okomfo said. “So I don’t see any reason for your interference!”
“Ah!” the vibrant voice of Nana Bosomba said through the walls. “You know you must be careful of what you say, my friend, very careful! If you say you don’t see a reason for my interference, are you perchance saying that the Oracles are without reason?”
I saw the sudden fear and horror that crossed Okomfo Basabasa’s face, and he dropped to his hands and knees at once and bowed his head.
“Do not trick me, Bosomba Nana, and put words of wickedness into my mouth!” he said, his voice less severe, now couched with fear.
“I did not utter them!” Nana Bosomba’s voice came from the walls, harsh and amplified. “You uttered them yourself!”
“And for that I apologize, Nananom, ancestors, gods of our land, oh Grand Oracles, I do apologize!” Okomfo Basabasa said with great humility. “Go on, Bosomba Nana, let your petition that granted you entrance here be heard!”
There was a sudden rumbling sound in the walls, and the whole building shook, causing the king and his elders to shudder with fear.
“That boy indeed put his hands on the Princess!” Nana Bosomba said. “And for that, because she is promised in marriage to the King, and she has accepted and wears his golden ring, is indeed a grave infringement of your customs! The fitting punishment must be given to the boy, and I can’t do anything about it!”
My heart sank as these chilling words echoed through the walls, and the intensity of the vibrating walls told me that Nana Bosomba was indeed very angry.
He couldn’t save me?
I still needed to be bitten by snakes?
“That is so, Bosomba Nana!” Okomfo Basabasa said. “Please, we listen!”
“But your customs prescribe two forms of punishment, Okomfo Basabasa…death, and the whip! The wounded Princess is the one who will choose which punishments should be meted out! Why then, do you behave as if only death is the prescribed punishment? Are you perchance saying you’re wiser than the ancestors who set those customs?”
Okomfo Basabasa bowed his head lower in absolute supplication, and when he spoke his voice shook with a mixture of disappointment and rage, and a strange note of fear.
“Forgive me, Grand Oracle,” he said bitterly. “What Bosomba Nana says is indeed, the truth. In the heat of my anger, I forgot there are two punishments prescribed, and what the Princess chooses holds sway! Forgive me! It shall be rectified! Is there any more, Bosomba Nana?”
“Nothing more!” Nana Bosomba’s voice came, hot and filled with fury, resonating violently through the walls. “I just want the Oracles to know that the boy was under my palm, but you have touched him, and there’s nothing I can do! But, today, in the presence of the Oracles, I say you have become my enemy for this very act, Basabasa…and I never forget! Enjoy the battle, but remember the war continues! You want to see red, and I’ll show you the blood of a tiger!”
The walls shook horribly, causing some of the cement plaster to rip off and fall, and then there was silence.
Nana Bosomba’s presence was gone!
Okomfo Basabasa continued kneeling on all fours on the floor, his body shaking, and then he slowly got to his feet.
“What does it mean?” King Obiba screamed shrilly with hatred, his eyes blazing at me as I lay in the blood. “Does it mean he goes free?”
“Keep your voice down!” Okomfo Basabasa hissed under his breath furiously. “The Oracle members are here, and angry! Let me handle this if you don’t want a curse on you, my Lord!”
He looked at Abena Adobea, who was still kneeling down at the King’s feet.
“Our custom prescribes one of two punishment for anybody that touches the companion of the king!” he said with a trembling voice. “Either he receives twenty lashes on his back, or death! You have the power now, Princess! I’m sorry we made the choice for you, but as our customs say, which we unfortunately forgot, you shall make the choice, Princess!”
Abena Adobea watched me helplessly, with the lanterns dancing off her face, and then great tears rolled down her face in torrents.
“Let him go!” she whispered in a broken voice. “I’m so sorry! Please I’m so sorry! Please let him go!”
“Abena!” King Obiba thundered with unrestrained fury. “Are you out of your mind? Are you saying you liked this filthy pig’s paws on you?”
“Keep your voice down!” Okomfo Basabasa hissed at the king furiously. “Do you want curses on us?”
He glared at the king with unrestrained fury, and then he turned to Abena Adobea again.
“Unfortunately, we can’t let him go,” he said fiercely. “Either we lash him, or we put his head in the basket of snakes. Your choice, Princess. Now!”
And Royal Princess Abena Adobea only wept bitterly.
“Abena!” King Obiba screamed. “Choose death, choose death, now! Now, Abena!”
The princess only wept bitterly, and could not speak.
“Fine, since you can’t make a choice, custom demands that we give the king the next option to choose –”
“No!” Abena Adobea screamed shrilly. “He lives! I choose the caning!”
There were groans of disappointment from the elders and kingmakers, and then King Obiba reached down, grabbed Adobea by the hair and dragged her up with fury.
“Are you mad, huh, Abena?” he hissed violently. “Are you out of your mind? You let him live, you stupid girl!”
And then the king slapped Abena Adobea savagely across the face, the blow flinging her off the podium and depositing her rather clumsily on the floor where her mother was still kneeling naked.
With a trickle of blood running down her right nostrils, looking like a black line in the inadequate light, the royal princess reached out and touched her mother’s shoulder with a trembling hand.
“Mama!” she wept bitterly, her voice broken, her soul lost. She was no more a sophisticated girl seeking for power. Abena Adobea was suddenly a lost child seeking a mother.
But Maame Ntiriwaa shook her shoulder free from Abena Adobea’s grip.
“Keep your hands off me!” Maame Ntiriwaa shouted at her, causing her to flinch with shock. “Look at what you have caused, Abena! You see the type of men you chose over me? I accept your wish, Abena Adobea! You don’t want me as a mother? I also disown you this night, Abena Adobea! You’re no longer my daughter! Take your hands off me! You’re not my daughter!”
“Mama!” Abena Adobea screamed, her face shattered with pain…
She moved her body and knelt in front of her mother, in the blood, bowed her head, and began to weep silently with a totally shattered heart!
“Forgive me, Mama!” she wept bitterly, from her deepest core, her beautiful face torn to shreds by the depths of her agony. “I strayed when Papa died. It hurt, Mama, it hurt so bad! I wanted the pain to stop…but I’ve wronged you, Mama! Only your daughter will wrong you! Please, Mama, forgive me…forgive me, Mama! Only a child passes stool on her mother, but a mother can’t cut off the flesh, but washes it off! Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me…Mama!
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To be continued