dial episode 52

DIAL
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Sequence 52
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Abena Adobea rushed forward with absolute terror on her face and knelt in front of King Obiba, and held his leg.
“Please, I beg of you, spare his life, please!” she wept bitterly. “If you do, I’ll marry you willingly, please, My Lord!”
And that seared me to the heart, and my face expressed my absolute wrath as I moved forward too, disregarding the guns and the dogs. The king looked up and saw my furious visage. He reached down quickly, lifted Adobea up, and then pressed the wicked knife in his hand to her throat.
“One more step, stranger, just one more step, and I slit her throat!” he said viciously.
I stopped, impotent with rage. I didn’t see one of the royal guards coming from behind with his rifle reversed. He crashed the butt of the rifle into the base of my head, and a million stars exploded in my head.
I crashed to the hard ground, and darkness found me as I became unconscious.
I never knew how long I stayed in that dark state, but when my eyes opened I found solid earth on each side of me!
And I was totally naked, and my hands had been tied with cords across my chest, and my feet were also bound together. I looked up, and I saw that I was still in the forest, and people were standing above me.
It took some few minutes for the awful truth to dawn on me.
I was lying in a freshly-dug grave!
My body was wet, and so was the earth around me. It took me a second longer to see that a guard standing up there on the side of the grave, had poured a bucket of water on me, the icy coldness forcing me to full wakefulness.
“He’s awake, Nana Komfo!” the man shouted.
I could hear Abena Adobea screaming somewhere out of my vision. A moment later more men came to the edge of the grave to stare at me. I recognized the mean face of Okomfo Basabasa and King Obiba.
The fear was a cold knot in the bottom of my gut!
Dearest me, these wicked people were really going to bury me alive!
I struggled furiously against the cords tying me, but to no avail. I dug my heels into the earth and leveraged my upper body up into a sitting position.
“You have angered the gods by desecrating the sanctity and holiness of the nsamanpowmu, stranger!” Okomfo Basabasa screamed down at me with unrestrained hatred. “And for that you will die in your natural state! Cover him up!”
I screamed with a mixture of fury and fear as four royal guards began to scoop loose earth with shovels and threw their loads down into the grave…on top of me!
I tried to stand up, but to no avail!
Great shovelful of earth rained down on my head and my naked body.
Fluuuuaaam, fluuuuaaam, fluuuuuuuaaam, fluuuuuaaaaam!
I had been in many sticky situations, and had some near-death experiences in my life, but this moment was the most horrific time of my life! The claustrophobic effect, the thought of impending suffocation and horrible death almost made me pass out!
This was the epicentre of all fears, of all horrors!
I was being buried alive…oh, my Pappy!
I was weeping and coughing dirt, unable to breathe…waiting for death, crying for my love, Abena Adobea!
Madness was a real threat at that particular moment. The heaps of dirt had now totally covered me up to my lower belly. Still I could hear Abena Adobea screaming.
Another heap of dirt came tumbling down on me, and then, suddenly, it happened!
I felt the earth shaking underneath me violently, and then it began to move up!
The ground beneath me was rising up, filling up the hole! It was as if the ground was growing!
Up and up I came, the distance between the grave and the ground above diminishing, and suddenly I found myself sitting on the ground above.
The grave I had been lying in had filled up, and now there was no longer a hole, but filled hole! The earth had grown up beneath me! The four guards who were holding the shovels suddenly screamed with horror as the shovels were yanked from their hands, and then the shovels smashed into their skulls with such force that they fell down immediately with blood in their heads!
The four savage dogs suddenly made whimpering sounds in their throats as they stared into the trees above them, their tales between their legs.
“What’s going on, Okomfo?” King Obiba shouted with fear. He was standing behind Abena Adobea who was sitting on the ground too with her hands and feet lashed cruelly.
Okomfo Basabasa was looking at me with horror, and then he looked up into the trees.
“Bosomba Nana!” he screamed suddenly, waving his horsetail whisk in an agitated manner. “You’re interfering, Bosomba Nana! This is no business of yours! This boy has broken our customs again, Bosomba Nana! Hold your peace and return to wherever you’re coming from!”
And then we all saw him!
Nana Bosomba was descending slowly from the branches of the long trees. He was sitting on a white sheet of square cloth that fluttered in the air! He was in a grey robe, his hair, beard and moustache quite bushy, as usual!
And he was sitting on just a square piece of white cloth!
It defied logic, and understanding! What made it worse, perhaps, were the green apples packed on one corner of the straight cloth. Under normal circumstances, the weight of the apples should have collapsed the cloth and sent the apples crashing to the ground, but it remained still.
He was holding a half-eaten apple which he bit as the cloth brought him lower still until he was hanging in the air, just behind me, and his dark eyes bored with furious anger at Okomfo Basabasa.
The fetish priest of Etwe-Pe-Kote tried to look defiant, but I could see that fear lurked in the depths of his eyes.
“What are you doing here, Bosomba Nana, please?” he asked, trying to sound tough, but there was an unsteady beat in his voice.
“I told you the boy was mine, and that you shouldn’t touch him,” Nana Bosomba said softly. “Yet, you have come close to killing him twice!”
The four dogs suddenly gave a series of deafening barks as they stared furiously at Nana Bosomba, but their tails remained between their legs.
Nana Bosomba didn’t even look at the dogs. He just waved his free hand in their direction and uttered one word.
“Sleep,” he said.
And immediately the dogs collapsed on the ground in deep sleep mode!
I saw sweat on Okomfo Basabasa’s face, and I smiled with real and ugly fiendishness at him.
“You can’t intervene, Bosomaba Nana!” cried the fetish priest defiantly. “He broke our custom! He desecrated the
nsamanpowmu!”
“No, he didn’t,” Nana Bosomba said softly. “Mr. Biko bought the
nsamanpowmu! He paid for it! He did it lawfully from the rightful source. The
nsamanpowmu has never been a part of the lands owned by your hideous village, Basabasa, and you know it!”
Okomfo Basabasa was desperate now. His eyes were open with his increasing terror.
“He took away almost all the citizens! They’re now at his new village! He has laid our town waste, and scattered our people! Any man who does that is subject to our customs, and the punishment is death by being buried alive!”
Again, Nana Bosomba looked at him coldly. He dropped the pith of the apple carefully on the ground, and then he reached out and took a fresh one which he bit into and chewed with obvious relish.
“Mr. Biko built his house on a piece of land he purchased,” Nana Bosomba said coldly, and then took another bite of apple. “He didn’t ask anybody to leave the village. The people came themselves, even when the place wasn’t finished. The people made their own choices. Customs don’t apply where citizens of the village make a sensible choice. So, in trying to bury this man alive, quite wrongly, you’ve exposed yourself to me. Remember I told you the war was still raging between us? I’m going to show you who I really am, Basabasa.”
His final words were accompanied by his direct and cold stare, and even I felt the sheer malice oozing off him.
“Now, Bosomba Nana, don’t you dare!” Okomfo Basabasa wailed. “I have not barked up your tree, Bosomba Nana!”
Nana Bosomba pointed a finger at the fetish priest.
“Rain on you!” he said softly.
And the rains came!
It was a heavy downpour, but this rain didn’t come from the sky, now. It didn’t rain everywhere, no, not one bit!
The rains started just on top of Okomfo Basabasa’s head, and fell heavily on him! It was as if he were taking a shower from a giant sprinkler! It rained on top of him heavily, drenching him to the skin.
I began to giggle insanely!
Okomfo Basabasa now had his one personal spiritual shower!
It rained on him, and I could hear the thunder crashing just above his head. He moved to the right, and the rain followed him.
“Bosomba Nana, Bosomba Nana, don’t do this thing!” he shouted with real fear as he tried to run away. “I haven’t come to do battle with you, please!”
Nana Bosomba pointed a stiff left forefinger at Okomfo Basabasa.
“I have a battle with you!” he said harshly. “Down!”
The ground shook around Okomfo’s legs, and immediately his feet disappeared into the ground!
He shouted and tried moving his feet from the ground, violently trying to free his feet, but it was stuck fast!
He looked at Nana Bosomba with dawning horror on his face. And then he raised a hand and pointed at the man from Wowo.
“No, this is not right, Bosomba Nana, no!” he said, his voice unsteady. “You can’t do this to me!”
“But you were going to do it to the boy, weren’t you, hm?” Nana Bosomba said, and fire spurted out of his mouth in a small blast, and smoke seeped through the thick hair around his ears. “Down.”
Again the earth trembled, and Okomfo Basabasa sank into the ground to his knees! The guards and the elders suddenly took to their heels, running wildly into the forest.
King Obiba turned toward the forest.
“You stay!” Nana Bosomba said, pointing a finger at the king. “You’re not going anywhere yet!”
King Obiba trembled with fear, and he leaned weakly against a tree as sweat poured off his pompous face.
“Bosomba Nana!” Okomfo Basabasa said, and his voice was docile and quiet respectful now, filled with a terror that was pathetic to behold. “Yes, I did wrong! What I was going to do to the stranger was bad, very bad and wicked! I apologize, please. I’ve learnt my lesson. I’ll never cross you or the stranger again. Please, forgive me!”
“I warned you,” Nana Bosomba said with very hard eyes, and then he pointed at the fetish priest. “Down.”
The earth shook, and Okomfo Basabasa sank into the ground to his waist!
“Hey!” I said through my muddied and dirtied face as it suddenly dawned on me that Nana Bosomba could just about go all the way and bury the fetish priest in the ground. “Nana Bosomba! You’re not going to bury him in the ground, are you?”
My voice was filled with fear at the horrible death approaching, and it sickened me, and made me feel great pity for Okomfo Basabasa despite his evil ways.
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“I beg you!” Okomfo Basabasa said as he dropped his horsetail whisk and raised his clamped hands in supplication, sudden tears forming in his eyes. “I beg of you, Bosomba Nana, I beg of you as one performing the dark arts to the other! Look on me with pity this once, and let the Grand Oracles bear witness to this day that I’ll never ever cross you or Mr. Biko again, that I’ll never treat anyone unfairly again!”
“I warned you,” Nana Bosomba said, still with a pointed finger. “Down.”
The earth tremor was fiercer now, and suddenly Okomfo Basabasa sank into the ground to his chest.
“Hey, hey, come on, Nana Bosomba, please!” I said, struggling fiercely to stand up but being restrained by the cords binding me. “You can’t do this, please! The man is sorry! The man has regretted! Surely you can’t murder him like this, please, come on Nana Bosomba!”
I saw that Abena Adobea had closed her eyes tightly, and tears were seeping down her eyes, pure horror on her face.
Okomfo Basabasa was weeping pathetically now.
I understood his helpless and terror; I had experienced the same just a few minutes previously.
“Bosomba Nana!” Okomfo Basabasa cried pathetically, the horror dragging from the very core of his soul. “Have mercy, please! Have mercy, Bosomba Nana! Please, please have mercy!”
“I warned you,” Nana Bosomba said, fingers pointing, face absolutely colder than the core of the North Pole. “Down.”
Earth tremor…and Okomfo sank into the ground, and only his head was sticking out now.
“Nyoyooooooo!” King Obiba screamed out that insane word suddenly, his eyes bulging out of his head with horror as tears streamed down his face.
“Nyoyoooooo! Yieeeeeeeee! Aooooowooooo!”
We were all screaming and weeping now.
“You can’t do this, Nana Bosomba!” I wept with a troubled heart. “You can’t murder people like this! There are laws in the country! I swear if you do this I’ll report you to the authorities! I’ll let you be trialled and imprisoned for murder, I swear to you!”
He turned his head and fixed me with a most baleful look.
“Really? Do you know what this man has done?” Nana Bosomba asked, almost with hatred. “Do you know the number of people he has killed in this village?”
“Mercy, Bosomba Nana, mercy oooo, mercy oooo, mercy ooo!” the head of Okomfo Basabasa cried. “Yes, I killed the old king, Nana Kwakupia! I poisoned him! I also poisoned the Medicine Man, Opanyin Okoto…yes, Abena Adobea, I poisoned your father because he opposed me! Yes, Bosomba Nana, I have killed a lot of innocent people!
But don’t do this to me because of my sins ooo! Mercy ooo! I will admit to the whole town that Maame Ntiriwaa is not a witch, and that Kwamepia is the rightful heir, and should be king! Yes, I took his inheritance and gave it to Obiba so that I can have access to the gold and the lands of the crown! I beg you ooo! Forgive me ooo! Mercy, Bosomba Nana, mercy ooo! Have mercy, please, I beg of you!”
It was the most heart-wrenching and gut-wrenching spectacle I had ever witnessed, seeing a man’s head sticking out of the ground and begging for mercy in that most horrible way.
“I warned you,” Nana Bosomba said, undaunted by any of us, his finger still pointing. “Down.”
And Okomfo Basabasa’s head disappeared into the ground…he had been swallowed up whole now, buried alive!
I wept.
I wept bitterly.
It was the harshest death any person could experience, even a great enemy.
My heart was broken, and my hatred for Nana Bosomba peaked as I wept, broken by what I had seen, and wishing with all my soul that I never had to witness something this horrible!