Lucy and the lucky charms

Lucy bolted from the shindig with an awkward pace, and before she could cross the street, a screeching of brakes, and a blasting horn made her retreat to the pavement. She then darted across the street, fell headlong on the other pavement, and started to hysterically derange her well-combed hair as if on a mission to pull it out. After the bewildering performance, she impetuously let out a demonic shriek much to the shock of some bystanders, onlookers, and passers-by who still couldn’t utterly make out the mystifying scenario.

The night would have been serene had it not been the noisy boomerang of the disco from the Party-House. It is this house that Lucy had suddenly come out. Some onlookers had anticipated a hot pursuit. However, the lone figure had played it all. The streetlights and other irregular flashes from motorists didn’t give enough light to substantiate the correct colour of the girl’s clobber. It was the inadequacy of light that caused onlookers to approach the hysterical girl with caution.

Countable figures, whose images had transformed from disproportionate silhouettes could be seen reflecting the aesthetic chiaroscuro each time they approached the vestibule of the Party-House. One by one the compassionate ones came to see Lucy. Some of the few who had made an effort to find out what had transpired returned to the party while others joined the horror-stricken crowd that had encircled the damsel. 

‘What’s wrong?’ 

‘What happened?’ 

‘What…?’

The questions were so many and disorderly that they instigated another apparitional yell from the ostensibly possessed girl. Then she hushed, so did the crowd, so did the disco, and the traffic. It was serio-comic. A creepy feeling somehow crept the subconscious minds of those prone to nervous disposition.

Like a deluge, the Party-House imploded into a bang of resuming disco and the temporary silence was swallowed six ways to Sunday. The disc-jockey went hit after hit and the merrymakers unanimously followed the trending hits. Hit after hit went the Party-House while the exterior bore the brunt of a wintry air and the singularity. Nonetheless, movement, flickering lights, dazzling lights from motorists, silhouettes and inconsistent nocturnal figures swallowed the unnerving aura.

Lucy woke up the following morning under the glaring light of hospital lamps. She heard voices habituated to medical jargon, she heard voices engaged in gregarious discourse, and voices engulfed in distress and despondency. The swinging of doors, tinkling of clinical apparatus, rolling of trolleys, dragging of feet, clinking of walking sticks, tinkling of stilettos and firm heeled shoes, and the squeaking of takkies populated her labyrinthine faculties. Engrossed with nothing specific but erratic preoccupation, she took a nap. 

It wasn’t long before a bald, bespectacled, pot-bellied, middle-aged man sauntered to Lucy’s bed. He had neither beard nor trace of it ever growing on his chin. He upheld a casual grin each time he saw patients and preserved a giggle for nurses who came within reach. The hook-nosed fellow seemed to enjoy the comfort of his lab coat. While he tried to duck a pool of eyes following him in the room, he attempted a low-pitched whistle which was interrupted by driveling which he quickly wiped with the back of his hand. The pursuing eyes stung him the more. He made up a sneeze and Lucy abruptly woke.

‘Good morning.’ The doctor greeted Lucy in an asthmatic voice.

‘Morning,’ returned Lucy.

‘How are you feeling today?’ he made a follow-up question to which Lucy pondered for a time and a half, Lucy wondered if the Doctor didn’t need a breathalyzer. She thought he was panting for breath. Lucy traversed her eyes across the ceiling and for a moment, froze in a blank stare. The doctor fixed his eyes on the perturbed girl. She shyly glanced at the doctor and then moved her eyes across the room. Quickly, she scanned all the apparently blunt figures that depended on the expertise of one doctor who drank like a fish.

‘How did I get here?’ she inconsistently responded.

The doctor called for a nurse who had the files for Lucy so that she could explain how the girl had found her way into hospital. Another nurse addressed her as STR Janet before she arrived at Lucy’s bed. So, Lucy got to know the name of the nurse who had her background. While STR. Janet was recounting all the events that led to Lucy becoming a patient at the hospital, Mrs. Nhamo, Lucy’s mother burst into the hospital room.

‘Excuse me! My daughter has no business in a hospital. She is in the wrong place. We need to be out of here before the messengers of death begin to pry on the welfare of my beloved daughter.’

Lucy and her mother got home to find concerned neighbours sitting in their homestead. They wanted to hear Lucy’s well-being. Mrs. Nhamo summoned a prophet in the neighbourhood. Lucy got nervous. She tried to excuse herself from the oncoming exorcism, but her mother would have none of it. Lucy realized she had backed the wrong horse from the outset. She should have remained in hospital if she wanted to evade parental decrees. Here and now, she couldn’t extricate herself from the quandary. If the so-called prophet should come, she envisaged how demon possessed people rolled about carelessly after being sprinkled by ‘holy water.’ She thought of what if the prophet would bring out the skeletons in their cupboard in the presence of neighbours.

A lanky man, with a sparkling bald head and an unkempt beard strutted into Lucy’s homestead. He was arrayed in a green gown decorated with multicolored bands and silver bracelets. Supercilious in deportment, the equivocal seer found himself a chair and demanded curtsey. All the people within the yard hailed the man with reverence.

After the religious greetings, the prophet began to ferociously shake his shiny head so much that it would have rolled off had it not been his taut sinews. He growled, purred, and hissed, concurrently shaking his bony shoulders with unrestrained vigour. Then he began to stammer and mumble and all the eyewitnesses recoiled with fear.

The prophet rose to his feet, leapt in mid-air, and energetically pranced like a calf. He bellowed with all the strength that was in him. His face had inscriptions of merciless veins that bulged to appalling extents. His eyes were so popped out that one would think a rival god was blowing hydrogen from the inside. The next minute he moseyed, tip-toed, and conquered the place.

‘I see a girl by the name Lu…Lu,’ the prophet hinted.

‘Lucy!’ the mother cried out.

‘Yes, she has been from one witch doctor to the next. I see her trying all the lucky charms under the sun. The lucky charm she got a day before yesterday made her see hallucinations.’ Before the prophet could proceed, Lucy had tears swelling up her eyes. The tears rolled down her cheeks and she burst into a convulsive sob.

‘I've been trying to upscale my fortune but…’ Lucy sobbed again like a toddler. The seer left and promised to return when the girl would have calmed down.