MEMBERSHIP IS TOO COSTLY

“How come that man has no head?” Dansi asked his friend while squeezing his huge buttocks into a chair.

“Shi...shi...shi...shi! That is Bishop Panda, our leader,” Sautu quietened his friend.

“You must be crazy,” Dansi asked, “how can you be led by a headless person?”

“You will be surprised to learn that the same headless man has limitless powers,” Sautu whispered in awe. Fear mixed with mild anger was obviously creeping into his voice.

“That is weird my brother,” Dansi sparred with his friend, “but you will agree with me that this isn’t normal at all. A headless person has no brains, how can he make decisions as a leader?”

“Just wait and see,” Sautu could not finish his warning. There was a crash on the left; a huge serpent was trying to squeeze a tail into some form of comfort high up on a curved rafter. It looked at Dansi with little love.

Dansi looked back at it in awe. Horrifying especially were the red amber-like eyes blazing with fire. How can a wild animal sit among humans without causing fear just like that?

He was still wondering when suddenly the sound of feet shuffling filled the place. It was the headless man going around tables to serve meals.

In the left hand, he was balancing a large jar; almost as large as half a drum. The jar should have been quiet heavy considering that it was full of a dark liquid. But surprisingly, Panda carried it with remarkable ease, like someone waving a piece of paper.

The other hand was gripping a tiny bowl, almost hidden from sight by the curved ridge in the palm. The tiny bowl dipped the man’s arm like a bag of sand would.

Everyone extended a glass to be served. The glasses looked like bones of aborted infants, but they glittered and clinked like real cocktail stuff.

 The man’s skill with hands was shocking. He would tilt the jar to pour out the liquid while magically spooning out pieces of flesh into a plate without putting anything down. The plate looked like a saucer made from the belly of a bat.

Dansi watched the man’s skill, turning his head to follow every step, with his mouth inelegantly agape. Unable to bear the shock, he almost uttered a boyish word in a comment, but Sautu read his mind and averted a catastrophe well in time.

“No one talks carelessly here,” he slapped his friend’s shoulder lightly in a dire warning, “every wrong word is taken as an offense.”

“Ha!” Dansi was trying to cover his mouth with a hank to squeal quietly in fear when a mouthful of undigested groundnuts streamed down like ants from an anthill.His hand did a poor job, huge loads of disgusting saliva followed, oozing freely to the floor.

“Yes and the penalty is always de..,” Sautu warned. Before he could finish something else was happening.

Two obese pygmies were frog-marching a protesting man to the front stage. They looked funny with there box-shaped heads and pushing distended bellies that resembled enlarged footballs. In spite of there huge bellies, the vampires moved remarkably fast.

“Why did you spill the holy soup?” one shouted. The other clapped a cruel slap on the right cheek. Immediately, a plume of white puss oozed out as if the wound was weeks old. Than the pygmies started licking the puss like young children wiping a plate clean after a nice meal.

“hoo-hooooo!” the man howled in pain.

“What is the decision, Evil One?” Ndapa looked up into the ceiling and asked in a clip cut speech. Even before an answer was received, he hurriedly dropped his gaze and fixed it on Dansi as if he wanted to warn him that he would be next to dance.

Dansi squirmed in his seat uneasily like an impala that had been shot and almost burst out in screams of fear but cooled down when he looked into the cool eyes of his friend.

However, his discomfort worsened when the huge python dropped from the rafter and landed exactly where the offender was standing.

 It raised its head to his height and then started coiling itself around his whole body. Then with a crunching sound, it broke his neck like someone breaking dry bones.

“Maweee!”The hall exploded in agitated screams and some made a desperate dash for the door. They only came to a halt when the pygmies howled like angry dogs.

The serpent looked around and uttered a throaty hiss. Than the headless man prodded Ndapa to explain what it was saying.

“This assembly will not accept mistakes from members,” he was saying while motioning at the serpent to proceed.

With a nod, the serpent unwrapped itself into a twenty-meter black sewer pipe and then turned its neck to swallow the man whole in one remarkable gulp. The unforgettable peristaltic movement of the gullet and the accompanying sounds of the man moving down the throat into the belly would remain an indelible mark on Dansi’s heart.

Just than, the headless man started clapping. Everyone else joined in the clapping and cheering as if they were celebrating a goal.

With the punishment ended, everyone went back to continue the ceremony as if nothing had happened.

With great difficulty, Dansi kept his mouth shut. Membership in this group was so costly. No one seemed to understand that new members may have challenges adjusting to the norms of the group. Why this cruelty?

Now it was his turn to receive the blessing as they called it. He needed great effort not to run away. He looked at the hand of the headless man, Panda, tilting the jar to start pouring the reddish wine. The glass in Dansi’s hand was shaking too much; definitely, he would also make a costly mistake, like the other man. And end up in the python’s belly. “Oh my god, why did am I even here?” he wailed inwardly.

Huge drops of sweat covered his face like someone from a shower. His heart was now panting in horrifying throbs. No; it was galloping like a fox fleeing from a pack of dogs. His knees clanked against each other and his belly suddenly started grumbling like a trapped swarm of bees.

An explosive “Aaaa!” shook his lungs when his glass was filled without spillage. Round one was gone.

However, shock resumed it's reign of terror when he saw how the headless man was serving the flesh into his plate. The man was swinging the arm while spooning the flesh into a small plate. Surely he was likely to miss the plate and cause problems. Dansi moved his hand anxiously, following the spoon to prevent spillage. But it was like the spoon was running away because it came to drop exactly where he had removed the plate.

He hurriedly brought it back only to realize that the hand had gone back. Dansi agonized and almost burst out in angry protests at the deliberate attempt to cause him problems. He was greatly gratified when the piece of flesh somehow sloshed into his plate with the sound of a little plonk.

It was the greatest sigh of relief that shook his chest when the headless man turned his attention to the next man. The blessing had ended without any incidence.

Sautu looked into his dark eyes to reassure him while tapping his shoulder for calm.

 “Let us pray,” the headless man commanded a fraction of a second before the drink touched Dansi’s lower lip. Another near disaster.

“Ha!”Hurriedly he dropped the glass from his mouth and knelt down to pray. He was about to close his eyes when Sautu hauled him to his feet and told him to remain on his feet and keep everything wide open.

“Stop that! Please ha!” Sautu tried to explain but was cut short.

“But he said let's pray,” Dansi complained, his heart beating wildly. “How else can one pray without closing the eyes?”

“Those are Christians …” Sautu almost shouted but luckily the prayer ceremony ended and everyone turned there attention to the stage.

“Let’s drink to the superiority of the Evil One!” this time another being shouted as he came on the stage. He had a head but apparently didn’t have a body. How he walked was another exciting mystery. He was just a football bobbing up and down on the surface of a dark pool of water. And what could have been an ear sticking out on the side was a viper. He used this to point at things, and people.

 “That is Ndapa, our great leader,” Sautu whispered to his friend a fraction of a second before the leader again shouted; “hey you there, where is your subscription for being a member of the Mercy Brothers?”

“I give you Juliet…” Dansi hurriedly remembered to donate the girl that almost cost him his manhood, but was cut short. He was now angry at the incessant interruptions. He rolled his now reddish eyes, looking at his colleague, “What is..?”

“Mercy Brothers will only take the one you love most,” Sautu gulped a mouthful of the red wine as he whispered into his troubled ears. “I suggest you donate Mable.”

“Ha, you, he never said the one I love most,” Dansi looked at his friend in horror, and continued his protest, “besides, I don’t want to see my daughter dead.”

“That is the rule of the game,” Sautu tried to explain, “Mercy Brothers wants a true sacrifice, or else you won’t get the juju to joint the rich club.”

Dansi agonized on what to do. Should he curse his only daughter, just because of riches? If not what was the whole point of coming here in the first place? He was thrown into turmoil. Curse to death the girl who gave him joy-curse to death the girl who would look after him in old age. What should I do?

He had closed his eyes in agonizing meditation. When he opened them the place was abuzz with drones of people uttering incoherent things, some directed at him. That was not the only problem. The man without a body was looking directly at him with angry, inquiring eyes burning brightly like rays of the sun a sunset.

“I am finished,” he panicked. Reluctantly; he uttered a curse, cursing anyone but not his daughter. Then thinking that he had duped the Mercy Brothers, he lifted the glass to swallow the drink in one gulp. The man without a body exploded in a roaring, mocking laugh. 

As the red drink approached his mouth, Dansi’s sense of smell suddenly exploded into life. Revulsion took control.

“Ha! This smells like human blood,” he exclaimed, this time without restraint. All the delegates turned to look at him, some with awe painted all over there wooden faces. Others decorated there faces with indignant reproach and twisted mouths like a step-mother spitting venom.

 “Dansi!” Sautu whispered in anger, “what do you think this is? A girls’ scout pic…?”

 “I can’t drink human blood, never,” Dansi declared, breaking into his friend’s castigations. “I am not a vampire, am I?”

“You want to be rich, right?” Sautu asked with a wink that seemed to say ‘remember your agonizing misery.’

Dansi read the message on his friend’s face. His poverty was severe and that is what forced him to seek this kind of help from the Mercy Brothers group. Every year all efforts his were failing woefully, while everyone else speeded to glory, almost effortlessly.

And worse still, some witchdoctor had named a curse as the reason for this misfortune. “You stole a cob of maize one time and the owner cursed you to contend with confusion all the days of your life,” an old woman with a C-shaped backbone had said. He needed a superior power to wipe out the constraining curse, now. But drinking blood was something else.

“Is there no other way?”He hissed in despair.

“Do what suits you…”Sautu was now through with him. He had done what he could to get his friend accepted into the group, the rest was up to him. But as Sautu turned to abandon his friend, and a booming voice took charge.

 “I have noticed that you seem to have a problem, new member?” Ndapa’s squeal immediately drowned Sautu’s clicks of the tongue in disgust. He was asking while flicking a finger towards the pygmies.

Before Dansi could answer, the two overfed animals started ambling towards the door, ignoring him completely. Were they trying to head him off?

“The new member wanted to visit the bush,” Dansi’s shaking voice lied. But no matter what; he wasn’t going to drink human blood never! In a million years.

There was some doubt written on Ndapa’s face. He quickly consulted the Evil One by flicking a finger five times to the roof. The answer came almost immediately starting with the roof shaking vigorously.

“It is life for life,” a voice boomed.

Just than, a tall man whose head scrapped the roof lifted Dansi and threw him like a piece of rag towards the stage.

 “You came to be initiated into the Mercy Brothers Congregation, right?”It was the Evil One now interrogating him as he struggled to his feet.

“No! No! Oh yes! Yes!” Dansi was confused. His heart was hammering on the chest with the rapidity of an electric motor and the violence of a grinder. Though he had sailed a good ten yards and landed heavily on the floor, he suffered no injuries. Surprising, but still, he felt trapped.

“Than stand up on your feet and kill,” the voice shouted.

Dansi stood up and suddenly, he found a sword in his hand.

“What am I supposed to kill, sir?” he asked

A commotion behind, at the door, made him whirl around quickly. It was the pygmies; they were pushing a small goat into the room. It was fighting furiously with the front legs striking away like a girl resisting rape. It was also bleating wildly, but with the voice of a young girl.

Terribly shocked, Dansi jumped in horror. Several butterflies suddenly swamped the space near his heart.

“I know that voice,” he told himself as he shuddered.

But before he could retreat, the Evil One again shouted; "get your membership, Kill now!”

Dansi banished all his doubts and approached the goat. The goat looked at him as if it wanted to say something. Again Dansi hesitated, serious doubts claimed his soul. ‘my heart is unwilling to kill this goat, what should I do?” he wondered. But another thought answered almost immediately;” to become rich.”

The Evil one again shouted; ” kill now”

Some smatterings of disgust started emanating from the other members, filling the room. Has Dansi failed the test required to join the Mercy Brothers Congregation? This question propelled him to now act like a man worthy of the initiation into the group.

 He raised the sword to strike, but again the goat looked at him with eyes that demanded pity not violence. Dansi was thrown into agony and all his humanity or the perverted portion of it clearly refused to kill. He dropped the sword to the floor with a clatter and started walking towards the door.

He had to walk back to pick it when the voice of thunder shouted; ”kill now!”

This time the voice was urgent, it may be the last warning before the python….In terrible fear, Dansi closed his eyes and raised his sword. But won’t he miss with closed eyes? That thought clawed at his heart, but he decided to just strike anywhere ahead before the inevitable weak feelings of pity could swamp over him again.

“Swank!” the sword struck. Immediately the room exploded in ululations and whistles. Dansi opened his eyes and was about to walk back to his seat when a voice came from the severed head.

There was no goat. The head on the ground in death throes was not new to him. The blood darting out like jets of water did not prevent him from identifying the owner of that head. He couldn’t believe his eyes, but immediately his mouth exploded into a thunderous moan;” Maweee! Why you Sautu and your friends are unmitigated bastards?”

Than hurriedly he turned the sword towards his belly, with both hands. It was clear he wanted to fall on his own sword, but quickly his friend Sautu grabbed his hand and twisted it backward painfully.

Dansi let go of the sword. It fell on the ground with a clattering sound. His heart was torn by a clattering sound. His eyes were blocked by a clattering vision.

He looked at the head; it was still talking, telling him something. It was Something Dansi would remember till eternity.

Diving towards the sword, he grabbed it and started attacking people with fury. He struck the headless man and cut off his arm. Even the pygmies hurriedly fled out of the room, to escape the sword.

Quickly Sautu grabbed his friend’s hand and led him away from the Mercy Brothers. That is how Dansi failed the test.