Frederick Kwesi Great Agboletey

Glasgow, Scotland

A Town Called Woe

 

I decided to spend some weeks while back home from London job in my hometown of Anloga, a small town along the Atlantic coastline of West Africa.  I travelled with a good friend. The village itself was a quiet place set between the lagoon and the Atlantic.  For the villagers life consisted of primary occupation of fishing and farming, some fished the sea others preferred the lagoon. For us, on a visit we immersed ourselves in the slow tempo of rural life. Our house, my grandmother’s house was located along a path frequented by those going to and from the beach, over the next few days we had in a typical true holiday manner filled our fridge with beer and made sure we had assorted gin and the odd whisky to get us in preferred holiday mood.

A typical day would start at 11am when the fisher folk were returning with the early morning catch, we would purchase some sizeable fishes at what we considered to be very cheap prices, I had a knack for turning a dish or two and as time passed we had made a few friends among both sellers and neighbours who will with timely precision drift towards our cosy veranda, where there was always drink on offer and food to share with those who decide to eat.

We made the usual tour of what little there was that passed for a commercial centre and once we had sated our curiosity it was only natural that we began as normal young men to sniff around for ladies to complement our holiday activities. There is a little call centre a couple of miles down the road from our place, right in front of the local secondary school, we would normally pass by every now and then to surf the net on the slow telephone line and in due course realised there was the chance of meeting the odd pretty student who we could chat up, we made it part of our routine.

This particular day as we strolled into the communication centre we met a new shop assistant, a young lady whose looks melted my heart and took my senses away, I guess the Sicilians call it the lightning bolt, only it seems the storm of emotional turmoil was active only in my imagination. As I gained a sense of control and with a tremulous voice engaged her in meaningless conversation, my friend as usual was constantly interrupting with snippets of news that he had gleaned from Google or some other news website. After about an hour of listing in the premises my friend not finding anything of additional interest decided to call it a day and head home for lunch.

Needless to say, once I had managed to get the young lady to open up to me, I had no interest other than to remain in her world and with her. In retrospect, it is rather interesting how many times a love-struck young man will find himself laughing uproariously at meaningless information and made believe tales of mundane life experiences, however, all I knew this very fine day was that by 5 pm I was floating in a haze of brain induced hormones with strong primal needs for mating barely subdued. As it happened and always does happens in such situations customer flow to the communication centre that day was a treacle and she very much preferred or so I thought the company of a handsome young man with tales local and foreign to keep her company rather than lolling around till her shift came to an end at 7pm.

“So, what do you intend to do after your shift ends?”

“What I always do, find a cab home and get some rest”

“That is all, must be pretty boring”
“You could say that but I am a working girl, besides there is very little to do around these parts”

“I couldn’t agree with you more on that, it is pretty slow and I and my friend just find ourselves gaining weight lazing around”
Well, you guys deserve it after all that is what holidays are about”

“Yeah, some holiday”

She smiled and I was transported immediately to the Louvre in Paris, where I had travelled some time last year as part of team of London Transport workers to see among other great work’s Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, here right in front of me was a beauty so sublime, of a tropical genesis, not tearing my heart but melting it in a gooey smile, I could hardly feel my legs. My hands held to that counter as though it were a life buoy to a drowning man. I just had to connect one way or another to this prime beauty of the coast.

“So, what do you say, how about after work we do something?”

“What will that be exactly?”

 “Maybe we could go watch a movie”

“You really have no idea about these areas do you?”

“Why do you say that?”

“To go watch a movie we have to go to another town and then it is only a video theatre”

She looked at me through that smile again

“Well, I don’t have anything to do so I could walk you home when your shift ends...?”

“You could, only like I said earlier I have to take a cab home, which means travelling to the next town down the road, about ten kilometres or more”
“Well, then, we can share a cab, it would be nice to see how your town compares to this village”

“Then you would be in a for a surprise, it is pretty much the same only smaller and without a communication centre”

So the time passed and before long we were in a raggedy old cab shaking violently down the wind swept coastal road.

Now, at this point it would be ideal to give you a picturesque insight to the locality where the events to be detailed were unfolding. The area is a coastal strip between a massive lagoon and the deep blue Atlantic, a typical rural area where several small towns stretched along both sides of the main trunk road. Its only appeal to visitors, like me, are the beautiful beaches and the slow tandem of life. Under normal circumstances a wonderful place to spend a relaxing holiday. By its rural nature, it becomes very quite early in the evening given that the electricity supply was not the most reliable. Besides not all areas have a connection to the national grid. Now, on moonless nights it could become very dark and disorienting if you were not local and how easily so I was soon to appreciate.

By the time we had alighted at the main junction leading to the little, but very ancient settlement of Woe, it was dark, as we walked what seemed to be the fifteen minutes from the roadside towards her dwelling place, it had become very dark, and it happened to be a moonless night. I could see a few scattered lights indicating houses as we walked hand in hand down the path, there were a lot of trees lining the path leading to her house. Huge shady trees that I believe will make for shady and pleasant path in the hot afternoons, now they obscured whatever little light was available from the open heavens.

“Now, that is my house up ahead.”
I could see nothing as my eyes struggled to adjust to the sudden intense darkness.

“I see”
“My father is a very severe type and he might react negatively to my coming home with a male friend this time of the evening”
“Okay, I can understand that, I know that anal retentive type”
“Hey! We are talking about my father here, besides it may have to do with the fact that he was a quarter master in the army, now pensioned and with not much to occupy him, he is a real lion when it comes to me”

“Well” I replied timidly

“Daddy’s girl! You are the apple of your daddy’s eye and I guess I would protect you with as much fierceness. These southern types are known to be fiercely protective of their daughters and given your looks I guess there is every reason for that”

“I see, and what about my looks?”

“No, you don’t want me to start down that path, I am a vividly graphic when it comes to capturing beauty in words”

“Well, I’m a hopeless romantic, indulge me”

“Alright I’ll regale you of how poetic your beauty is once we find a comfortable place to sit”

“Okay, let me go home and change and I will come back to accompany you to the main road so you can return home”

“What about doing something tonight?”

“There will be enough time in due course, besides its Saturday tomorrow”

“Okay as usual the woman is right, you ski home, change and come see me to the main road, it’s kind of very dark here”

“You get used to it”

She melted into the darkness and I took out my iPhone to inform my friend that I would be home soon. I tried a few times but there was no connection. Hmm. I knew if I did not reach him soon he will become excessively worried. When I called to inform him earlier at the communication centre that I would be taking the new girl home, for some reason he sounded very uncomfortable with the idea, he emphasised that he had a bad feeling about it. It was very unusual of him to come forth so negatively but a potential “adventure”, in any case I was in no mood to be dissuaded from that. Given the uneventfully nature of our retiring village holiday.

For a while a kept myself occupied by playing a game on the mobile, I must admit that I must have been so engrossed in the game because when I came to, the battery had run down and the light glimmered on the screen dimly and then went off.

I wondered how long I had been waiting for the young lady to return and lead me back to the main road. I looked around me and realised with a sickening feeling in my stomach that now that the cell phone light had gone off, I was in total darkness; I could not even see my hands before. It was just pitch dark. I shivered a little as the night air licked my neck above the collar line of my shirt.

I looked up in the direction that she indicated was her dwelling place, all ahead, there was only a dense, quiet and cold silence, nothing in sight, not even a glimmer of the isolated hurricane lamp to indicate a hut or house. After a while with no one passing all this while, I began in a very disquieting manner to experience the night environment, sudden sound of noise far in the branches above and a stiffening of the breeze just enough to make it uncomfortable. I might have been standing under that tree for more than an hour I assumed, I said to myself if she does not come in the next few minutes I just have to go. I looked in the direction from which we had come; all I could see was a dense darkness of impenetrable liquidity. There was no distinction between path and surrounding swampy ground. My heart quickened as it suddenly dawned on me that is she did not come back I might have to stand there all night since the nature of the darkness was so disorienting that I might end up loosing direction altogether. Another part of me told me that surely she would return. It was a part of me that I was later to rue with regret incomparable.

At this point it began to dawn on me that I was in a precarious state, a state of inanity altogether incomparable and how predictably so. I could no longer remain standing on my aching legs and I did not need any additional signs to tell me that I had been abandoned by a girl I barely knew under a grove of trees in a village somewhere between Keta and Anloga. An area, that had reputation for unsavoury deeds.

As I stood there uncertain, coupled with my friend’s sense of being uncomfortable about my little adventure, a few stories began to roll through my mind. There were stories told in hushed tones of several bodies being found totally drained of blood along this length of beach.

 A recall of a particularly harrowing tale of a young taxi driver who picked a beautiful lady very, very late one evening thinking she might have been coming from a wake, he suddenly experienced a sudden temperature drop in the cab as he passed by a local cemetery reputed for haunting and looking into the rear-view mirror saw no one else in the cab but a mist dispersing…. These were just the kind of things one does not bother or desire to recall in a situation that was fast becoming climactically extreme.

As I wondered what do next, hoping that just about anyone would pass by so I could follow them back to the man road, it became prescient that not for the many hours that I had been waiting for the young lady whose beauty had dispelled in my mind to all kinds of horrific images had a single soul passed by in either direction. No sooner had the though occurred to me than I heard or imagined a heard a deep sigh barely a foot from my ears. The next thing I knew I had dashed away from under the trees and tried following the direction the girl had disappeared into. As a moved on legs of winds, I saw that a few hundred meters there were signs of houses, in one long head rush I made for the first gate, and pounded as hard as I could. By the third pounding it was obvious that I had attracted attention for a heard a mighty voice roar from within

“Who are you and what are do you want”

I did not bother to respond but pounded ever harder, through the adrenaline rush, I could feel my bones hitting hardwood and skin breaking on my knotted hands.

“I have a double barrel gun and I will not hesitate to shoot”

I pounded eve harder.

The gate cracked a few inches and I was blinded by the hurricane lamp swinging between the opening at eye level. Just knowing that there was another man behind that gate albeit an unfriendly man calmed me down a tempo and I felt a sense of relief, even though a guarded one.

“Who are you and what are doing so late in the night pounding on my gate?”

“I am from Anloga, well, spending holidays there…”

I could distinctly see the light reflect on the barrel of the gun.

“I say, what are you doing banging on my gate, are you one of those robbers terrorising the locality?”

“I believe you are, look whoever you are I am going to blow you off if you don’t come clear!”

“No, I was waiting for a friend called Annie who left me standing for hours over there, by the road side…”

“Annie!” he shouted surprised.

“Yes, Annie who works at the communication centre right in front of the secondary school, do you know her?”

“Do I know her, she is my daughter, but who are you and what do you have to do with daughter?”

He cocked the rifle and dropped the hurricane lamp at his feet. His voice was a powerful stentorian blast, that luckily caused more persons to awaken from the house and a few neighbours began appearing outside their walls with lamps.

A few of the women folk quickly appreciating the nature of the situation appealed for a calming down on the part of the angry father and to permit me to make my case.

Now it is to be understood that this is a traditional locality and once they had assured themselves that they do not have to resort to desperate measures to rid themselves of a thief, late as the hour was, they were settling into their inquisitive nature to critically review the situation and then decide on a course of action. I quickly presented the bare nature of how being new in the area, met and had a pleasant interaction with Annie, who all this time had yet to make an appearance, and having waited for longer than was excusable had forced my hands to disturb their peace.

“You certainly are disturbing young man, who in his right senses will remain under those trees at 1 am waiting for a lady?”

A matronly type interjected.

I was beyond fear and realising the foolishness of my situation asked

“Well, so where is Annie, at least she should have the courtesy of confirming my story”

“If we are speaking about the same Annie, well she returned from work much earlier in the evening and then departed to spend the night with her fiancée”

The matronly typed replied again.

“So what I am I supposed to do?”

“You should have thought of that before you set off, asking us that question this time of the night seems unreasonable”

The man with the double barrel interjected.

“If it is possible, I may have to spend the evening here and leave early in the morning given that it is late and I can hardly find my way back to the main road”

“We don’t think that is advisable” interjected the matronly figure,

“Your story maybe true but you are still an unknown to us, we don’t think we can host you”

“At best we can escort you and point you in the direction of the main road, hopefully, you may catch a bus back to your residence”

He who spoke knew and I knew that there was not a dog’s chance of public transport or any form of transport plying this rural road at this time of the night. They wanted to get me out of their midst and return to their beds and so I acquiesced and requested to be accompanied to the main road after apologising for disturbing their peace.

Three men from the house hold escorted me and after a quiet brisk walk with lights barely marking the path brought me to a junction and to my relief once out from the trees that lined the path, it was possible by star light to see straight ahead the main road far ahead. They wished me good luck and good bye and turned back to their homes.

I walked briskly towards the main road. All was very quiet this time of night, an eerie intense quietness, with nary a sound. As I broached the main road, its emptiness both directions amplified the unusual hour and its midnight desolation.

I started walking in direction of my village, one thing I knew for sure was it was a long distance by foot and chances of a vehicle passing by at this time of the night were next to zero.

It was not as dark as under those massive trees, but what little light the stars above enabled emphasised the emptiness of the straight trunk road.

I might have been walking for about thirty minutes or so, when I felt a pervasive smell of old earth, a thick, heavy sludgy assault on my nostrils no sooner had I began to wonder about that earthy smell of something very old and decaying that I felt what sounded like flapping wings of a huge bird to my right on the opposite side of the road, I instinctively turned 75 degrees while still walking fairly briskly, I stumbled on a projecting piece of asphalt and as I tried regaining balance, I glimpsed what seemed to be a bulky figure seemingly gliding or walking at an equally brisk pace, given the uncertainty of everything and my state of mind, which was not what I will call sturdy, no sooner had I regained my steadiness than I burst into a fast clip of a run.

The wind rushed past and after a few hundred metres my heart felt like bursting through my chest, I could hardly breathe, each breathe was a torturous wrenching pain bursting through my heaving chests. I gradually began trotting rather than dashing down the street in full flight.

Far ahead, it seemed like a light was moving up and down the street, then several balls of light appeared about a kilometre’s distance, dashing in fairly irregularly patterns of movement. It was bit further down the road, these balls of light, but they were in my path, sooner or later I was going to meet them headlong. I only hoped it was locals out heavens know for what purpose at this time of the night.

There were houses set a few meters away from the road interspersed by open spaces that led to the lagoon, through those open spaces a stiff, cold breeze was blowing that chilled the sweat on my skin to a clammy cold disquiet.

As I proceeded down the road, I was furtively looking for a house with lights on that I would knock at and explain my situation asking for a place to sit until morning. I came under a few trees lining the road again, no sooner had I entered their canopy than I felt a strange explosion of brilliant lights. It was as though I could see through the canopy to an unusual sky where balls of light were descending with a swishing wheeze to explode with massive force into the canopy above. I was so surprised by the unusual scene that I coherently wondered how I could see this brilliant display of exploding stars through the canopies. If I had any intentions of pausing to research the unusual scenario that vanished even before the thought coalesced, I clearly heard laughter all around me and that was it, I increased my speed, limping precariously and swaying with what was by all intents total madness inspired by fear.

 When I next could discern a state of reasoning I was clearly shouting aloud Psalm 91 time after time, whatever, its effects on my mental state, it allowed me to continue staggering down the trunk road in an uncoordinated exhausted gallop of sorts. I had thrown care to the winds and was intent on self-protection at this point. Far ahead I saw a weak electric bulb hanging over a shop front; I was determined to knock on the house next to the shop, since there was sure to be someone at home who will respond. As I crossed over to the shop I realised that it was a carpentry shop that sold coffins, the irony was not lost on me, adjoining the shop was a small house with its from door open to the space before the trunk road. I hammered on its door with all the strength of fiendish fear. An elderly woman’s voice responded from within

”Evil spirits move on down the road, there is nothing for you here…”

I was stunned by the words coming from within, so stunned that I paused and instead of responding to the fear speaking from within, I pounded ever harder.

“Shoo, shoo, move on, you have no room among the living, move on…”

I could not take this drivel any longer

“I am a human, open the door immediately!”

There was a short silence from within

“Well, if you are a human what are you doing out at this time of the night?”

“Open the door and I would tell you…”
“What is your name and where do you come from?”

“My name is Marcie and I am from Anloga, I belong to the family of Sena”

“Where are you coming from this late?”

“I took a friend to Woe and ended up not getting a vehicle back”

“Well, I still cannot open the door for you this late, move on and knock on another door, I am a single woman and I won’t open the door”

I was beyond reason; it felt like everything around me was waiting for me to take the next step.

I banged harder on the door

“I am not leaving until you open this door; you will get no rest, open the door!”

Bang, bang, bang!

“Okay, step away from the door, I have a weapon in my hand and if you attempt anything silly I will cause you severe harm”

“Alright, now open the door”

I could hear the lock mechanism being engaged and as the door cracked open, I nearly passed out when a face with eyes so white looked ghoulishly at me. She held a hurricane lamp at face level and had she not uttered a word I would certainly have made another mad dash down that long road.

“Young man, take this stool and sit to the right of the hut”, she pushed a kitchen stool with her feet towards me.

“I am not letting you in; I will sit at my front door with you till you feel comfortable enough to proceed on your way”

She motioned for me to sit, I guess my trembling lips could find no words, it took me a while to realise that she was completely blind.

“Now tell me your story, why are you about this late hour”

“I sat down and facing her with my back to the road that was a few metres behind me told her in as clearly as I can how I ended up in a little settlement and being stood up by a girl I hardly knew. She listened all through my narration nary speaking a word. Then she spoke

“Well, like every foolish young man you nearly sacrificed your life chasing girls”

Anyway, in two to three hours the early busses will begin passing through I will sit with you till then. And so we sat in silence in the chill of late night air. When the first busses started rolling through, I thanked her profusely and left in a cab to my residence.

As it turned out my friend had an unequally unsettling night not having heard from me and was standing by the gate that early in the morning wondering how it was all going to turn out.

We made a few visits back to the communication centre to find out why the girl had behaved so strangely, she never turned up for work since that display of feminine wile.

I made a return visit back to the Old woman who sat with me and presented with some good quality gin. She told me several nerve wracking stories of people who had strangely disappeared dating girls from the settlement where I had my mid night encounter of disappointment.

There were rumours of secretive fishing groups who delighted in fishing with human blood to snare the giant salmons that seem to be strongly attracted to human blood in the sea.

 You never know, she warned, how true some of those harrowing stores are, one thing we know for certain is sniffing after strange girls like a dog always leads to trouble sooner or later, you may thank God you only had a bad scare. It could have been a different story if the darkness had swallowed you like it did other less fortunate men.

As the story got around we heard collaboratory tales of such similar unsavoury nature that I dread to entertain them.