My grandmother supposedly died a young sweet girl in her prime, in her bloom. Her petals and fragrance had enticed the weirdo my grandfather was right into her court and she happily took him in in the hope of rehabilitating what she thought was a case of mistaken identity. The few people who knew my grandfather say Amara is the exact duplicate of my grandpa, save for the fact that she is now growing out of her weird ways since her son. After a blossoming relationship with my grandfather (though it was against her parents’ wishes), she fell pregnant and bore my father at eighteen. Soon after giving birth however, she mysteriously died and my grandfather took his son and took road. The esoteric nature of the death, the concealed streaks of the relationship’s enigmatic ways towards my father’s birth are nuances we choose to deliberate over in hushed voices. Soon after, my grandmother’s family perished in a freak accident and that was it. Funny enough, my grandfather seemingly had no history……. Enigmatic huh?
I regained my consciousness to a severe throb in my head. I felt I wanted to open my eyes but I just could not do it and I figured it must have been the head-ache but alas, I was wrong. In a few moments, sound tracking his actions with a soft, sincere though (bizarre humming) someone started moving around the room and later came into my direction to my mumbles of objection. I could not speak…. He came over and peeled tape off my eyes and mouth taking with him a few stubs of my developing facial hair. I moaned in pain but that is when I felt an even greater pang of pain in my arms. He went on to free the arms too which had apparently been tied together in a sadistic knot that almost made my hands turn blue. My eyes adjusted to the light of the room that apparently had more souls than I thought. A legion of the dark robed men was encircling us in our very house and my whole family was in the room, including Maria and Thomas.
“Verily verily these are the people,” a startling baritone said from the door, signalling the entrance of the most horrible man on the planet.
“Ita Lord,” the robed men chorused.
“Till when could they have hidden? Surely I say unto you all, you cannot flee from the Zeurists,” he said and laughed as he got into the room. His laugh was a rumbling noise that could irritate even the worst wooden mic contender for Idols. I hated him already though I had not seen his face yet……I could not see any face for they were all safely hidden in the shadows of their hoods but I am sure they were all ugly, grotesque men who found solace in the ugliness of their hearts.
Shrouded in the darkness of his heart and hood, the man laughed as he shifted his focus to Maria. I knew he was a freaky, heartless psycho by now and was not surprised when he ridiculously said, “ I see the family got together…..sweet reunion.”
It was not a reunion because till now, I was sure I had never met these animo-humanos , till now, I had never met men with hearts of stone, till now, I thought the freakiest thing the world had was ghosts and not delusional men who thought they had occultic clichés. Till now, I thought I had seen the worst. I obviously had not seen anything as ugly as what I saw when the man removed his hood to expose his grotesque bone structure, shadowed eyes and shrivelled lips that were so red that Rihanna would faint at the sight.
“Tawanda?,” my family chorused….. Amara, startled by what she saw, almost fainted. Fancying his recognition, basking in the horror it brought my family, the man let loose another sarcastic laugh. I believe my loud farting sounds better than that piece of gaggling he thought was a villain laugh. Maria remained unfazed though, poor Tari and I were so confused but Thomas was in an even worse position. I a sure he hated every moment of his life since the moment he barged into our room.
“Gagagagaaaa I see you took in the grandmother?” the loathsome man said in the most repugnant way ever, “ She must be enjoying her stay with the family.”
Maria rushed in to try to stop what she knew was an impending onslaught, “Tawanda, stop.”
“She did not tell you? Lucy? She didn’t tell you?” the man asked almost earnestly.
“I do not know her. I found her in my home last night, had never seen her. What is all this Tawanda? I thought you promised to just go away and protect your family from these monsters,” my mother pleaded to a murmur of objection from the “monsters”.
The man who apparently was closer to me than I thought ignored the family part and quickly said, “This is your mother-in-law. Ma, it seems you are no better than us after all. You lied to these people, maliciously manipulated your own family…….”
Okay……I hate it when grown men and women create an unnecessary scene….a soapie opera, a drama… I hate it. I hate men who want to prove things they do not know about other people. I hate it.
“Mr Tawanda or who-so-ever you call yourself, Maria is a good spirit who lurked in our backyard looking for closure. You know nothing about her and I do not appreciate your strange accusations. This family is not indebted to you in anyway and if you think you can justcome in here and start putting preposterous notions in our minds, you have something else coming. We won’t allow it. Maria was born in the early nineteen hundreds and my grandmother is a younger character, you obviously know nothing about dates and history…….go learn about carbon-dating and then come back,” I screamed out in a spirited effort to just stop this madness. He smiled and revealed his red teeth……Red teeth? Did I just say that and not sweat? Read teeth? Why would anyone have red teeth? Was it blood?
This was crazy. I felt nauseated by just this man’s sight. He was a bag of sarcasm, a bundle of irritation and the den of evil. He seemed to get an orgasmic high by making us all suffer. Masochist…. Sadist…. The devil’s son. I remember him lowering his voice but somehow making it even louder in my mind, he whispered but he screamed…..he was cool but burnt me with his infernal claim to be my father.
“I see you are just as spirited as your father….what courage. Lucy, I think my son is the next Leader of this good squad.”
“To hell with your squad,” my mother shouted hysterically and hurled tons of insults at the monster who claimed to be my father but I only got , “I wish I never married you,” to which the man laughed and retorted, “ It was the money and this is just its source.”
Okay, tell me I am dreaming. Tell me I am dead. Tell me something to assure me that every little hope of my life being a bright open book is still much alive. Tell me nothing has changed….tell me something. My mother married an evil devious son of the pits of hell for money, not to talk about how ugly he was. My mother gave birth to me and my siblings and triedto create a family with this man??? My ghost friend is supposedly my ghost grandmother……. I am sure she could have hit on me, what obscenity! I need respite……I need to die, I need to leave and not live….. I need a new storyline.
The Xavier Richard Vertiginous Experience 