The old woman sat by the fire, watching the bean cakes fry. It was a particularly cold night and the warmth emanating from the flames was comforting to her frail and skinny body. She watched the akara as their edges began to turn brown then gently but deliberately turned them over so the uncooked side could fry in the oil. She looked up at the continuous stream of people passing to and fro in front of her kiosk. She had started her trade earlier in the evening and had drawn a considerable number of her usual customers and even a few new ones with the sweet aroma of her wares. Now, however, it was getting really dark and she hadn’t had a customer in an hour, a sure sign that it was time to close up for the night. Already the other shops around her had closed and the commercial buses that usually plied this part of town had started to dwindle. She sighed and inspected the bean cakes again. She decided that this would be the last batch. She brought them out of the fire and proceeded to scatter the firewood, allowing the flames to die slowly. She waited for the oil to cool then gently poured it into the container. A young man came up and asked for some bean-cakes. She sold to him and he paid her and left. She turned back to her wares and saw that the fire had all but died out, the ashes glowing a bright orange and yellow in the cold night.
Another half an hour passed by and the old woman began to feel sleepy. The ashes had cooled considerably and the number of people on the street had begun to thin out. As there were only a few more bean cakes left to sell anyway, she wrapped what was left and began to pack her utensils into the kiosk for the night. She put the firewood and ashes into a corner in her kiosk. Experience had taught her that leaving it outside would amount to losing it as the children that went to school in the mornings often times scattered and played with the ashes and firewood. If she had someone to help her gather firewood during the day, it wouldn’t have been so much of a nuisance to her, but she was all alone. Her only son had been killed in a motor accident a few years ago and her husband had not recovered from the shock. He died in the same year; the doctors had given his malady a fancy name “congestive cardiac failure”. She knew how much her husband had loved the boy and strongly believed he had died of a broken heart. She was more of a survivor and though these sad events in her life had brought her down, she kept an optimistic view of things and had resorted to selling akara, bean cakes to eke out a living. It had been so hard at first but then she had started saving small amounts of money and had stopped feeling sorry for herself.
She shut the kiosk door and picked up the left-over bean-cakes. She crossed the main road quite easily as the traffic had reduced. Most of the buildings around had their lights switched off and the town was slowly going to sleep. She trudged along the road, past the new generation bank building that was scheduled to open next week, past some of the old structures that had been in the town for as far as she could remember, past the old catholic church that had two towers, one housing a large ancient bell used to call people in for service and the other with a large mechanical clock that boldly declared the time as being some minutes past nine. The clock’s face had originally been ivory colored but had turned a dirty brown owing to lack of proper cleaning over the years. As she passed, a cold wind blew over and around her and she shivered violently. She wrapped her clothes more firmly around her to keep warm and held the bean-cakes firmly under her arm.
She didn’t notice the young man hiding in the shadows watching her, watching his prey. A tall and lanky fellow, this human predator of the night was out hunting for easy pickings. He saw the package under her arm and his eyes narrowed in greed. He looked left and right; there were still a few people on the streets, so he decided to follow her until his opportunity came. He walked a considerable distance behind her noticing her ragged appearance. The fabric she wore had since lost its color and was thoroughly faded. Her slippers were old and worn. He didn’t let that disturb him though. Experience had taught him that it was not necessarily those who were well dressed that carried the heavier purses. He fantasized about what could be inside; Money? Jewelry? He wouldn’t be surprised. Some of these old people carried strange and sometimes very valuable things on their persons. He had robbed an elderly man only a few weeks ago, a very unkempt and smelly old man. To his surprise, the man had not only had a large bundle of money under his wrappers, he was also carrying pure golden necklaces. The old man had tried raising an alarm but a heavy blow to the chest had silenced him. The necklaces had fetched him a handsome price at the black market but because he only knew how to spend money and not use it, the windfall was quickly exhausted. Looking at the woman’s physique, he surmised that she wouldn’t be too much of a problem. All he had to do was to sneak up on her when they were alone.
The old woman kept on walking, oblivious of the extreme belligerency that was now only a few meters away from her. She turned off the main road and into a street. The road here was untarred and a little narrow, just wide enough to allow two cars squeeze past each other. On either side of the road, tall bushes grew, interspersed with two or three mango trees. There were no street lights here or if there were they weren’t working and pockets of darkness could be found at various points at the side of the road. Places where unsavory characters and even unsavory creatures could lurk. Or maybe they were both one and the same thing. Nevertheless, the old woman knew this route very well and was not in the least bit uncomfortable. She always passed by this route on her way home and had never had an unpleasant incident. She began singing an old native song under her breath. The song, a little raspy from her lips, was nevertheless pleasant. The lyrics told of a little girl who had wandered deep into the forest and was asking the help of the spirits to guide her safely home.
She passed over the little stone bridge that was built over the stream that flowed through this way. No one had ever bothered to build a house along this stretch of road as the land had once been the abode of a powerful witch doctor and the indigenes were highly superstitious. A few people used it however as a shortcut to the other more remote side of town which happened to be where the old woman lived. At this time of the night it was completely deserted except for the old woman singing softly to herself carrying the left-over akara in a bag under her arm, with the profit of the day neatly tucked in her wrapper, and the young vagrant now catching up with her, a large stick in his hand.
She heard footsteps behind her but did not turn around. Instead, she stopped on her tracks and, with her back to the sound, listened closely. The footsteps also stopped. After a while she resumed her march and soon she heard footsteps behind her again. They were heavy footsteps and careless, kicking a stone here, stepping on dead leaves there. Her superstitious mind chided her for not taking the proper precautions before passing this bit of road, but it had been so long since she had needed to recite the incantation… probably she had disturbed one of the spirits in that area who was now trailing her home. She believed that turning around to face the spirit would be fatal. Instead she began to chant an old prayer of her people, apologizing to the spirit for disturbing it and pleading it to return to its rest. If that didn’t work, she could always light a match for she knew that the spirits were repelled by light. She heard a low laugh as the footsteps got closer. She stood still again and repeated the prayer more loudly as her free hand roamed in her bag for a box of matches. Suddenly the footsteps stopped. She moved forward a little and listened closely but there was no sound behind her now. She looked forward and saw that she was close to her exit. She quickened her pace and turned into a school field that led towards her compound. As she moved towards her house she was hailed by some of her neighbors, some of who had come out to enjoy the evening breeze. She answered their greeting and turned into her compound glad to have made it safely home.
And her would-be-assailant? He hadn’t made it very far. He had never taken this path before and it had spooked him a little. He had quickened his pace, accidentally kicking a stone which the old woman had apparently heard by the way she had cocked her head to one side to listen closely, but she never turned around. Instead, she had stopped to mutter a prayer, driving away spirits, declaring she hadn’t set her eyes on them and so could not be harmed. When he had realized what she was doing it was all he could do to stifle a laugh. They were all superstitious, these old people. He was just over the stone bridge and was about to strike when he heard footsteps behind him.
They were soft, even footsteps. Apparently the person (person?) wasn’t in a hurry. He lowered the stick he was holding in his hand, the stick he had planned to club the woman on the head with. Silently, he cursed his ill-luck that had made him delay in catching up to the old woman earlier and making his move. He was about turning around to see who was following him when the air around him became very still. It was true that the night was cold but something else was sending a chill down his spine. He could feel a presence. Not a nice presence either. All of a sudden he knew. He knew what he would see if he turned around. His rational mind told him this was absurd, this was purely superstition but in his heart he knew. His throat constricted and a funny noise escaped his esophagus. His was suddenly thrown into the very grip of terror. What was it the old woman had been muttering? He tried to recollect them and stumbled through the words even as he was rooted to the spot, and when that didn’t seem to work he tried crying out for help but no sound escaped his lips. His insides became cold and he actually felt himself ageing.
What had she said about spirits?
"Close your eyes...!"
But he couldn’t do it. Try as he might his eyes kept popping back open in fright. So instead he looked down at his feet. Two other feet slowly came into his field of vision. They were swollen, bloated, with some of the nails and toes decayed and falling off. He could feel it inspecting him, sniffing him out as if to catch the scent of inherent mischief. Suddenly there was a snarl and something gripped his arm. He couldn’t bear it any longer. He looked up.
The old woman never heard him scream. She couldn’t have. Even if she had turned around at that precise moment all she would have seen was a young man drop lifelessly to the floor. Even as his soul was being pulled away from his body by forces he couldn’t begin to comprehend, he continued to scream in terror, the loud wail of a tortured soul, inaudible to human ears.
The End
Secret, secrets... Acts, deeds, words, thoughts unknown by his neighbor. He planned to lay it to the world. Moreover nothing was hidden under the sun, if only the sun could lighten the dark recesses of his evil mind so they could see, but oblivious they were, and oblivious they would be till he was ready. A wolf in sheep's clothing he was. Were they really sheep? Were they that naive? Were they inattentive to his flaws? 
He knew he was imperfect but they never saw, so he'd show his flaws.His mind was made up, he had made promises, he intended to keep them. Those promises depended on his choices but he had been so stuck in giving the perfect appearance that it never really bothered him. Tonight, it did, he was tired of keeping up appearances. Tired of being the hero and villain. Tired because he could do better, much more better. He had to make the decisions himself, the road would be rough but he made up his mind that he would persevere. He always did and this wouldn't be different. He closed his mind to second guesses and closed his eyes while he imagined the non existent sunlight filter in though the walls he had built over time, thought the fog of uncertainty and double standards. He was ready to let the light shine through and get to him.
