Sometimes a man needs a fresh start. Mutua needed a promise. He needed a sunrise; he needed a new heart as his old one only held the devastating cards that life had dealt him.

Standing and waiting before the temple with a cowed hen in his hands, he went over the cards: Death, cuckoldry, bankruptcy, addiction — the four horsemen who had carried away his parents, wife, livelihood, and dignity.

On Ash Wednesday the priest had said: “I wish that the ashes of the cross of the Christ were an image of what he promised. I wish that I could tell you that when you are weary and cold and alone there will await you a spring of youth and a fountain of beauty. This is not the promise carried in our book though. Just as Jesus was broken, beaten, and forsaken, so must we be.

"When we are unable to carry on and we look to the sky and wonder with all our hearts why God has forsaken us, we must remember that the sky will open as it did for his Son. We must also remember that when it did, the spirit of the Messiah had already descended into the bowels of the earth. God’s mercy and love may not reach us before we leave this place, but the promise of the resurrection is that, eventually, they will.”

Mutua had been in church because he wanted to hear the voice of the man whom his wife had loved. Though the priest delivered words of comfort, all he could hear was a call to hopelessness. A call as cold and dirty as the ash placed on his forehead.

As he walked away from the church he considered what path to take. There was the temptation to go into the other world to see if love and mercy existed there.

Illuminati

Mutua thought about joining the Illuminati, stories of whose success swirled around society, right now he needed sweetness. Mostly he thought about sleep, the magical elixir that carried away his worries, pains, and troubles.

His thoughts were broken by the voice on the other side of the phone.

“Yes?” it was a patient voice, used to being heard.

“Hallo, sorry I’m not sure wh…” he couldn’t quite put his finger on what was going on. Why was his phone next to his ear? Whom had he called?

“My name is Rahab, and if you are calling me you are in the midst of a great spiritual crisis. It may have disguised itself as financial or romantic or legal. The spirits of evil put on different skins when they strike at people, but they are all creatures of Endor. If you feel embattled and you need help, you will follow the directions that I will presently text you. You can come with faith or disbelief, all that I ask is you come with pure intentions.”

He put his phone away, looked up and there on a tree was a poster advertising the services of a witchdoctor. It was the number he had just dialled. Now the person was texting him directions, adding that he should come with an animal to sacrifice. The person said that it did not matter what animal it was, just that it must bleed red blood.

Holy books

The chicken he had chosen left wet, white excrement all over his car boot. It tried to escape so he held it tight. Its feathers brushed against him, and he held onto the rope that held its legs together.

With the chicken subdued, he stood before the door of the temple and knocked.

And then he was sitting across from the woman with the voice. Her hair was short, boyish, and her face smooth.

They talked across a table that would have easily fit inside an office. The only indication that her line of work was different was that she sat cross-legged, and behind her was a cabinet filled to bursting with holy books from different religions spanning the ages and places of the world.

“All troubles, as I indicated to you, are the same. All I need to do is to identify what spirit is coming against you so that I can deploy the necessary weaponry against it. For this, I must watch you kill this animal and then ask you to draw a symbol for the word help with some of its blood. I can, if you would like, listen to the particulars of your problem, but that will just be to ease your hurt. That is the job of a different person.”

Killing the chicken

Mutua didn’t want to open up about his troubles. He didn’t want to watch the face of this beautiful woman as he listed his powerlessness. What he really wanted to do was to kill this chicken.

He took the proffered knife and bowl, one leg on the wings, one on the chicken’s legs; he plucked away a few neck feathers and slit its throat. Blood collected in the bowl and he drew two hands clasped in prayer on the ground.

The woman looked at the drawing. She then turned to him and told him,

“You seem to be in deep trouble. A person like me, a doorway between this world and the one we feel but cannot see, has taken something that was bound to you. Your advocates in that world have only begun their journey and are as yet unable to intercede. The wells of water that you stored for later days are poisoned and you who were born free have made yourself a slave.

“You will leave what remains of the chicken. You will bring Ksh73,000 [$730] to me next week. Most of all you will keep your intentions pure until then.”

He thanked her and wondered where the money would come from. Bankruptcy, unlike poverty, means that there is always money lying around. It’s just that your debt runs into the millions. As he was walking towards the door she called him back.

“Could you finish the process of defeathering the hen. I’ll cook it out back and since your hands are already dirtied...”

And as Mutua bent down to begin plucking the feathers, Rahab thanked her lucky stars for three things: The desperation of man, mobile phone number identification software, and the efficacy of Google searches.

Editor's note

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