The Tale of a Mighty Kingdom

The tale of a mighty kingdom (Okiriji)
A gust of wind blows over the land, and as it blows, a secret is revealed. Here lies the remains of a broken and scorned kingdom. Once loved and cherished by all, but now a place of death and destruction.  In all of my journeys so far, I’ve never seen a place so devastated, yet so serene that I can still hear the beat of their drums humming. I have come to the right place (that I’m certain of), but what could have brought about this destruction to a once mighty kingdom? I wonder to myself. As I walk across the jungle terrain, I come across a shallow stream flowing. In it are precious stones and pebbles. Though not as colorful and bright as they must have once been, but just enough to keep the mind wondering what life might have been like back when Okiriji still had her greatness. As I sit by the stream’s bank, I can’t help myself but wonder what a typical traditional wedding in Okiriji must have been like, most especially the royal wedding of Odesa the king’s daughter who is described as the fairest in all the land of Okirji. While wondering, the soothing sound of the flowing stream relaxes my mind and as I dip my hand to reach for the stones in the stream, I close my eyes, and I can feel myself present at Odesa’s wedding. Everything looks surreal. I see Odesa coming out of her hut and isn’t she beautiful? Her attire is adorned with precious stones and her hair is golden brown. She walks with her handmaidens. I count seven of them singing as they walk her to the great hall where her father (the king) and her groom to be and the citizens of Okiriji in droves must be waiting for her. I approach them, but it seems they can’t see me. I call her name, “Odesa,” but she isn’t responding. All I see is a look of despair in her eyes. I don’t understand this. It’s your wedding day but you look sad, “why?”  “Why are you sad, Odesa?” I wonder as I walk with them. As we approach the door of the great hall, a bird chirps and I lose my concentration. I open my eyes and try to feel for anything, something that can take me back to the state I just was, but nothing is working. I dip my hand in the stream again to feel its power, just maybe it can take me back to the events of Odesa’s wedding day, but all I get is a cold hand. “Bloody bird,” I say as I stand and leap over the stream. It must have been around four pm in the afternoon, but the canopy shades here make it seem like it’s about eight pm in the evening. I’m so excited and everything looks so appealing to me in this ancient ruin. After a few walk, I come across a structure which looks like a temple. Though it is barely intact but it looks ok enough to be explored.  So I bring out my camera and begin to take pictures. “This must be their temple,” I say as i take a picture. Huh? Something must be wrong with my camera. I am seeing flashes of light deep inside the temple when I look through the lens of my camera, but when I am not, everything is pitch black. The spirit of exploration wants me to go inside and explore but according to ancient stories, temples are always sacred and always believed to still possess ancient powers. “But this is the twenty-first century, right?” “What could possibly happen?” “I’ve been in places like this before,” I tell myself. It is perfectly normal, but then again, I already had an encounter at the stream. “Maybe I should go in the morning when the sun is up,” I think to myself, so I turn away and begin to walk in another direction back to my shelter.  As I begin walking, I hear a voice calling me from inside the temple. It is so sweet and calm. It calls me the way only one person in the world ever does and that is my wife. Now I know what you are thinking, I shouldn’t go inside the temple. I mean my wife couldn’t possibly be inside there. I said goodbye to her before leaving home in Kansas. There’s no way she could have boarded a plane to this ancient ruin in the heart of Africa. “So who is calling my name?” I think to myself. “Hello, who’s there?” I say out loud. But I get no answer. I begin to walk towards the temple slowly and repeatedly say hello. As I approach the entrance of the temple, everything is pitch black, so I set my bag down and reach for a flash light.  It is a turbo flash light I bought at Joe’s back in Kansas with turbo batteries so it’s very bright. “This is good” I say to myself. Now let’s find out who has been calling my name. I begin to walk inside the temple. I can see several ancient paintings but there is one that stands out. It seems to be a painting of a beast-human like creature with a beast head and a human body. Below the painting is another painting of a group of people who seem to be worshipping the creature. “I should take a picture of this” I say as a put my flashlight down and reach for my camera. And as I try to focus my camera on the painting, my flashlight begins to act funny. First its light begins to fluctuate on and off slowly and then faster. I look so surprised coz I don’t understand why it should be acting like that. I pick it up to check what is wrong with it and as I do, it went off permanently. “What the heck?” I say as I hit its head so it could come back, but it doesn’t seem to want to. I look around and everywhere is pitch black. Now it is clear that I am lost within the temple and don’t know my way out. And even if I did know my way out, there’s no chance of snowball in Haiti that I would find it in this pitch blackness. “I shouldn’t have entered here I know I shouldn’t, I should have just gone to my shelter and come back tomorrow when everything is bright” I think to myself. And as I’m thinking these thoughts, that voice calls me again from deep within the temple. This time it is more audible and I can’t resist it. I turn around and start walking in the direction where the voice echoes from, but I don’t get far. I trip and fall hitting my head on a stone and I go unconscious. I was in limbo for a few minute before I find myself back at the entrance of the temple. This is very strange but I realize I am without my bag and my shoes are not on my feet. While trying to figure out what is happening, I see a man come out of the temple. He is dressed in ancient attire and has a long beard. He has no hairs on his head and has a long stick with him. He looks like a priest and seems to be chanting some incantations. I don’t want to get on this man’s bad side that’s for sure so I stand still, but to my amazement, he walks past me without even noticing me. Talk about relief. I breathe easy for a moment, but then I hear a great wail like that in a funeral of a great person. I look up and I see a multitude of people wailing. At the front are four strong men carrying a wooden stick with a beautiful lady whose attire is adorned with precious stones, tied on top of it. As they approach the gate of the temple, I can see that the lady is Odesa. “Odesa!” I say with a great shout and instinctively I rush down to untie her, but I can’t and no matter how much I shout, no one seems to notice me. I soon realize that I’m powerless to stop anything and I’m just reliving the events that had happened a thousand years ago. As these men set her down, the man who looks like a priest approaches her and begins to pour some sort of liquid on her. Then I see a man in royal attire with escorts. He seems to be a King. He kneels before Odesa and begs for forgiveness and a tear falls down his eye. And although they all speak in a native tongue, I can somehow understand everything they are saying. This is really strange. As the king begs for her forgiveness, Odesa can’t help herself but say I forgive you. A sudden shout from the priest and the four men carry her and begin to walk inside the temple.  I see Odesa close her eyes so no tear would fall. The priest then orders everyone to stay where they are as only him and the four men can enter the temple. Not even the king is allowed to go inside. And as they enter the temple, I enter with them still with a glimpse of hope that I can save her. While they walk, the priest continues to make incantations. I walk hurriedly to catch up with them. As I approach them, Odesa turns to me. It’s like she can finally see me. The look in her eyes suggests that she can see me. “If you can see me, tell me how to get you out of here, Odesa,” I say. “Let me save you.” But Odesa instead bursts into a song.  She sings:
“Odesa is bound in fetters, who shall save her?
Her fate is sealed with her father’s decision, who shall change it?
She wishes it was different, but wishes don’t always come true
She is the God’s meat, and everyone has forsaken her
If she ever comes back in another life, she would choose the life of commoner
She would fall in love and give birth to many children
But for now she has to say goodbye
It is so sad that fate isn’t her friend.”
I am astonished that she refers to herself in the third person in her song, but she continues singing, repeating the words over and over again. And no matter how much I try to talk to her, she isn’t responding. It is like she is not concerned for her life or she can’t even hear me in the first place. I feel really sad and all I can think of at this time is my daughter Karen who should be about Odesa’s age. If Karen were to be in Odesa’s position, would I not save her? “I’m not going to give up” I say against all hope. I rush ahead of the priest and try to stop him, but he just passes right through me like I’m not there. I try to stop the four men carrying Odesa too, but the same thing happened. I’m just powerless here. And as I look in despair, I hear a great roar behind me. It is like that of a great beast. And immediately I see everyone kneel. I turn around slowly to see the thing behind me and upon sighting it I panic in great fear. It has the head of a beast and the body of a man and it is about ten feet tall. Immediately I fall to the ground and begin to crawl back slowly with my hand while still gazing at its hideous appearance. I have never been more scared in my life than in this moment. The priest kneeling with his face bowed down begins to exalt the beast and this time I am very attentive to listen to him.  He says:
“Praise be to the God of Okiriji
The mighty one who exceeds great in strength
Praise be to the mighty Orisha
The one who kills and heals as it pleases him
It is you we have come to appease
We beg that you bestow on Okiriji more blessings
We pray for the king’s longevity
We also didn’t forget to bring you a present
A virgin maiden
Receive her as our offering to you
Mighty Orisha! Mighty Orisha! Mighty Orisha!”
“Now I know what the beast is, it is Orisha, the God worshipped in Okiriji,” I think to myself.  The moment the priest finishes his exaltation, Orisha roars in acceptance and the priest laughs still with his head bowed. The priest then orders the four men to start crawling back slowly and steadily as he does the same. All of them have their heads bowed and none of them can look at Orisha for it is forbidden. “But that doesn’t apply to me,” I think. They can’t even see me, so what is the point in being afraid. I rise up looking at Orisha which has its attention on Odesa. I call his name, “Orisha! You human eating monster.” “You’re not a god but a coward who would eat a girl before you bless the people you claim to love and protect,” I say while thinking it can’t hear me nor see me since these happened a thousand years ago, but surprisingly Orisha looks at me and roars. I can see the fire in its eyes. This cannot be good. I take two steps backward and Orisha takes two steps towards me. “Oh snap! It can see me,” I exclaim. I begin to panic again and I really feel like I should run. But Orisha has thought of that ahead of me as it rushes towards me. I can’t move so I scream and as it is about to pounce on me, I wake up. Apparently I had passed out after hitting my head on the stone while trying to follow the voice I heard, and what I just experienced was just a hallucination. I rise up with a headache so severe like my twenty-fifth birthday party hangover. “Good times,” I say to myself with a smile remembering how awesome my twenty-fifth birthday was. I dust the dirt off my clothes and there my turbo flashlight is, on with its light so bright. “Where were you when I needed you, flashlight,” I say to the flashlight pretending it can hear me. I pick it up and switch it off coz it is of no use now. I can’t tell the time for sure but I know it is about eleven am in the morning now.  I begin to navigate my way out of the temple but the thought of the things I saw while hallucinating still lingers in my mind. “Did he see me?” I ask myself. But every time I ask myself, I convince myself that the whole event is not real. I finally find the exit route and upon walking out of the temple, there is only one thing on my mind. I want to get as far away as possible from this temple. I begin to walk in the direction towards my shelter with one hand gently massaging the spot that hurts on my head. I walk on until I get to a parcel of open land where I can set up a camp. I have only been here for a day and it has been so eventful. After making my camp, I sit inside and decide to write about the things I have encountered so far. I have not started writing when the sound of thunder echoes in the distance. I know there is a rain coming, but I am not bothered since my camp is waterproof.  I reach into my bag, bring out a snack and begin to chew on it while writing my diary. Then the rain begins to pour down and I begin to doze of gently. Few minutes later and I am deep in sleep. Everything feels so normal and peaceful until a loud thundering wakes me up. I wake up terrified by how loud the thundering was. I unzip my tent and peep outside. I realize I had slept for about two hours considering the outlook of the day before I slept and how it looks now. The rain has reduced to just a drizzle and I’m glad in a few hours I could go out and explore. And as I am about to lie down again for another round of sleep, I hear a faint scream. I feel like it echoed from within the forest, but after the things I have been through, I am in no rush to pay attention to it. The voice cries out again and this time I can hear it a little better. It seems like the voice of a woman screaming. She says, “Hear me,” I guess and I begin to get scared coz definitely the person must have seen my tent and know that I am in here before she could say that. My mind begins to wonder, “Could she be a spirit or a ghost roaming the ruin looking for a victim?” “What could she possibly have to tell me?” As my mind ponders on these questions, the voice cries out again and this time it is audible. She says, “somebody, help me!”  Suddenly I find myself up and agile. I unzip my tent and rush out in the direction where the voice is crying out from. I begin to call back to her trying to figure out where she is. And behold there she is in front of me. I am astonished as well as baffled as why she is here, but I realize she is weak and cold and can’t speak very well, so I carry her back to my tent. It takes me about ten minutes to carry her from where she was back to my tent. On getting back, I cover her with warm clothes and anything that can generate a little bit of heat for her to warm up. I know now that any exploration I had planned is thwarted, but that doesn’t matter. After all, I am focused on nursing this woman back to health while she shakes occasionally.  The next logical step to take is to start a fire, but I realize that the branches must be so wet from the down pour that they couldn’t start and keep a fire going. There is nothing I can do but hope for the best as I continue to watch over her and pray she is okay. Her shaking continues during the night and at a point I begin to wonder if she will actually make it to the morning. I try not to sleep and monitor her state of health as it changes but at a point I find myself dozing off till I fall asleep. A yawn and I am awake. It is morning already and the first thing I think about is to check on her. I notice that her shaking has greatly reduced and she can now speak although slowly. “Water,” she says as I rush for my water bottle and give her some water. The next thing that comes to mind is food, so I reach for the loaves of bread in my bag and begin to feed it to her gently one bite after another.  Two hours later and she becomes strong enough to sit and talk to me. The first question I ask is her name and she replies, “Cecilia.” Then I proceed to ask for her nationality and how she came about being here. She tells me she is from South Africa and she has been here lost for three days. She says she and her two colleagues from the university found out about this mysterious ruin in the heart of Africa through a man who claimed he had visited the place several times, and they decided to explore it to know more about its history. She tells me she is an archaeology student from Johannesburg University and that made her and her colleagues really interested in visiting here. While she is saying these, she stops and gives me a frightened look. “We have got to get out of here,” she says as she begins to panic. “You are safe here,” I tell her, but that doesn’t seem to change anything. She keeps saying, “You don’t understand, this place is cursed.” I try to calm her down but she says something that baffles me. She talks about an encounter with a creature in the ruin with the head of a beast and the body of a man.  She claims it attacked them (her and her colleagues and their guide) and ever since then she hasn’t seen any of them again. In surprise, I ask, “You mean there are three other people lost in this jungle ruin?” “Yes there are,” She says. Pretending everything is going to be alright, I smile and tell her we will find them and leave the ruin when she regains her strength, but deep within myself I begin to ponder on what she claims to have seen. “Could they have had an encounter with Orisha?”  “Could everything I saw at the temple be real?” “No it cannot be,” I tell myself as I begin to panic within my mind. To diffuse my panic, I decide to go for a walk. I tell her I am going to gather firewood for the night. “Hopefully there will be some dry twigs out there,” I say. “Don’t take too long and be careful out there,” she says. “Ok,” I say as I set off. After walking for about fifteen minutes, i have a feeling something is stalking me. I look back but nothing seems to be there. I continue walking, gathering dry twigs and paying close attention to my surroundings.  The hooting of an owl alerts me to a danger in my surrounding. I begin to walk slowly, trying to figure out what it is I am up against when suddenly it jumps out from its hiding place and begins to chase me from behind. Upon seeing it, I throw the dry twigs down and begin to run. At this moment, the only thing on my mind is getting out of this alive. I am being chased by a leopard and it is very fast. I run and run until I get to a cliff. The funny thing is upon arriving at a cliff, I stop and look back at the leopard which also stops and looks at me. I look down from the cliff and there is a flowing river deep enough to support my jump. I have to make a split second decision here. Either I jump or I face a leopard. “Lord, help me,” is what I say before jumping off the cliff and down I went with a scream till I hit the river. The splash as I hit the river is massive and I can say I lost consciousness for a minute but I regain consciousness and begin to follow the current till I get to  where there are rocks to hold on to and follow to get off the course of the river.  Upon getting out of the river, I am tired and exhausted, but I need to find a safe place where I can lay low, so I begin to walk in the jungle and soon enough, I get to a ruin that looks like a house. Though the walls look eroded and degraded, there is just about enough strength in them to still be standing.  Upon entering, I take off my clothes and squeeze the water out for them to dry. Everything is bushy inside but I manage to find a clearing where I can sit. After sitting for about 30 minutes, I begin to feel cold and shiver. I know there is only one thing to do else I want to die here. I walk out of the house into the jungle and begin to find a place where there’s a little bit of sunshine from. I mark trees as I move so I don’t get lost and yes I am walking naked. After 10 minutes, I find a spot where the canopy is not that broad and there is a ray of sunlight penetrating to the forest floor. I can’t share with you how happy I am as I sit there and bask in the sunlight. Although I am conscious of my surroundings should in case there is any sudden movement, but I feel warmth and right now that is all that matters. It is not until after two hours in the sunlight that I think about how worried Cecilia must be right now. I told her I wasn’t going to take too long and right now it has been about three hours since I left my camp. “She must be really worried,” I say to myself, so I rise up and navigate my way back to the house. I pick up my clothes which are a little dry and wear them regardless. But I begin to feel really hungry so I decide to look for food just anything to eat. I walk back to the river bank and try to catch a fish. Three attempts in a row and no luck.  I begin to get frustrated and tired when suddenly I hear a crack in the opposite direction of the jungle. It sounds like someone stepped on a dead branch. I become so alert and begin to plot an escape plan in my head. I think if anything is going to come from that side, it has to get past the river first before it gets to me. At least that will slow it down. But I become relieved when I hear two voices conversing in English. I hide behind a tree as they approach the river. I see them clearly now to be a man and a woman in their early 30s. They seem to be plotting on how to cross the river to come to my side and seem to be carrying some bananas. I let them almost reach the bank of the river at their side before coming out and waving to them. They become scared a little upon seeing me, but I tell them it is ok. “I am a friend,” I say, and I offer them a way to get across the river. “There are a bunch of rocks at the other side of the river,” I say. “Just walk that way and you should get there in ten minutes and use them to cross to this side. Then walk down here,” I further say. They look at me and begin to walk in the direction I had told them and sure enough in about 30 minutes they are at my side of the river staring right at me. They look so surprised and the first question they ask me is, “who are you?” I tell them I am an explorer who has been in this ruin for 2 days and still looking forward to explore more. “Are you nuts?” is the next response I get from the guy who seems to be looking around for something. “This place is cursed!” says the girl. “We have lost two people already, Cecilia and Thambe,” she further says.  “We have to get off this ruin, man,” the guy says. “Calm down and tell me what your names are,” I say as I try to calm them down. My name is Felix and hers is Patricia, Felix says. “Okay Felix, first of all, Cecilia is alive and secondly we need to look for a place to stay because it’s about to get dark,” I say. “Now I found an abode not too far from here where we can camp for the night” I further say. “Why should we trust you,” Felix says. “We barely know you,” Felix further says. “Well, you just have to make a choice, follow me and together we have a chance of finding a path out of here or stay,” I say. “Let us follow him, he knows where Cecilia is,” Patricia says. After deciding to follow me, I ask them to gather firewood and some combustible dry banana leaves we see along the way as we try to navigate back to the shelter I found some hours ago. I also decide to ask them for some piece of bananas that they are carrying because I am starving. On getting to the shelter, everything is dark and cold. “We need to make a fire,” I say. So I make a heap of the wood and with the banana leaves, I strike two stones together to make a fire. “Where is Cecilia?” Patricia asks. “She should be safe in my camp up stream,” I say. “You don’t even know for sure she is safe,” Felix says “How can we trust you to get us out of this place?” Felix further says. “Look, I got attacked by a leopard while walking to gather firewood,” I say. “Oh! That is just great,” Felix says sarcastically. “Not only do we have a beast human looking creature here, but we also have other beasts trying to eat us,” Felix says. “This is a disaster and a big mistake” Felix further says. “Look on the brighter side, we have got fire, right,” I say trying to diffuse the situation. After a while, Felix and Patricia decide to call it a night and go to sleep at a corner of the shelter. I stay up a little while longer as the fire begins to burn low and as I am dozing by the fire, I hear a familiar soft voice calling me from the forest. It sounds like the voice I heard at the temple. “This cannot be,” I say to myself, but the voice becomes more seductive with each call. Now I know what you are thinking. I should learn from my past mistake and not follow the voice, but I didn’t die the last time, so “what is the worst that could happen?” I ask myself as I stand up and follow the voice into the forest. I have not walked too much before I see a fair lady by a rock sitting and smiling. I feel like approaching her, but then I see Orisha coming from behind her with many fruits from the forest to feed her. “I don’t understand what I am seeing,” I say to myself. Is this not Odesa who was sacrificed?” How come she is here smiling with Orisha feeding her?” I ask myself. I look around the forest and I see fruits of all sorts on the trees, green leaves and serenity. It seemed Okiriji was prospering at the time after Odesa was given to Orisha. Could it be that Odesa fell in love with Orisha? I ask myself and as I ponder on this question, I feel a hand touch me from behind and a voice saying “wake up!” It is Patricia’s. “I woke to pee and saw you dozing dangerously close to the fire even though it was burning low,” she says. “You could have gotten hurt had I not woken you up,” she further says as she goes to a corner to pee.” “I am forever indebted to you, I guess,” I say sarcastically as we both smile. After she is done peeing, I ask her about their encounter with the human-beast like creature and she replies by saying she cannot recall anything because it all happened so fast and they got separated.  I try asking if she saw anything distinct about the creature, but she says she didn’t see anything in particular. “Why do you want to know so much about this creature?” she asks and I smile saying no reason, but I can’t help to wonder if I have had everything figured out wrongly. “Could I have been wrong about Orisha?” I think to myself. The night goes by fast and the morning is upon us. Felix coming out of the shelter yawns while he wakes Patricia. I had hardly slept all through the night, but I am the first to wake up. I know I have to be at my best to navigate back to the camp where Cecilia must be waiting. “You two ready to go?” I ask them. “Woah! Dude, are you sure you can make this trip? You look like you haven’t slept in days,” Felix says. “I am fine,” I say. “Let us move,” i further say. “We will find food on the way” I say knowing they are both hungry. While we walk, I try to get to know them better and ask about their tour guide whose whereabouts is presently unknown. They have a lot of stories to tell me and all is going well until we hear rumblings from afar and the ground starts shaking. From experience, I can tell that this is an earthquake, but it soon passes and we continue on our journey. While Patricia and Felix seem unconcerned about the recent happening, my mind can’t help to wonder that geographically speaking, an earthquake should not occur in this part of the world. But I don’t want to scare them so I say nothing. After two hours of trailing, we can see a clearing from afar which is where I camped. But no one seems to be there. As we get closer, I can’t help but notice that someone left here in a hurry. “Where’s Cecilia?” Patricia asks. “She’s not here,” I say. “No, what do you mean by that?” Felix asks. “You said you had her in your camp,” Felix further says. “Yea, I did but she must have left.” I say. “Left to where?” Patricia asks. “I don’t know” I reply. “You see, I am getting tired of this,” Patricia says. “This place is cursed!” Patricia says. Just as Patricia finished her statement, the rumbling comes again and this time it is louder and the ground starts shaking tremendously to the point that trees are felled. “What’s happening?” Felix asks with a trembling voice and I say, “Don’t move!” Now it’s clear to me that just like every other great kingdom, Okiriji is no different. “We really need to get out of here!” I say, but we also have to find Cecilia first. “Based on the rumblings and the quaking of the Earth, a volcanic eruption is about to take place very soon,” I say. So we have got at most an hour to be gone from here,” I further express. “Now I am going to go and look for Cecilia and hope I find her in time,” I say. “If you don’t see me in 30 minutes, start heading north till you get to the tourist airfield and get yourselves out of here,” I say.  As I depart them, I can see the look of despair in Patricia’s eyes as if all hope is lost for her dear friend Cecilia. I run as fast as I can into the neighboring forest hoping Cecilia will be just around a turn. As I run, I can feel the floor of the forest quaking. I start calling out her name, “Cecilia!” I call, but no one is answering. I turn to head towards another part of the forest and from nowhere, a huge branch of a tree falls and knocks me out.  I wake up to find myself in a building of royal attributes. “How am I here?” I ask myself, but I am no stranger to these visions and trances. Immediately I jump up from a kind of bed, and walk to where I can hear people talking. I see a man who looks like a king. I can tell because he is wearing some sort of a crown and I have seen him once begging for Odesa’s forgiveness at the temple. He looks angry and infuriated while his chiefs and priest are trying to appease him. What catches my attention is the bowl filled with earth crawling creatures which is placed in front of the king. I am thinking to myself that if anyone is asked to eat this, surely they must be angry and infuriated too.  But I soon realize that the bowl is not meant for the king’s consumption but a deity. “Orisha will be angry if fed with this, my lord” says the priest. “You don’t understand, that beast must die!” says the king. But he protects and blesses us, how are we going to survive if he does die?” says the chief sitting by the king’s side. “Orisha cannot die my lord, he can only be weakened for a period of time by feeding him this,” says the priest. ”I don’t care, I want my daughter back.” “My king but the priest says your daughter seems so happy with Orisha, I doubt she would want to come back,” says another chief. “Silence! One more word from you and I will feed you to my lions,” says the king as the chief falls down on his face to appease the king for what he has said. “Can this weaken orisha or not?” the king asks the priest. “Yes my lord, it can,” says the priest. “Good, now go and make preparations for Orisha,” the king says. While everybody is going out, I notice that a certain man walks closer to the king and the king seems to have whispered something into his ears. With haste, the young man leaves and I follow him. At the temple, the priest makes a certain incantation to draw out Orisha as he usually does.  He says:
Orisha, God of Okiriji, the mighty one
It is you who bestows us with the dew to make our crops grow
It is you who gives us strength to overcome our enemies
Now hear my call once again, the king has sent me to feed you
Oh! Mighty Orisha, the king has brought you a sacrifice
He has said that this is what you deserve
He has gone to the earth to bring you this
Now Orisha rise up and heed my call!
After he is done, I can’t help but think that it seems that the priest is absolving himself from knowing about what Orisha is about to be fed with.  Just as I am pondering on that, another thing catches my attention. In Okiriji’s tradition, only the priest and three chosen young men can enter the temple to seek Orisha but I count four. The fourth person happens to be the young man who the king whispered to. I wonder to myself what might be going on here.  And as I am wondering, Orisha comes out and all with their heads bowed. I see Orisha pick up the bowl and as he feeds on it, he cries out. It is a great shout that shakes the foundation of the temple. It seems he has been fed with some kind of forbidden food. And just as about orisha is getting weaker, I see a man rise up with some form of an ancient dagger, walk up to the seemingly weak Orisha and stab him at the heart. Orisha shouted and immediately everyone falls dead including the priest. The foundation of the temple starts shaking tremendously. I rush out as my instincts tell me to, only to see people running helter skelter because the earth seems to be quaking. I don’t know which direction to go and while I am thinking on what to do, I feel a tap from the back “What is going on?” the lady asks. I say, “Orisha has been stabbed in the heart,” being ignorant of the person that asked. “Who did this?” the lady asks. I say, “A man acting on the order of the king who wants his daughter back.” “Thank you,” the lady says as she walks towards the temple. It is after she left that my mind becomes open to see that the lady is actually Odesa. I scream, “Odesa!” but she doesn’t answer. All I can do is watch Odesa stand at the entrance of the temple and stab herself.  For the first time I shed a tear and am enraged over what the king has done and just as I am thinking about everything that has happened, I see massive balls of fire falling over the kingdom and killing people. “I don’t really want to be here anymore,” I think to myself. And as the thought passes through my mind, it starts raining gold and precious stones. For a moment, everything pauses, but then again I look up and see a big ball of lava from above heading towards me. “So this is how it all ends,” I say to myself. As the big ball of lava gets closer, I close my eyes and feel some kind of peace within me amidst the chaos. I smile and woke up to Cecilia dragging me. “How did you find me?” I ask and she replies, “I heard you scream a name, Odesa or some name like that.” “I found you just in time,” she says. “We have to get out of here because the volcano is starting to erupt violently, she further says as she gets me up on my feet and we started running towards the camp. On getting to the camp, Felix and Patricia are no longer there. “They must have followed my instructions,” I think to myself. “We have to go north,” I say. “That is where the airfield is,” I say. “I can’t believe I won’t get to see my friends again,” Cecilia says. “Your friends are waiting for us at the airfield,” I say. “What do you mean?” Cecilia asks. I will show you when we get there,” I say. And as we are talking, the volcano erupts. Big balls of lava just like I had seen in my trance started catapulting out of the volcano. Cecilia and I run as fast as we can till we get to the airfield. On getting there, it looks empty. There is only just one helicopter left and it seems that everybody has abandoned this place in a hurry to escape the eruption. “Where are my friends?” Cecilia asks. “I don’t know,” I say. “You said they were here,” Cecilia says. Yea, I thought they should be. I mean I told them to come here,” I say. While we are talking about her friends’ whereabouts, Patricia runs out of the building and upon seeing Cecilia she shouts with Joy. “You don’t know how good it is to know you are alive,” Patricia says. “Same here,” Cecilia replies. “Felix is in the building,” Patricia tells Cecilia. Guys we have to get out of here and the only way is through that chopper,” I say. “Yes, we know but we can’t fly one, Patricia says with Felix coming out of the building. “Cecilia, Oh my god!” Felix exclaimed as they hug each other. “I hate to be the one to say this, but we are not out of this yet,” I say. “We have to find a way to fly that chopper,” I further say. As I am finishing saying this, a big ball of lava from the sky falls ten feet away from where we are and everyone starts panicking. “How do we fly this thing?” Felix asks trembling. “You are an explorer, you should know how to fly one,” he further says. “Well, I didn’t go to a flying school so go figure,” I say sarcastically. And just as we are contemplating on how to fly the helicopter, a miracle in form of the tour guide who was thought to be dead happens. He rushes out from one of the buildings and tells us he can fly the chopper. Hurriedly we pack ourselves inside it and wait till he is done with the commands and up we are slowly in the air. It isn’t until after we are clear of the volcano that questions about how he managed to be alive starts surfacing. He says after they got separated, he managed to navigate back to the air field and has tried organizing a search party but to no avail as no one was interested in searching for anyone. He says everyone here left in a hurry when they detected that the volcano which has been inactive for a long period of time is suddenly becoming active. He says he had a gut feeling telling him to wait behind as if he knew some people were going to need his help. As he says these things, my mind pondered on everything that had happened and I finally understand what led to the destruction of Okiriji. It was love. The kind a father has for his daughter. Love can be so powerful that it can blind us to reason which is what happened exactly in Okiriji. The love of the king for her daughter Odesa blinded him to scheme out a plan on how to kill Orisha because he couldn’t fathom how his daughter could live with such a beast. It was a selfish love not minding whether or not his daughter was happy. The tour guide flies us to a nearby city where we board a plane to South Africa. I spend three days in South Africa with Cecilia, Patricia and Felix after which I board a plane to Kansas. Even though we are no longer in the ruins of Okiriji, the memories I have of it will stay with me forever. I am back in Kansas after a long flight into the loving embrace of my wife and kids. I tell my wife and kids the story of my adventure after which I go to bed. And while I am about to sleep, it seems like I can hear a voice calling out to me outside of my room. It resembles that soft voice again that called me back in the ruins of Okiriji. Could it be? Well, this time I am not listening to it. I put off my lights and sleep off knowing that tomorrow is going to be a beautiful day.
THE END.