The Scarecrow's Wrath (I)
When the worm turns
This piece is in response to Prompt “Even a worm will turn.”
This is part one in a three/two part story. (haven't decided yet). Subscribe to be notified when I post the restt!
Adedunmola knelt at the edge of her farm, droplets of blood running from her eyes down her face. Before her lay the farm her beloved grandmother had left her mother, and her mother, her.
The ashes clawed at her eyes, the land, once a young lad struggling with his siblings to suckle on his mother’s breasts, now a barren wasteland with no fight and no struggle left.
The air was thick with the laughter of those who had done this. The atmosphere heavy with the scorn, delirium and madness of the perpetrators.
The smoke, an indication of the wickedness of the villagers, the smell of nothing but burnt wood, pierced Dedun’s heart. The farm that was just managing to thrive, and these backward people had ruined it.
The farm had been hers to nurture, hers to care for and hers to tend and they had destroyed it with glee and joy because she was a woman and her labour meant nothing.
She looked towards the heavens and wondered
“Why me Olodumare?”
“Why have these vile, humanlike creatures chosen to use me as a dustbin for their frustrations?”
Slowly, but surely Adedunmola walked the entire length of her farm. Taking in the sight of destruction, she chocked on her own spit and a hacking cough began.
The farm had been burnt to the ground, nothing was left, not even a patch of fertile ground.
Her legs gave out from exhaustion but she dragged herself. She would not stop till she had inspected every inch of the land.
Dedun didn’t know what she was trying to achieve but she was overcome with despair and pain. Her hands shook violently and then clenched into fists. Almost like she was determining if she should be angry or scared or sad. She couldn’t breathe, she could barely see and it was all a blur.
She could still hear the hacking laughter of the villagers, lingering like the laugh of a Hyena. Their scornful words echoing in the distance.
“That’ll serve her right for thinking a woman could work a farm alone.”
“We should have used her body, taught her a lesson.”
“Shebi, she thinks she has power and can do it, instead of her to remarry like me, mtchew.”
Dedun’s heart broke all over again as she heard the whispers of those comments. Her teeth gnashed violently. She would not take this anymore. She had endured scorn and mockery for two years; she had taken it meekly. But the villagers had crossed a line. To burn her farm and blame her womanhood for it? To threaten to use her body?
It was like she had received energy from the gods, from Olodumare.
She felt energised, and revitalised. Her eyes cleared and her cough stopped. The tears dried up and she walked like her feet had fire under them - proudly.
“I, Adedunmola ọmọ ọmọ Adediwura. Ọmọ obìnrin agbara ati asọtẹlẹ. Awọn oriṣa mọ orukọ mi. Bákan náà, I am spirit, destiny made flesh. And I will not be trampled upon.”
Adedunmola stood at the edge of her compound her shadow stretching long beneath the full moon.
It was as though all the tears she had shed had been pulled into the heavens mixed with her anguish and pain to turn the moon a striking blood red.
The night was deathly still, even the crickets were mute. It was like they could feel that something was about to be released.
She knew it was a sign. Her grandmother had told her, “Adedunmola mi, the toad does not run in the day for nothing. Nothing happens for nothing.”
Her farm was gone, burnt to the ground.
Her husband gone, stripped away from her.
Her grandmother gone, with only the shreds of her wisdom left.
Her dignity gone. She had lost that many years ago. She had nothing left to lose.
Her grandmother had always spoken of Esu Elegbara, the one who dances at the crossroads and knows the secrets of undoing.
Adedunmola had often whispered prayers and offered rituals to him over the years.
Esu, was an Òrìṣà that helped people who had been wronged or so her grandmother said.
As she set her eyes upon the swirling firmaments, she called upon him:
“Esu Elegbara. Esu Odara, the one who can do and undo.
To be continued…