It was an experience I recall with fright to this day. Am walking home from the town center, don't recall clearly why I had gone to the town center, upcountry everyone goes to the town center in the late afternoon to see what has changed. Usually nothing changed back then. The only thing was I wasn't barefoot anymore as was the custom a few years back then, the sadak shoes had arrived in my village and I was one of the lucky few in the shoe wearing economic classes in that district.
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The road that I was walking on is a dry weather one, it's a village road, it branches off from the main town and on each side branches into homesteads. The road is a close and ends up at someone's home, the farthest home, luckily that's not the home I was heading to. Street lights would be invented much later on so it was a dark road during the night. I was heading home just when darkness was starting to flow in.
I was barely 10 years old and there was lots of things that made a child scared in those days; from creepy crawlies to wild animals that would show up uninvited and even people (some nefarious characters who exist even in modern times). I was always scared of the night, especially after I had watched the Dracula movie in the local cinema hall in the town center. I wasn't even allowed to watch the films screen for public owing to school rules at the primary school I attended; it was a day school by the way. It's amazing how school rules were applied beyond the school walls and encroached into private life. I broke the school rules and in the cover of approaching darkness paid to watch the movie. That movie featured a diabolical giant with many hands and long canines(a vampire) that ate people in a most horrifying manner. I had heard stories from my friends as they narrated their movie experience which lured me to go watch the movie.
My parents' home was a couple of homes down the village road as you departed from the town center. I walked with careful steps as the night fall had already started making it impossible to see where one was stepping. I had walked this road many times and by instinct knew where to step, I could walk to my parents' home even with my eyes closed. Ofcourse, I never tried walking with my eyes closed, I was too scared for that. The thing is that even when it's pitch dark human eyes are somewhat able to dimly identify shadows or forms that are in motion.
On this particular evening, I had this feeling of fear; immense and great fear. It was barely 2 days after I had watched that Dracula movie. I was halfway on that village road towards the small path that branched into my parents home. It is important to point out there was some good distance to walk after branching into the homestead path before getting to the safety of my parents home. I walked with haste into the darkness and walked each step with the overflowing fear. On this day I didn't meet anyone either walking in my direction or in the opposite one. I was walking and in my heart was praying to Jehovah to keep me safe.
I had only a few steps to make before branching into the path to my parents homestead, my fear was now starting to wane. Suddenly, someone next to me spoke, I had not noticed someone walking next to me. I was baffled, surprised, frightened and scared to magnitudes that broke the Richter scale. I recognized the voice and somehow by the last flickers of the daylight saw the face of the man clearly. It was the mad-man of the town center. As a kid growing up, we had been brought up to fear the 'mad people'. We had been told stories of how normal people who went near them had always ended up in regret or in fatalities. Here was a 10 year old who fate had placed right next to the most frightening being. I cannot remember what he said, honestly speaking it does not matter. Instantly without waiting an other second, I was in flight mode screaming at the top of my lungs ''uuwi uuwi uuuwi". I may have broken many sprinting world records that day that may never get recognized. In an instant I was inside the inner most rooms of my parents homestead wailing sobbing uncontrollably. My parents and siblings with the dimly lit paraffin lamp came to me trying to find out what had transpired. I must have narrated everything upside down, incoherently while trying to catch my breath. For the next hour, all I did was was wail and sob.
