THE
SECOND
SIGHT
Chapter 14
THE WONDERFUL for-ce-FIELD
Location: THE STREETS
It is the well-dressed lady who first makes Boat aware that something out of the ordinary is going on in the spiritual realm.
She is speaking on the phone as she approaches the intersection of Jackson Street.
There is something wrong with the traffic lights at the intersection. They keep blinking amber lights only.
A Toyota Corolla and a Ford Sedan almost collide head-on, and both drivers are leaning out and hurling hellfire at each other. Behind them other motorists blow their horns angrily.
A few bemused spectators have stopped and are looking on.
And of course the evil creatures are still enjoying kingly rides on people, and still sipping funky stuff from inside people.
The well-dressed lady with a demon riding on top of her head turns to take another look at Boat, and he realizes that her eyes are fixed on his number plates; she wants to leave nothing out in her reportage to the cops so she is giving them my car’s licence number.
A moment later her eyes swivel up to Boat’s face, and Boat sticks both of his middle fingers at her!
Her free hand flies to her br£-$ts in shocked chagrin, and her face – or what he can see of it throu-ghthe tentacles of the creature suc-king human jui-ce throu-ghher nose – turns a crimson colour. Her pert li-ps formed a perfect ‘O’ as she gazes at Boat.
And then, without warning, it happens!
All the demons begin to flee!
The ugly one on top of the woman’s head let go of her and with dazzling speed comes bursting past Boat’s car, dashes out throu-ghhis window, and then crashing throu-ghthe window of a video libr@ry.
In seconds it is completely out of sight.
Boat, awed and amazed, turns his head round and round, his vision suddenly filled with the swift flight of evil creatures all around him.
Some fly from within cars and vanish down gutters.
Others simply seem to disappear into the bodies of the people they are riding on.
It is like a bomb has been released in a crowded room.
The creatures flee helter-skelter, their expressions reflecting their blatant panic!
Boat looks down, and sees the pink demon he has nicknamed unconsciously as Hideous gazing down the street with utter dismay.
The creatures in its forehead wriggle with frenzy, and its tentacles remove themselves from Boat’s face.
Its face is now filled with mas-sive hatred, an expression so profound that Boat is struck immobile with its pure evil. It was both vicious and frantic, as if it wants to flee and attack at the same time.
Its rotted li-ps are drawn back from the serrated teeth in a snarl, and its pink eye is suddenly filled with black stri-pes which makes it the most hate-filled eye Boat has ever seen in his life.
Suddenly it flies up, hovers in front of Boat, and then it does the most godawful thing in the whole damn wide world…
It sli-ps into Boat’s body smoothly.
No fuss, baby. No permission sought, none necessary!
Only thing is, Boat doesn’t like it one damn bit!
Truth is, Boat looks down at his hands, and there it is!
The demon is lying snugly beneath the skin of his hands, its rotted, pink, webbed fingers spread throu-ghBoat’s fingers like some obscene art work.
Boat can it in him, arm in his arms, thi-ghs in his, and worst is the sight of those wriggling freaks wriggling so horribly inside his own body.
BOAT
(screeching)
Oh shit! ShitshitshitshitshitSHIIIIIIT!!
Another ugly demon with a hu-ge reddish head bounces throu-ghhis car, filling it with a devilish red hue. It smashes out of his windscreen and bounces restlessly over the street. Long attachments like stuffed intestines trailed it. It shoots off the street straight at a stray dog which is lying on the curb.
The evil being disappears into the dog, which suddenly lets out a frantic bark, wakes up from its slumber, turns red eyes in the direction of Boat, and flees down the street quickly, its tail shooting straight into the air like an accusing finger aimed at God.
They have all fled now, and as Boat still continues to sweat at the horror of having that thing in his body, is suddenly aware of something bright approaching his car, blinding him momentarily.
Boat looks up, shielding his eyes from the brightest light he has ever seen in his life. It is as if the sun has fallen from the sky and landed right in front of him.
Boat’s body is suddenly rocked and buffeted violently, and then the demon which has hidden inside his body shoots out of him, crashing out of his car, face turning round once in a silent wail of terror as it flees from the incredible bright light. It smashes into the street, seeming to hover like vapour, and then it disappears into the street.
Amazed and filled with childish gloating that the mysterious bright light can have such terrible impact on these destructive agents of darkness, Yaw Boat turns again to have a look at what has caused that light to shine so ha-rd and frighten these ugly things.
Once again the bright light floods Boat and fills the car.
He shields his eyes his eyes against that glorious brightness.
This is a source of light he can’t bear to look at. It is gloriously bright, and seems to glitter, as if millions of diamonds are hidden in it. As he squints against it, he sees that, much to his amazement, the light is covering a human being.
It is a poor-looking woman walking towards his car, and she is surrounded by all that incredible bright field that has caused ha-rdened for-ces of darkness to flee!
She is someone Boat would have given no respect to un-der normal circu-mstances.
She is wearing a green dress, faded and patched.
Her feet are ba-re, her toes calloused and stunted. She is an elderly woman, and walked stooped with the aid of a stick. And around her, moving with her, is this amazing bright field of light which has driven the evil bastards absolutely bonkers!
She stops by Boat’s door and holds out a ha-rd, dirty palm.
That is when Boat sees the Bible clutched ti-ghtly un-der her right armpit.
Its cover is tattered, and some of the pages are spilling out. It is tied with a ru-bber band, and it is quite evident that she uses that Bible a lot.
WOMAN
(croaking)
Spare a coin for a poor widow, son.
Boat still has to screw his eyes to tiny slits to look at her and all that glorious wonder surrounding her.
He just wants to bask in the glow of that luxurious field that has such power on the for-ces of darkness. It is such an angelic glow, glittering and yet not giving any heat.
It is simply the most beautiful thing he has seen since becoming an Unblind.
This is the real deal, a most unbelievable, warm sheen with its glittering particles that hurt his eyes. This is a stupendous source of protection which had turned those terrible evil devils into the screaming, yellow-backed freaks they really are!
The woman’s hand is still outstretched.
With his eyes still half shut Boat takes out his wallet and takes out all the Cedi notes in it.
There are some greens, some blues, a lot of purples and a number of browns. Altogether that money is getting a bit close to One Thousand Ghana Cedis.
WOMAN
(concerned)
Are you alright, my son? Is there something wrong with your eyes?
BOAT
(smiling weakly)
I’m fine, Ma’am. Here, take this. Go on, please, take the money.
Boat proffers the money, all of it.
He has never given alms to beggars; it has been a personal policy of his. Beggars made him. He thought them as lazy and leeches, but now he knows differently.
Those cops, that well-dressed young woman, those big shots moving all around town, had all been without this wonderful field, this wonderful protection that cannot be bought.
How many people hadn’t he seen with demons riding in them?
And yet this woman, this beggar, this person he would never have spoken to in a million years … she has turned out to be a chosen one, a selected few worthy of divine protection!
The woman’s eyes bulge as she stares at the green notes, her mouth dropping open.
For a moment her eyes are all watery and soft. She reaches out with trembling fingers and takes the money, tucking them firmly into the top of her dress.
WOMAN
(tremulously)
God bless you, son. God bless you abundantly.
BOAT
(sadly)
I’ll be damn glad if that God of yours will simply take His damn Second Sight gift away from me!
WOMAN
(frowning slightly)
What did you say, son?
BOAT
(shaking his head)
Nothing, lady. Go on now.
She thanks him again and begins to walk away very fast.
Yaw Boat sits in the car long after she is gone.
He is still shaken by what he had seen, and has no urge to move. He craves so much for the presence of his father.
His father is a divine son of God who will be able to help him out of the terrible horror he finds himself in.
He waits for the stinking creatures to appear again and strut their stuff: take kingly rides on the shoulders of unsuspecting folks, stick their long gummy tongues into the noses of pretty women and co-ckout their haughtiness.
But none appear. Evidently they have been scared witless by the amazing field around that poor widow.
BOAT
(whispering)
You f*¢king, ugly, stinking, cowardly bastards!
Yaw Boat thinks of that wonderful protective field around that poor widow again.
Why did that woman have it?
He has seen thousands of people in town since he got the ugly ability to see into the spriritual realm, and none of them has had that explosive protective power.
So why the widow?
Why was she singled out?
Why is she special?
Is it because she is one of the ‘chosen few’ his Dad keeps talking about? One of the few people on that ‘narrow road’ cliche of the Christians?
And if she has protection from these nefarious and vindictive beings, that means these hellish brutes are dangerous, and can indeed cause some kind of harm to innocent people just like Anderson had said.
Yaw Boat takes a shuddering breath.
That woman. A poor widow.
Just a day ago he would have had nothing but total contempt for her. He surely wouldn’t have tossed her any coin, and would have barked at her to take a hike.
Instead he had emptied his pockets for her.
Why?
The answer is simple: he had felt grateful to her.
She, with her for-ce-field, had made Hideous leave Boat’s body. She has a divine protection no money can buy.
Those ugly demons can get into his body, grab his ankles, shoot tentacles at his face, and treated him without respect even though he is a millionaire’s son and has money to buy any physical protection he wants.
And yet these same demons had fled from a poor, helpless widow!
At that moment Yaw Boat knows that he has sli-pped down another step on the High and Mighty ladder he has been climbing.
Yes, it is ha-rd believing that the mighty and wonderful Yaw Boat has reached a point where he is suddenly beginning to believe that there indeed is another world, another realm, another dangerous level of existence where good and evil are stretched tautly to their very last ends.
Stop! That’s enough!
Maybe this is what Anderson had hoped would happen to him. Doubts, questions, realizations, answers, surrender!
Boat isn’t ready to surrender.
He wants nothing to do with the rot Anderson had fed me. Who can spend the rest of his life looking into the heart of evil?
No sane man can do it.
The sights of the spiritual world are not meant for human eyes.
He chuckles without knowing the sound is coming out.
He is aware that he is walking a very thin line between madness and sheer madness.
Somehow he has crossed from the land of the sane, and will either end up a slobbering, Gr0-ning vegetable, or a raving lunatic.
His heart is still thudding with trepidation, and his senses recoils from the possibility of seeing such gross fiends again.
Suddenly Monday seems like an eternity away.
He has never nee-ded his father so much as he does at that instant. He wonders how he is going to be able to get throu-ghthe weekend without his father being around to help him.
If he waits that long his br@in will snap. Sure, he can stay put in the house and await his father’s return, but what if the uglies decide to play havoc with him and appeared wherever he is?
The thought of being in a room with four of Hideous floating around, entering him, doing things, is too much for Boat.
There is only one way out.
He has to see Pastor Geoffrey Sam of Christ Redeemed Church, Fairview as-sembly, the one Anderson has mentioned in his letter.
Yaw Boat decides on the spur of the moment to go to Pastor Sam and let him take him to Anderson even if it means beating the hell out of Pastor Sam.
With his mind made up Boat gets back behind the wheel, starts up the car, and pulls off the curb.
Faintly he hears the agitated sounds of sirens. Evidently the cops are not far behind.
TBc…