The Mysterious Mum (2)

Continued from last week Saturday
“DAD, I’m so sorry, mum instructed me to do so yesterday. She begged me to burn everything and insisted it must be a secret between me and her,” Damola explained.

“Why? What is the reason?” he asked, “This is a big loss! I’ll show her the venom of my spleen when I get home today. Damola, you betrayed me! So, that is the reason you didn’t tell me when you left for farm this early morning?”

“Please, forgive me dad…” Damola replied, “it still remains a mystery to me why mum ordered me to burn this year’s yam harvest.” Just then they noticed something stirring among the pile of yams.

“What’s moving among the pile of yams we have there?” his dad asked.

“I don’t know, dad. When the fire goes down a little I’ll take a closer look,” he said curiously. When the fire finally subsided Damola and his dad moved towards the ashes of the yams and raked through them. What they discovered under the ashes filled them with fear and shock as they trembled!

“Almighty God!” Mr. Tewogbade exclaimed, “A python! The most dangerous, and largest snake! Damola, what’s happening here? How did it get among these yams? You’re the luckiest person alive, my son!”

“Dad, this is the greatest surprise of my life! Only God saved me! I never knew such a big snake was among the yams when I began to burn them!” Damola was lost for words. Father and son were dumbfounded and trembled at the sheer size of the dead python, which could swallow a human being and kill him or her in a matter of seconds.

“Damola be quick, let’s go home, we have to tell your mum this shocking news!” Mr. Tewogbade said.

“Dad, if not for the fact that I burnt the whole harvest, this big snake would have swallowed me alive! Oh, Almighty God, I thank you!” Damola wondered. He was more than shocked and stunned at the strange development. They both couldn’t believe their eyes as they hurried home.

About 40 minutes later, Mr. Tewogbade and his son were back home. When they entered Mama Damola’s room, they met another shocker!

“Mum, mum,” Damola called, “I have done what you instructed me to do.”

“Mama Damola,” her husband called again, but the woman neither answered her son nor her husband. She was lying on her bed, and didn’t stir at all.

“Mum,” Damola called again, touching her in the process.

“What’s wrong with her, Damola?” his father asked.

The woman was dead-completely lifeless! Her body was cold and stiff.

“Oh, my God…help me! Mummy! Mummy!! Mummy!!!” Damola screamed and hugged her dead mum.

“Heh Almighty God! My wife is dead! No….No…nooo…God why?” Mr. Tewogbade was crying at that moment, ditto for Damola, who couldn’t hide his feelings for his dead mum. Damola wondered how death played a fast one on him by not allowing him to reveal to his mum how her instruction had saved him from violent death. He recalled with tears that if he had disobeyed his mum that early morning the large python would have killed him. Mr.Tewogbade was numbed with shock at the development. He shook his head sorrowfully as he consoled his child to take heart. The painful fact was that Mama Damola was the python that got burnt under the pile of yams that early morning.

Through divine power she had changed into a python and sacrificed her life in exchange for her loving son to live. It became more emphatic and convincing to Damola when he had a dream three days later after the burial of his mum. He saw her in his dream telling him that she had to put down her life for the sake of her dear son (Damola) whose heart was demanded by members of the cult of vampires.

“Don’t grieve too much for me,” Mama Damola said to her son in the dream, “I know how you feel…but I had to take this painful decision…I can’t bear to see you die while I am still alive. And moreover I have given my life to the worship of Almighty God…my soul is with the Creator not with the devil…I have repented of my sins and become a convert of the Holy Spirit…take heart, my dear son… the Holy Spirit will henceforth be your guide and guard you in all endeavours…Be good to your fellow human beings and love one another… it is love that makes the world go round…God is love…do His will and commandments and He will never leave you or let you suffer…”

Damola woke up after the revelation that early morning and told his dad in details what had transpired in his dream. He narrated the experience completely without mincing words.

“Damola,” Mr. Tewogbade called, “I know your mum loves you dearly, that was why she paid the supreme price to see you live…I’ll miss her forever, but God knows best why it happened that way…she was a great woman…” he concluded.

There are mysterious and stranger than fiction events in life. One must be very careful not to get involved or enmeshed in secret cult activities as these might result in bad and untoward happenings in one’s life. Again, carefulness should be one’s watchword in life. May the Almighty God help us.

• Concluded