Burn Again

Episode 1

.I wouldn’t say I felt so comfortable
there but I just knew it wouldn’t
be so right to get off my seat and
walk off the ground. If I had
known, I wouldn’t have accepted
the invite in the first place. It was
Christopher’s insistence that had
made me even consider it at all. I
was aware of how he loved
carnivals, festivals and feasts and
that must have made him think
this was one of such, considering
that the flyers we had got as the
invite, had pictures of some
musical instruments. It now has
presented itself as a full-blown
open-air church crusade meaning
the Praise Fiesta the flyer had
talked about was just a mere
decoy and I solely blamed
Christopher’s illiteracy for such a
misconception. I would have
known what the invite was if I had
read the flyer but I have never had
time for such cheap campaigns,
anyway.

We had spent over two hours
waiting for anything of interest to
begin but all we kept seeing were
series and series of prayer and
worship sessions. I was somewhere
at the heart of the ground and
Christopher was standing right
beside me; obviously devoid of
anything happening. His inability
to understand English even when
spoken in the slowest of ways
seriously hampered his
communication and listening
capabilities. Even at the streets
where we traded our wares, I had
ended up being the actual person
who did everything for him once it
involved writing or reading.

Sometimes I wondered what would
have been if we were not friends.
He surely would have lost a lot of
money as a result. However, we
were now at the event he had so
much talked about in the past
week and he was yet to get a clue
of what was happening simply
because everybody spoke English.
I was equally lost on my own end.

But not for the same reasons. My
problem was, what the heck was I
doing there in the first instance?
“Praise the Lord?!”, finally came a
loud feminine voice on all four
speakers mounted at various ends
of the ground. The observing
congregation returned their own
end of the chorus, “Hallelujah!”.
The lady repeated it all again and
the watching crowd alongside my
own Christopher returned the
gesture with even higher
intensity.

“Amen?”, she persisted.
“Amen!!”.
“I will want us to thank the Lord
for this hour! He has made it
possible for us to gather here”,
she appeared so focused while she
talked. She was putting on a
flowing blue gown that spelt
conservatism all over. She also
had a scarf tied over her head as
she kept strolling the full length of
the stage that had been set up at
the far corner as she spoke.
“Not again”, I heard myself say.
“Not another prayer. Thought all
those earlier ones were enough?”.
However, the crowd never seemed
to share this view with me because
even before she could give them a
clue of what to pray for, everybody
was already rolling themselves
into cooper coils with prayers! I
was just stunned and all I could do
was flash my widely open eyes all
over the place; savoring the
seeming comedy playing out
before me. Christopher seemed to
be into their world as well, but I
sure could bet my right testicles
that he had not even the slightest
clue of what he was praying about!
He was apparently acting out, for
sure.

When everybody seemed to have
gotten tired of what had become a
successful exchange of smelly
human saliva; the growling
gradually died down. The leading
lady got the initiative at once and
began speaking into the mic
again.

“Now I will want to invite my
mother, the Assistant General
Overseer of our church; His
Resurrection Power Assembly;
Pastor Mrs. Elizabeth Rowlands to
come and round up this prayer”,
the crowd were already clapping
themselves to ache by the time
she had finished the call up. Then
a well-dressed woman who looked
obviously like a mother to the
earlier girl; judging from the looks
and her age (she should be forty-
five or so); stepped out from one
end of the stage that was being
occupied by a seated group of
young and elderly men and
women; they looked like they were
also pastors. The woman looked
well reserved and I could easily see
that she had a very firm and
robust body. She was not exactly
tall but was far from being called
short and as she walked to meet
her daughter, her wide hips
played with the shimmering fabric
of the long light gray gown she
wore. Her B—m looked rather
large for her body and I was
tempted to think it was enhanced
by a brassiere. She was beautiful
and even though I was only
seeing her left side as she made
for the mic, I was generously
rewarded with a right guess when
I did see her face. She was not
very fair in complexion but her
ebony brown mix, suited the cut of
her face and the colour of her hair
which was slightly exposed. She
had high cheeks that seamlessly
disappeared into her jaw line as
they traveled down her face. I had
no doubt she was my kind of
woman.

“The Lord is good”, she began in a
very endearing voice when she
picked up the mic. She broke what
seemed to have been a very long
silence. Everybody there appeared
to have been totally stunned by
her flawless shape, just like
myself. She was facing us now and
we could see how her hips defined
her hour-glass feminine frame.
“All the time”, followed a dreamy
congregation.

“I will like us to sing this song first
before we pray.” She was doing
well to engage the entire eyes of
the watching crowd. She then
started a popular Yoruba song
which easily got the crowd
rampant! Everyone was on top of
his or her voice in an effort to
display how well he or she knew
the lyrics of the song. The
drummer at one end of the ground
was equally in a rouse as he
frantically drummed away with
absolute abandon! The whole air
was filled with chorused yells and
the feeling was undeniably
electrifying. However, despite all
these, I subtly felt I had been lost
somehow. My interest was no
longer with the crowd. I was just
not with the happenings around
me anymore. I felt I had been cut
off by something somewhere, and
my mind raced in a an effort to
figure out what it was.

Subsequently, when I did find out
what it was, I was a bit staggered
by the outcome! I realized I still
had my mind set lustfully on the
Pastor woman! And she was the
center of my concentration at that
moment. I just could not explain
how I could still be doing that. She
was a pastor. And from the way
she was addressed, it appeared
she was either a wife to the owner/
founder of the church hosting the
crusade. Or at least, a relative. I
just could not understand how my
head ever thought I would even
get any close to her let alone have
anything to do with her but
despite all these seeming
difficulty, I only found myself
haplessly starring at her without
end. And as I did, various fantasies
kept pumping into my head. I felt
so daft! Her body was even
appearing more attractive now; to
me anyway, since I was quite
aware no other person in the
ground was seeing her in the same
light as myself as they all must be
some kind of saints or something;
Christopher exempted, though. I
could not just take my eyes away
from her; not at that point. Her
wide hips looked more elaborate in
the glimmer of flood lights
directed towards her. She was
very beautiful, leaving me
thoroughly worried why people
like her were not just available to
us to F**K our brains and d!cks off
to the fullest!! It was a pity I would
not just be able to achieve more
than the little fantasy I was having
at that point; or so I thought. Not
too longer after, we all got into
another round of prayers.