How a witch shaved my neighbor's hair as a child pt. 2

How a witch shaved my neighbor’s hair as a child pt. 2

When the door opened, instead of the man, I saw a black cat run out of the house. I pushed the door in and peeped. He walked back to a wooden bench.

I took a quick glimpse at the interior of the room and was shocked. There were no chairs, no TV. The floor was not cemented, and the walls of the house were not even plastered. At one end of the parlor was a rope strapped to both ends of the wall where the man dried his clothes. A small dirty and worn-out bed was placed at a corner of the wall. A coal pot, and three plates at the other end. Then a bottle of whiskey which he placed on the bench beside him.

“Good afternoon sir.” I greeted.

He sat down on his chair and smiled.

“If I wanted you to stand outside I would ask you to. Come inside. Don’t be scared. I don’t bite.”

I nodded my head and walked in.

My hands folded behind my back as I wondered why a man in his fifties would be living in such a place.

“You are the first person to come see me this year.”

“First?”

“O yes. I stay alone with my cat. Blacky. No one comes and I don’t let anyone into my place. Of cause, you know why already.”

He poured the hot drink into his glass and sipped. Then he cleared his throat like one who had successfully pushed down something hindering his speech.

“How can I help you?”

“I came to see you, sir.”

He picked up his hot drink, dropped it on the floor, and tapped on the empty spot.

“Sit.”

I walked to the bench and sat.

“What is it. Hope all is fine?”

I shook my head.

And began to tell him about my dream. I told him the two different dreams I had about him. How I saw him begging in tattered clothing, and how a woman appeared and shaved his hair. And how I saw him as a child with an adult face and how he was being carried by the same old woman.

Then I asked.

“Do you know this old woman, sir?”

He nodded his head and sipped his drink again.

“I do. You are not the first to tell me about her. She is late. She came to my mother as a stranger when I was still a baby and touched my hair. She said she liked it and would pay anything to have my hair shaved and given to her. Poverty forced my mother to consider it. After all, it was just my hair and another will grow back. She shaved it and was paid 10kobo as of then. It was only later my mother realized, that what she had done was not suppose to have been done. Ever since then life has been hard for me. I was dull in class, nothing worked for me. At the age of 15, I began to cover my hair when I was told by my dying mother what had happened.”

He took off his cap and I saw his hair for te first time. White and coiled. Even as one who is in his early fifties.

“You are not wrong. That woman took the very first hair that grew on my head. It was my glory. My shine. My star. But there is nothing I can do.”

He sipped the hot drink again and gurgled it in his mouth before swallowing.

Then he continued.

“I see her once every year in my dreams holding my hair in her hands. But before I collect it, a power I do not know wakes me up. It is being said, that the day I succeed in collecting the hair myself, then my lost glory will be restored. She appeared to me this year and I lost it. I am looking forward to next year.”

I snapped my fingers thrice.

Shocked.

Women should be careful about their children. At the Vulnerable time of their life, when they are pure, innocent and without stain is when the devil comes for them. Not to play with them, but to steal their glory. If you make the mistake and let the devil win, you leave you child in eternal torments and suffering for the rest of his life. One that only a higher power can repair.