WHAT THE NANNY GOAT TOLD HER KIDS (CHAPTER 5) - B

 

For treatment, orthodox and unorthodox means were suggested but with the torment deep inside him, Mr Ransom asked those around to quickly drag close his wife’s bag of bitter kola and he grabbed a handful and ate, even without peeling them, like sweets. While people were still contemplating how to reach the nearest chemist’s attendant whose doors were locked at that time of the day and people had suggested he could have gone to the big town to buy more drugs,  Perempe was deep in his farm working and could not be reached with the phone, the numbness started receding from his ears and Mr Ransom could feel them again.

Mr Ransom did forget about the medicine shop but religiously kept chewing the bitter kola seeds. As the hours went by, the numbness in his body was reducing.

Perempe who had returned from his farm sodden, cold and weary that night could only visit Mr Ransom the next day. But he had called his line late in the night as he heard about the sad incident from his children and kept urging his good friend to keep chewing the bitter kola seeds.

Mr Ransom who was his jovial self again had lavishly praised the little seeds they casually chewed like a snack and the punch they packed that crushed the venom of a scorpion. He said the only feeling he still had of the sting was the pain (which had greatly reduced) on the spot he was stung. From that day, Mr Ransom started believing in the efficacy and veracity of Perempe’s herbal recommendations.

So when Perempe had threatened he would pick up what he had for long disregarded, Mr Ransom had said every nice thing he could think of to dissuade his friend from committing any evil deed against anyone.

‘Don’t forget you always tell me, there’s a reward for every deed, good or bad, that we take,’ the cassava flour union leader had reminded his friend.

‘Yes o, but that is the reward I want to give her. She has done a bad thing and I want to pay her back immediately,’ Perempe had said to justify his intended action.

Mr Ransom had laughed at his friend and reminded him again of his words: ‘I hope you have not forgotten so quickly that you also say that for anyone who knows evil in a higher form and commits it and would not wait for a course of action to naturally run itself out, there’s the nemesis that would visit such an individual. Are you not again of the opinion we should not act God or usurp the work of the police and the courts?’

Perempe had shaken his head and said to his friend: ‘Look, if anyone bites my nose and sees no mucus, don’t expect me to bite their …’

‘I know you’re angry,’ Mr Ransom butted in before his friend could mention the dirtiest part of the body which to most people would sound like a taboo word. ‘Hand over this case to me. If the result isn’t as good as you would want; then, pursue it as you like.’

Well, the truth was that any harm to Madam Cash meant they were all losing their money and that did not sound palatable to Mr Ransom’s ears.

During the Christmas-cum-New Year period she came to buy the cassava flour, there were few buyers around and he had milled sacks and sacks of cassava as he had planned to invest the money heavily in the New Year in clearing and planting bigger plots of land. Perempe said she owed him for twelve sacks. Mr Ransom was owed for fifty sacks of cassava flour.