Global Enemy In My Backyard

All heads at the dining table turned to the doorway as the man of the house stumbled in.

The man of the house was thirty munites late to the breakfast table, and it was unlike him. He never took kindly to anyone coming late for meals, and he never took kindly to anyone touching anything edible before every member of the family was present.

"You won't believe what happened last night - this morning, in fact," started Pastor Jacob Gumede as he dragged back his chair... and missed it.

Jacob cursed loudly as he gathered himself from the carpeted floor. All five heads were staring down at him; all persons present trying to make sense of what was amiss with the pastor. Everything that the man had done so far this particular morning was unlike him.

"Jacks, what's the matter with you today?" asked Lloyd, the pastor's younger brother.

"I'm a bit shaken, as you see. I had a vision last night. A vision that no one since Moses himself has..."

"Aah, not again," snorted Lloyd as he threw his hands in the air. "Can somebody say grace, some of us are starving!"

Lloyd was the only person in the house who could speak his mind with no regard to the highly feared Gumede. He was also the outcast of the family; the only one in the highly religious household who drank like a mackerel and smoked like a crematorium.

"I saw Satan with my own eyes," continued Gumede, ignoring his brother.

Eyes widened. Throats were cleared. Lips were bitten and wiped to conceal amusement. Lloyd roared in laughter.

"I can see the disbelief in you, all, but I saw the devil, was touched by the devil...shut up, Lloyd! None of this is funny. As I was saying, the devil even spoke to me. She said..."

"She?" Asked Gloria, the sister to Pastor Gumede.

"It came in form of a woman. She said..."

Lloyd interrupted by loudly standing up.

"I can't put up with your nonsense anymore, Jacks," he said, "I have monitored your every movement since you came in here. You are clearly hung over and..."

"You know very well I don't drink!" Exploded Gumede. "God bless you for even insinuating that!"

"And He bless you for making me quit my food before I even touched it," scoffed the younger brother. "Pass my regards to Lady Lucifer, I'm out. And God help you if you feed your rubbish to my kids."

Lloyd strolled out of the doorway, whistling Amazing Grace on the way. His two sons looked at his back with a daddy-please-take-us stare. When he disappeared, the four remaining pairs of eyes turned to Gumede.

Gloria said: "Brother, you were still saying..."

"I know very well what I was saying," growled Gumede. "The Devil was standing in front of my closet, admiring my suits. I have to burn them all!"

He went on, "May God forgive me for saying this, but she was an exceptionally attractive woman. She told me that in two days one of us in this family is going to die."

The silence that followed was spooky. Each person at the table looked down and swallowed saliva at the impact of the words, save for Gumede's daughter who barely suppressed a giggle.

"Maria!" Exploded the pastor, "What is amusing you? Is death a topic of comedy to you?"

"N- no," replied the terrified girl.

He raised his voice: "Have I spared the rod on you for too long?"

"Not at all, brother," interjected Gloria. "We need to pray and chase away this contemptible spirit"

"I know," replied the pastor gruffly. "It is quite refreshing to hear a brilliant idea coming from you, sister. In addition to praying, we are all fasting beginning now. Take all these plates away."

"Oh, no!" The children protested at once, and stopped themselves too late.

The clergyman looked up. "Did I ask for anyone's opinion?"

                                        **********

When Lloyd came from work in the evening, fasting was aborted. Not that there was any fasting among the children, because they had secretly munched on the forgotten breakfast. He boldly instructed the children to cook as he proceeded upstairs to confront Jacob.

"You know what, brother?" He started, sitting at the edge of the table. "You are so full of shit."

"Hey, Lloyd!" Shouted the Pastor. "You don't speak like that to the man of..."

"And you don't starve my children the whole day because of your hallucinations, Pastor!"

"Look, if you and your children find Christian life too hard, the door is open."

"Keep dreaming, Jacob. That house is my father's and I'm not going anywhere."

"Then learn to respect my..."

They were interrupted by the sudden burst of the door as Lloyd's twelve-year old son charged into the room.

"Boyd!" The father snarled. "Don't you know how to knock any..."

"It's Aunt Gloria!" shouted the boy urgently. "She saw the woman Satan!"

They found Gloria trembling on the sofa and mumbling a series of inaudible syllables.

"I saw the woman in my bedroom," said Gloria when the men started demanding answers. "She said she is the mighty Lady Lucifer."

"Lady Lucifer?" chuckled Lloyd. "What are you people smoking?"

"The only smoker here," retorted the elder Gumede, "is he who finds amusement in the works of the cursed spirit."

Lloyd laughed.

"At least I smoke a certified brand of tobacco," he said.

Jacob ignored him and asked, "Gloria, what did the cursed Deceiver tell you?"

Gloria hesitated.

"Say it, child of God, say it!"

She fixed her eyes on Jacob as she replied: "I know it's all a lie by Diablo who wants to divide us as a family, but the woman said she instructed you to cast an evil spell on me and... and you did it."

"What are you attempting to mean by that?" Jacob demanded. "A spell? Me? On you? You don't believe that, do you?"

"

Maybe it's true," pressed Lloyd, knowing his statement was going to set his brother ablaze.

"God bless you!" Shouted  Pastor Gumede.

"Thank you. Sister, what did your she-devil tell you about the specifics of this so-called spell?"

"She said Jacob has got my blood sample under his bed and... and that he made a wish that I should never find a man, and that he wants you dead, Lloyd."

"Bingo!" Exclaimed Lloyd sarcastically. "I knew it!"

Jacob was incensed. "Rubbish! Is that what you people think of me? Wizadry? Your own brother?"

"Then we better take a look under your bed, brother Jacks," challenged Lloyd.

"That's unnecessary! I have nothing under my..."

"Then what do you have to hide?"

"Fine! Let's go! Doubters, Thomases, you shall have no share in God's kingdom!"

When the three siblings got in Jacob's room, Lloyd heaved the nearside of the bed until the top side stood flat against the wall, revealing a debris of underpants, coins and tattered socks.

"That bottle!" Exclaimed Gloria. "She said it's all in that bottle!"

She was pointing at a 100 millilitre Vaseline container which was smeared with engine oil on its outer side.

"Whose bottle is that?" Demanded Pastor Jacob Gumede, his eyes wide and reddening like chillies.

"You tell us, brother Jacks," replied Lloyd sourly.

"I have never seen that thing!"

Lloyd opened the bottle and pulled a pitch-black bird's feather and a face photograph of Gloria. On the photo's blank side was a dark smudge of what appeared to be dry blood.

Suddenly, slaps rained on Jacob as Gloria got in a trance and was only stopped by the bemused Lloyd.

"I knew it!" cried Gloria. "Four failed marriages and I knew someone was playing the Black Magic game on me, but you? You, a brother I have tried to respect for so many years? You disgust me!"

He last words came out weaker until she tumbled down and lay unconscious.

"This accusation is extremely preposterous," insisted Jacob with an unusually low voice.

"If you say so, Pistorius," replied Lloyd distantly.

He was on his knees, trying to revive his unconscious sister.

When Gloria finally returned to the world of the conscious, Lloyd escorted her to the sitting room, instructed Maria to keep her company and then returned to Jacob's room. The pastor was sitting like an inanimate object on the edge of the bed.

"This matter can be easily clarified," Lloyd said to his brother. "Either Diablo is in town, which means he or she or whatever, has rightly implicated you..."

"Preposterous!"

"...or there is no Devil at all, dear brother; someone is just messing with your heads. Now which is which, Pastor?"

"The Devil was here, I saw the woman with these two eyes! As for that bottle with Gloria's mugshot, I'm sure there is a logical explanation to it."

Lloyd diaplayed his frontline in a mirthless grin.

"You only seek logical explanations when they suit you, Jacks, dont you?"

There was an urgent knock on the door and before anone could respond, Boyd once again bulldozed his way into the room.

"Daddy! Come and see what Larry is doing!"

Larry was Lloyd's younger son.

Without a word, Lloyd dashed after the boy and stopped dead at the foot of the stairs, perplexed by what he saw.

Little Larry was standing on the coffee table in the middle of the sitting room, wielding an extra-large kitchen knife.

"You don't scare me at all!" The boy was screaming. "Get off my face, you ugly hag!"

"Larry!" Shouted Lloyd as he crept up and closed in on the boy. "Who are you talking to? 

Put down that knife before you hurt yourself!"

The nine-year old boy ignored him and jumped off the coffee table, stabbing the air and kicking at nothing. Gloria and Maria scurried for cover behind the sofas. Lloyd shoved the stationary Boyd out of the way and carefully pinned back Larry's arms. Within a minute, he had taken the knife and settled the boy on a sofa. Larry was now in an awful fit of sobs.

Lloyd asked: "What did you see, boy?"

Larry just kept on crying.

"Did you see a woman?"

The boy nodded.

"What did she look like?"

No answer.

Lloyd heaved himself up and went upstairs again, brushing past his brother along the way. He returned with the Vaseline bottle.

"I've seen enough of this shit," he said. "I'm going to the police."

"Do that, brother," agreed Jacob. "We need answers to this nonsense, especially the part about me bewitching my own..."

"I thought so," snorted Lloyd as he headed for the exit.

"Uncle, wait!"

All eyes turned to the speaker, who turned out to be Maria.

She stumbled around the sofa and continued. "Please don't go to the police."

"Why the hell not?" Lloyd demanded, annoyed at the waste of his time.

The teenage girl dropped her eyes and stuttered something inaudible.

"If you have nothing to say," snarled Lloyd, "then don't waste my..."

"It was... it was me," stammered Maria.

"What are you trying to mean?"

"The orange juice in the fridge... I put crystal Nyaope in it."

Lloyd instantly understood. The Nyaope was a street drug commonly imported from South Africa. Brewed by Chemistry graduates with no jobs to waste their skills on, the latest versions of the drug were refined and into a highly soluble pack of grains. They were even so tasteless that one would not notice the difference in any foodstuff or beverage. The most notorious effect of this drug was hallucination.

Lloyd tried to be angry, but amusement got the better of him.

"There goes my niece again," he said in a smile.

"Maria!" Shouted her father, the Pastor. "God forgive me, but I'm going to kill you!"

"Shut up, Jacks," interjected Lloyd. "Maria, if this was just a drug, so why is everyone seeing the same woman who claims to be the devil?"

"I... recorded the voice-over on my phone. At first I set it as an alarm tone and hid it under Dad's bed, and then when I saw Aunt Gloria drinking the juice, I put the phone under the cushion beside her. I did the same with Larry. The voice aids the hallucination if you are drugged."

"But why?"

"Well, it was just my way of saying Happy Fools Day."

"Fools!" Exploded Jacob as he lunged at Maria. No one attempted to stop him. "When I'm finished with you, little girl, we will see who the bigger fool is!"

The Pastor grabbed the screaming Maria by the arm and dragged her upstairs.

"I'm too shocked to care about what you do to your daughter," Lloyd said after them, "but your mafiozi disciplinarian methods have created that cunning little girl. I hate to say I told you so!"

He turned to Gloria and his two sons.

"Can somebody get rid of that orange juice before somebody decides to forget whats in it? Oh, happy Fools Day indeed!"

As Lloyd finally strolled up the stairs to save a teenage girl from the wrath of a leather belt, laughter engulfed him.