The Second Sight – Episode 27

THE SECOND SIGHT EPISODE 27

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THE FURY WITHIN

Location: THE CHAMBER

The fact that his father is suffering so much within that monstrous body is more than Boat can bear.

Suddenly real terror begins to assail him.

He tries to hold on to his anger, but it is dissipating fast. He tries to concentrate on that beast, forcing himself to forget his father’s torture.

But he simply can’t function. He keeps seeing his father’s agonized face, and it drives his terror upward.

The Thing smells Boat’s fear and indecision. Its look is sly now, the beginning of a gloat forming.

Boat is gripped in the throes of fear of the unknown, caused by the unbreakable bond between parent and child, that age-old love that comes first above all, and his terror of causing more pain to that man within that monstrous thing.

The monster suddenly goes into a rage. It alternates between showing Boat that tortured face of his and its own demonic face. Each time JOe Boat’s face emerges Boat feels that pull at his heart, and suddenly he begins to move backward, shaking his head unconsciously, the shattering agony tearing at his heart.

BOAT

(moaning)

Stop it, oh please stop it!

But he knows the monster will not stop, not now that it has Boat reeling on the ropes. It is close to throwing its sucker punch, and Boat is too weak to counter.

JOE BOAT MONSTER

(mockingly)

PUNY EARTHLING! WEAK EARTHLING! THOU ART BUT ZERO! THOU ART FILTH! THOU ART NOTHING! THOU CANST STOP ME!!

Its voice is now spilling with cruelty.

It is more than Boat can bear.

He raises his my right hand and points a badly trembling forefinger towards the beast.

BOAT

(screaming)

I command you, vile spirits, come out of him now! Come out now! I command you!!

The Legion lets out a loud laugh of pure mirth, the sound of celebration, the derisive claim of superiority, the taunting laugh of a winner.

It is the victorious chant of the monster, just that this time it is not a single voice, but a thousand evil voices! They are all laughing, the tintinnabulation of their laughter almost driving Boat deaf.

He clamps both hands over his ears, bending almost double as the derisive laughter hits the walls and echoes over and into his head.

Boat is in agony.

Why?

What has happened?

What didn’t happen?

Why doesn’t that thing leave his father’s body as he had commanded? Has Anderson lied? Had his prayer not been incomplete?

Hadn’t Anderson said, or written, that he will have powers that goes with the Second Sight, powers of an Unblind when he chooses God?

That damn demon had taken a look at Boat and had been scared witless!

Boat is still glowing!

He has felt the power in him. To all intents and purposes he should have been able to send that little dung to hell and back.

So why the hell hasn’t it worked?

What in the name of great aces is happening here?

But doesn’t have time to enjoy his whimpering.

The monster rushes at him, and for a wild moment its claws come up, ready to tear into Boat, but Boat’s force-field shines so terribly that the monster lifts itself off the floor with a shriek of fear!

JOE BOAT MONSTER

(screaming)

YE LOST, PUNY EARTHLING! LET THY FATHER’S BODY BE THY NECK STONE TILL ETERNITY! THOU HAST KILLETH THY OWN FATHER, EARTHLING!!

The monster is travelling upwards at great speed, and as Yaw Boat stares at it he knows what is going to happen, and his heart screams with sudden agony and horror!

BOAT

(sobbing)

No, no, no! Oh, please no! Please don’t, please don’t…

The looks down briefly at Yaw Boat, an expression of sheer vindictiveness and malice crossing its face.

Yaw Boat is screaming with agony as he realizes that his dear father is going to be murdered right in front of his, and there is nothing he can do to stop it.

He tries to close his eyes, but some terrible force holds them open, forcing him to watch every last detail.

With startling speed the monster shoots headfirst at the concrete roof.

At that speed any impact with the roof will be fatal.

Yaw Boat is screaming stridently, a high=pitched wail that shakes the chamber to its foundations!

At the last second, before impact with the roof, the monster retreats, and it is the real body of Joe Boat that sails at the concrete roof, and it is Joe Boat’s head that crashes into concrete roof with a terrible, sickening impact!

With a triumphant wail thousands of terrible demons leave Joe Boat’s body!

Yaw Boat sees them, thousands of frightening forms, separated for a moment, then coming together rapidly to form that huge horned beast. It moves across the roof quickly, almost in total anxiety, and shoots with frightening speeds towards the darkest shadows of the room.

Its derisive victory cry comes from the dark recesses of the room.

JOE BOAT MONSTER

(derisively)

SEE THEE AROUND, EARTHLING!

It is a deep, rumbling, ominous laugh!

THE FURY WITHIN

The impact is terrible, and although Boat sees the sudden shower of red that smears the roof at the point of impact.

It is all over!

Nobody can survive that collision!

Joe Boat’s body falls from the roof – limp, heavy, without control.

Yaw Boat is still screaming.

He rushes forward on rubber legs and catches his father before his body can crash to the floor.

His father is a huge man, and we both of them crash to the floor.

But Yaw Boat doesn’t let him go.

He holds held him tight even as the agony tears his heart apart.

He cradles his father in his arms.

There is blood all over his face and hair, and although Boat wipes it away frantically his father just wouldn’t stop bleeding.

The top of his head is a pulpy mess, and Yaw Boat can see some skull bones sticking out and brain tissues oozing out slowly.

He has obviously died without much pain; his neck has been broken on impact, but Boat takes no consolation from that in his grief.

He holds his father tightly against his bosom, burying his face in his father’s face.

In that terrible chamber Yaw Boat bawls like a baby and screams out his agony!

His tears are like rains of fire that scorch his face.

The pain is an unbearable band across his chest that cuts into him.

Phlegm pours out of Yaw Boat’s mouth, and snot falls from his nostrils as he wails his agony.

Still screaming, he raises his head and sees the red splotch on the ceiling, and in that instant his agony is total.

His teeth gnashes, grinding together so badly that his gums hurt.

And through that pain, through that agony, his chest fills up with a fury so deep that it feels like someone has inflated his anger-veins to balloon proportions.

He can feel his father’s blood on his face, in the gown he is wearing… everywhere.

Joe Boat is looking peaceful, and a little smile even plays around his lips.

Boat is convinced that somehow Joe Boat has known that he has triumphed; his sacrifice has saved his beloved son, and he has spared his son the turmoil of the hell he had gone through.

Boat has lost his father.

His happiness is gone.

These demons called the Legion…

They have taken his mother… and now they have taken his father!

Everything is gone…

Only one thing remains:

The fury…

The fury within…

The fury within the heart of Yaw Boat!

Boat gazes up at that red splotch on the ceiling.

His voice is a grating, gnashing, terrible furious outrage as he screams at the ceiling.

BOAT

(weeping bitterly)

You demons, all of you, EVERY SINGLE mother****** ONE OF YOU, are you listening to me? Legion, are you hearing me? Go on and run! Flee to the heavens, into the air, within the sea, under the earth!! Wherever you go, I will find you, and I will make you pay!!

_________________

AFTER THE STORM

My name is Yaw Boat.

If you’re reading this, it means you’ve probably heard about the ordeal I went through when my life came crashing around me one Friday night when I met the man in black.

It means you remember the nightmare I had for a whole week, and you remember that strange night when I made love to a woman in the dark without knowing who she was.

It means you remember the white crows and the ordeal they took me through.

It also means you remember people like Elaine Blankson, Samson Basoah, Bob Sarpong, Pastor Paul Anderson, Pastor Geoffrey Sam, Henri Didier, Zeke and Frank Styles, all of whom played vital roles in my life.

Then of course you remember Joe Boat, my loving father who sacrificed himself to save me from the most horrible future the mind could imagine.

If you remember that horrible chamber where I finally came to accept Christ, gained my own force-field, and watched my dear father die in my arms, then I’m pretty sure you must be craving to know how it all ended and, of course, whether I ended up being an Unblind, and what happened to me.

Well, I am going to tell you all about that.

It is my hope, and my fervent prayer, of course, that you will stay with me, and at the end of it all maybe, hopefully, you will learn a thing or two about life as we live it, and be better enlightened, and more strengthened, to as you continue to live on earth.

The insanity ended with the death of my father.

Two months after his burial I still wallowed in total grief.

It gripped me and just wouldn’t let me go. Watching him go like that touched something deep within me, a nerve-ending I never thought existed, and for weeks I lived in a haze, not knowing when night dawned and day began.

I called Miss Bondzie shortly after I had carried my father’s inert form to his bedroom.

He was quite a man, tall and absolutely heavy.

And so I had to tie clothes on him and fashion out a makeshift hammock with protective covers around him that I could drag.

It was not an easy task, but in my fury and deep mourning that night, I did it without getting tired, or caught because, as it turned out, Samson Basoah sent the security guards away the previous night.

I carefully arranged him on his bed.

It was around five in the morning by the time I finished.

Miss Bondzie had arrived in a wind of agitated misery and called some of Golgotha Height’s senior pastors.

I had left them then and retired to my room.

I had been restless the rest of the day, barely noticing the hours, caught in a suspended kind of craziness. It was when night dawned, and I heard the deep muted tones of the great grandfather clock chiming in the main living room that I remembered how my old man had lived with that clock for almost a decade.

A terrible cold had gripped me, and something tight had seized my chest. The tears that poured out were frenzied and violent. I clutched myself in one corner of the room and wept silently but powerfully. It was as if a kind of pain center had been turned on in my bosom, and there was no way of turning it off.

I grieved from there…for a lot of weeks.

I was aware of meeting a lot of people, but I really didn’t care about what we discussed. Time, to me, at that time, didn’t exist. It was a life of hollowed existence, a life without awareness…only prolonged grief.

It was much later, probably after the funeral, that I learnt that the story that had gone out was that my old man had died quietly in his sleep. Obviously, the good Lord had called him to glory.

I didn’t know how they did it.

With his shattered skull and the great influence he wielded in the world the cops should have swooped down on our house like crazy dogs on the trail of a b***h in heat.

I had told them the truth, in that hour of grief and disorientation, exactly what had happened to my father. The senior pastors had been distraught and queried me in harsh tones. I had flared at them, screamed at them actually, and they had backed off.

Later, when I was lying in a stupor of mental and emotional anguish, they had come back and begged me not to divulge what I said to anybody else. Obviously, the death of my father and circumstances surrounding it couldn’t be told to the world.

Any form of death, apart from a tranquil one (he passed away peacefully in his sleep with a great smile on his lips), would disrupt the firm foundations of the church; any implication towards the abnormal or violent nature of his death would cause a lot of fragile hopes and faiths to crumble.

I let them play their mind games. In truth, I was a little grateful for it. In the end my old man and I had found each other, and I wanted – needed – the world to remember him as a great crusader for a cause he believed in, even if his life had been nothing but a sham.

The funeral was huge. Dignitaries from across the globe showed up to pay their last respects to a man considered one of the greatest of the century, a man who had lived up to his calling and changed a piece of the world.

So we gave him a king’s burial – I threw the first shovelful of dust over that coffin – and the world mourned the passing of a man many would consider a saint for a long time.

Much later, the senior pastors came to see me with my father’s attorney.

They were worried, but for selfish reasons, of course.

My father had willed everything he owned to me. As it stood, Golgotha Heights and all its holdings belonged to me.

I was a multi-millionaire at the age of twenty-five.

Leo Brand, the balding old attorney, showed me documents and rights which my old man had bestowed entirely on me.

Joe Boat had invested widely and diversified his riches in a way that only the greatest business minds could have put together.

Simply put, I simply one of the really wealthy young men in the world.

My first inclination was to have nothing to do with it all, to let it all go.

But after second thoughts I hesitated.

Money, a great amount, meant power.

And I needed power in my hunt for a very special being; a multi-being.

Devilish beings.

Legion.

So I let the senior pastors take the church and whatever it represented, and I let them keep a sizeable part of income from church activities, but those funds that the old man had running as investments I continued to hold on to them.

I didn’t want anything to do with the church as it stood, but I wanted that portion of money it brought. I also took the great house and all the investments.

Soon, my own special kind of hunting would begin.

Soon.

Above all else, I felt fury.

Fury at a coward named Paul Anderson who had come into my life, shot it all up to hell, and disappeared without a trace, leaving me in the grips of the foulest evil any human eye had ever beheld. He had no right for leaving me all alone when he knew the kind of hell I was going to go through.

Fury at a divine being above who had seen it fit to endow me with the foulest of all gifts…and left me all alone to be terrorized by beings greater than all the greatest intellects in the world rolled into one.

And, above all else, fury at a host of demons so foul that they would crash the skull of a beloved father against a concrete ceiling and explode his brains out just to punish…and out of pure cowardice.

I walked the grounds of my inheritance aimlessly. I just attended to the basics of everyday life, and neglected a lot of the things I was supposed to do. I knew I had to leave and go out there after the devilish forces that had shattered my world, but somehow I loathed moving.

Maybe it was because I was scared that leaving the house would disconnect the bond to my father, and so I stayed.

I spent a lot of time in my father’s library reading. There were practically no novels on the shelves, only great works in natural phenomenon and the sciences, covering a wide genre. I read things hungrily, sometimes forgetting to eat. I was intent on cramming myself with knowledge.

Sometimes thoughts about what had happened intruded, but I always managed to push them away. Luckily, there were no nightmares, and my sleeps, as rare as they were, couldn’t have been more peaceful.

There were times when I wondered about Uncle Samson and Elaine for long hours. I wondered what had happened to them, and whether our paths would ever cross again.

I missed Elaine sometimes, as horrible as it sounded.

Even after everything I still craved for her badly. Maybe it had something to do with that ‘ordained’ wife thing, but I found it really hard getting over her. I wished so much that we would meet again.

Maybe I could get Anderson – that man I hated so much – to exorcise the demons out of her so that we could get married.

One day.

NICOLE

I kept on leading my mundane life from morning to morning.

I had given Leo Brand all the authority to look after the monstrous inheritance I had come into.

He would see to it that whatever ventures my old man had engaged in were continued until I could get the time to study them all thoroughly and continue from then. He was a loyal and honest man, and I knew my assets were in the right hands.

I paid off the domestic staff handsomely, and save for a housekeeper and her husband who came in three days a week – the man was the gardener, and I more or less gave them permission to use Uncle Basoah’s cottage anytime they wanted – the big house was virtually empty most of the time.

I had maintained the services of the private security agency, and almost all the time four would be on the premises. Two at the gates and two patrolling the grounds.

And then, exactly two months after the burial, I was in my father’s study engrossed in a book about the great Rapture when the melodious tones of the doorbell rang across the silent room.

I swore softly and got out of the chair with some difficulty.

I scratched the bristles across my jaw and frowned darkly as the bell chimed again. I hadn’t had a shave for a long time, and the beard was kind of getting uncomfortable now.

I was halfway across the living-room when the bell was pressed a third time. I swore hotly under my breath, and by the time I took hold of the door handle and pulled the huge door open I was in a little rage.

Normally there was an intercom connected to the main gates where the guards could have buzzed me and informed me of any visitor.

It had malfunctioned the previous day, and I had informed the telephone company, who had assured me that a serviceman would come that morning to repair it, but it was well past noon now.

I wondered if he had now arrived.

The person on my doorstep was far from a serviceman or, for that matter, any other man at all.

She was all woman.

She was tall, almost reaching my shoulders, probably in her early twenties. She was built like a dream. She wasn’t as exquisite as Elaine (there probably wouldn’t be any woman as exotic as Elaine, no doubt), but she had curves at the right places.

Her face was oval, framed by the richest darkest hair I had ever seen, curling beautifully across her shoulders. A stubborn wavy curl fell across her smooth brow, and this she swept back as our eyes locked.

The stubborn lock of hair stayed briefly, then almost in slow motion it came tumbling back down.

Her eyes smiled; they were a penetrating grey and absolutely beautiful.

Her eyelashes were long, giving her eyes and whole appearance a rather exotic look. Her nose was small and finely-chiseled by a master. Her lips were full, the lower one slightly fuller, glistening with light lipstick.

She had the clearest and smoothest skin I had seen.

Her grey slacks were perfectly-tailored, fitting her slender waist and lovely legs like a dream. Her white shirt was silk and hugged her frame perfectly.

She was a smashing beauty, to say the least.

She had that magical blend of pure innocence blooming into maturity. She was the kind of woman men fantasized about when they imagined themselves as superheroes.

For a moment I could only stare at her, until she colored slightly and held out a beautiful slender hand; her fingers were long and delicate.

NICOLE

(in a sweet voice)

Mr. Yaw Boat, I presume? My name is Nicole. Pastor Paul Anderson asked me to deliver a message to you.

I let her hand go then, and all the anger sort of boiled up within me and came spewing out of my mouth before I could help it.

BOAT

(angrily)

Paul Anderson? The ugly, swindling little mother******!

She grimaced, and cocked her head to one side slightly. There was something in her eyes – disappointment, surprise, unease? – as she looked at me, evidently reevaluating me.

NICOLE

(softly)

I forgot to add that the man in question happens to be my father.

BOAT

(embarrassed)

Oh! Do come in, miss. I must apologize for my coarse manners. I’m sorry.

I said and tried a tired smile to hide my embarrassment.

Who would’ve thought an ugly coot like Anderson could father such an angel anyway?

I stepped aside.

NICOLE

(impressed)

I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a lovelier room. That Van Gogh is real, isn’t it?

She sat down, keeping her knees together.

I nodded as I headed for the bar.

BOAT

Cost a fortune. The old man had no qualms about men of God enjoying the fringe benefits of life. A drink?

NICOLE

(softly)

A lemonade would be fine, if you have it.

I brought it to her and sat down beside her.

She drank a little, paused, drank deeper this time, and when she set the glass down it was three quarters empty. She turned slightly to face me, and I could see the questions lurking deep down in her lovely eyes.

NICOLE

(gently)

Sorry about your father. His sudden death was a shock to all of us.

Maybe it was because she sounded so genuine, or maybe it was because of the closeness and that air of intimacy, but her words touched something deep down within me, and for a very terrible moment I thought the waterworks were going to burst open again.

The pain-center was still raw and active, and I had to concentrate hard on the antics of the fishes in the aquarium and swallow really hard before the tears became tiny watery sheens that glittered on my eyelashes.

She reached out and touched my hand gently.

It was sisterly, an expression of kindness, and I was grateful for that. She was probably the sincerest person I had seen so far since the death of my old man.

NICOLE

(softly)

Father wants you to come down to Portville as soon as you could, Mr. Boat.

I frowned darkly for a moment.

BOAT

Portville? I thought he was in Takoradi. That’s what he told me anyway.

NICOLE

(gently)

Portville is just a couple of kilometers from Takoradi, Mr. Boat.

BOAT

The name’s Yaw. Call me Yaw.

NICOLE

(softly)

Then I am Nicole to you, Yaw.

We smiled tentatively at each other.

My name sounded nice on her lips, the way she said it.

I was again struck by her beauty. She was the kind of woman I would have hit at in those days of sin, and my mind would have conjured up all sorts of situations I could get her into, but not now.

It was amazing, but somehow my mind seems to be cured of that sick portion where I saw only nude women. Now she was an exquisite creation, a work of fine art that I could admire without consulting my loins.

BOAT

(coldly)

I don’t think I want to see your father, Nicole. He should’ve been at my father’s funeral. I believe it was the least he could have done.

She looked at me again, and once more I was struck by the querying look, and a fleeting expression that could have been fear or desperation.

She pushed that stubborn hair off her brow again, and this time it came tumbling down again without hesitation.

NICOLE

(in a rush)

Yaw, what is going on, please? What’s happening to my father?

This time there was no disguising the fear in the depths of those lovely eyes.

I looked at her with some kind of surprise.

BOAT

The last and only time I met him he was very okay, I think. Is there something I should know about him?

For a moment that look was back, and then she looked away with a little nervous flick of her head.

NICOLE

(softly)

My father has never been as charismatic a pastor as your late father, Yaw, but he has been a good one, and as I grew up he was my hero. His specialty – his

gift , actually – was casting out demons, and this he has done all his life. Lately however, he has changed.

She was quiet for a long time just staring across the room at the fishes. I leaned forward slightly and touched her arm.

BOAT

(gently)

How has your father changed…Nicole?

She looked at me for a long time as if making up her mind about something.

NICOLE

(worriedly)

Maybe I’ve said too much, Yaw, but believe me I am very desperate, and scared. You mentioned earlier that you were expecting my father at the funeral. Well, what will you say if I tell you that since he heard of your father’s death, Pastor Paul Anderson has changed so much that he has never left our house?

I felt a sort of coldness spreading through me as her fear reached out and touched me.

I could not make head or tails of it, but somehow I sensed that Paul Anderson knew with a certainty that the host of demons were out there, and they had had a hand in my old man’s demise.

Somehow it was all tied together.

Anderson’s sudden fear of isolation baffled me a bit. Hadn’t he said he was also a Banisher? What then was happening to him?

BOAT

(gently)

What exactly do you mean by he has not left your house?

Her gaze was direct, pleading, seeking.

She absently-mindedly lifted the glass and drank all the lemonade, and then she carefully set it down again

NICOLE

(softly)

Exactly that. He has not presided over a single church service since your father died two months ago. Oh, I know it was under the pretext that he was seeking the face of the Lord, and this seems to have gone down with the church congregation, but I know better. He has been a great man of God all the time, but suddenly I see the fear in his eyes. He always wants to be in the company of one of us, and he has great difficulty sleeping. At first I thought he was having a nervous breakdown, but I’ve come to realize that it is something deeper. And you know what is worst? It is my mother. She now lives in absolute fear, and each passing day it becomes worse.

Those desperate eyes were fixed on me, filled with abstract hope and deep anxiety. Here was one lady who loved her parents exceedingly and also carried their crosses.

NICOLE

(tremulously)

The maddening thing is that no one is telling me anything, Yaw. I’m twenty-six, but they still treat me like a kid, can you believe that? Can you help, Yaw? Mother said maybe you could, but after meeting you…

Her voice trailed off.

I smiled without humor and stood up. I looked down at her, wishing I could ease her worry, but the image of my father’s head crashing into that concrete roof was still fresh on my mind, plus the fact that I just might have lost my gift, and I knew that her hopes just could be displaced.

BOAT

(with a wan smile)

You were expecting someone older and more experienced, right?

She shook her head at first, and then she nodded.

BOAT

(softly)

I don’t know whether I can be of help or not, Nicole. Fact is, I think I need your father’s help even more than he needs mine. You see, that man came into my life and fucked – sorry, forgive me – he really messed up my life. The way I see it, I won’t know what’s going on until I see him. So, if you don’t mind, I’ll just pack a few things and we’ll be on our way, okay?

I called Leo Brand and informed him that I would be gone for a while, and he promised to look after things for me until my return.

I used a brand new Chrysler.

It was black, big, comfortable and powerful. It fairly ate up the miles as we headed for Portville.

Nicole Anderson turned out to be a great companion; she showed me some of the spectacular sights as we passed them. I knew she was dying for some answers, but as if by mutual agreement we steered off the business of her father and me. Our stops were rare, mostly to allow her to freshen up and to grab a bit to eat now and then.

She was a year older than me, and was a top management staff of Dash Securities, the new multi-million financial institution everyone was talking about. She was Assistant Director of the Portville Sector.

She was the older of two children. She had a younger brother who was yet to graduate from the university.

BOAT

(a bit too casually)

Married, betrothed?

She gave me a peculiar look.

NICOLE

(carefully)

Well, not married, but let’s say I have an understanding with a young man. He’s impatient to tie the knot, but marriage isn’t one of the priorities in my life now. I will get to it eventually, though. With him, of course.

I said nothing for quite some time after that.

My priorities were now on getting even with those demonic uglies which had done my father in. Seriously – and sensibly, I guessed – a romantic involvement was the last thing I should be dabbling in.

There was also the little matter of the one year age difference to consider. I knew a lot of folks who held the notion that age didn’t matter in relationships, but I didn’t go for that.

For plain old sexual reunions I guessed it didn’t matter so long as partners were in the mood, but when it came to the nuptial part it did matter a whole lot to me, especially if the woman was older.

I had money, yes. I was probably the wealthiest young bachelor on the block, but apart from that I had nothing to offer. For some girls money would be all that mattered, but I had a strange feeling that it wouldn’t be for a woman like Nicole Anderson.

NICOLE

(with a chuckle)

Penny for your thoughts

I turned to her.

BOAT

(startled)

Huh?

NICOLE

(smiling)

You seemed miles away, Yaw. And now you – are you courting too?

BOAT

(with a wan smile)

Courting. Such a nice word. No, lady. I’m not courting. I’ve had enough of women to last me a lifetime.

There was a little frown now on that lovely brow of hers, and the truant lock of hair shook slightly as she cocked her head.

NICOLE

(softly)

Did I say something wrong, Yaw? It seems I have touched a moody nerve in you.

BOAT

(smiling tightly)

Everything’s fine, Nicole. Everything’s just fine.

We made small conversation from there until we got to the lovely little town of Jackson Peak.

We had been driving for close to three hours, and I was tired. The sun had long gone down, and the night lights were already on.

NICOLE

(gently)

I think you should rest, Yaw. I know a little hotel down here. We can spend the night there and continue tomorrow morning.

BOAT

(yawning)

That sounds like a good idea to me.

I wasn’t concentrating.

I felt a little buzzing in my skin. I had been sensing that uneasy vibration just before we entered the town. It was a most uncomfortable feeling – almost like there were some tiny insects crawling just beneath my skin.

I had never experienced anything like it before, and it greatly disconcerted me. For a moment I thought I was coming down with the flu or some rare and dangerous disease.

I didn’t want her to know about it, though, and I was greatly grateful for a chance to rest and relax. I was convinced Jackson Peak would be a haven, at least for the night, and I would wake up refreshed in the morning.

The hotel was called Hotel Bliss, and it was a little paradise nestled in the heart of the little town. It was a flat structure with pure white painting, neat tiles and a lot of glass.

It was fronted by a beautiful garden and tall royal palms. It was close to the beach, and as we walked toward the main reception area I could faintly hear the waves lapping on the shore, and it brought nostalgic memories of my father’s home, the two of us playing on the beach, sharing one of our beautiful moments together.

I had a terribly hard time pushing back the waterworks, and the painful lodge in my throat stayed with me for a long time.

As we stood in front of the long mahogany desk I heard live jazz music filtering through from one of the doors leading off the reception.

A smart-looking attendant registered us. Two opposite rooms were what we got.

We took the keys and a bellhop took us to our rooms. He kept a frozen smile on his face and just couldn’t keep his mouth shut, possibly because we carried little luggage and he hoped his friendliness would guarantee a tip.

I obliged by giving him a blue note that quickly disappeared into the folds of his uniform. He spoke with a plastic smile stretching his inquisitive nose.

JASON

My name is Jason, sir. Call me if you need anything!

Nicole smiled and shook her head at his retreating back. There was a little awkward moment as we stood facing each other.

NICOLE

(softly)

So, I hope whatever was nettling you has been put on hold for the time being.

I managed a tiny smile of my own.

She looked really beautiful, and there was nothing better I would have wished than a walk with her at the beach or to sit and listen to the live jazz music.

But I felt really tensed up.

That strange feeling in my veins just wouldn’t stop, and I felt sick all over. It was as if something within me was struggling to burst out, like a crazed terrier that had sighted a limping rabbit.

 

To be continued…

©Aaron Ansah – Agyeman

All Rights Reserved.

 

ALL EPISODES OF THE SECOND SIGHT