Dial - Season 1 - Episode 109

4 years ago

Dial - Season 1 - Episode 109

I scowled darkly in the darkness.
“Hey!” I was getting angry. “I don’t sleep with old women!”
“Well, then you must be a paedophile,
awengaaa, a dirty old man, and I don’t entertain such in my house!” she stated hotly.

“I’m not old, madam,” I said, my voice now sad. “I’m only twenty-six. I am growing old because I slept with the daughter of a fetish priest, and ignored her. She killed herself, and her father has put a curse on me. The curse is making me grow old, and when I’m old enough, I’ll die. That is the reason why, in my desperation, I left the comfort of the city and came to this godforsaken village. I’m alone, and I’m afraid, and I’m seeking answers.”

She was quiet for a long time, and then she sighed again.
“Come with me,” she said finally. “Seems to me you need a friend. I don’t have any friends either.”
“You believe me?” I asked incredulously.
“I’ve seen worse things, my son,” she said.

The relief I felt was so complete and so unexpected that for a moment tears came to my eyes. She made to walk on again, but I held her bag.
“Please, let me help you with this,” I said, and without a word she pushed it onto my head.

I almost regretted immediately.
It was such a heavy load.
.
“Hey, witch, what do you have inside here?” I asked with sudden trepidation. No wonder she had been walking so tiredly. She was stronger than I had given her credit for. “Do you have children inside here?”
“No one sells anything to me here,” she said sadly. “Every month, I go to the towns to buy the supplies I’ll need. Come, let’s go. It will rain soon.”

I toiled behind, but thankfully we didn’t walk long. Suddenly, we came upon a pool of water that shimmered in the darkness.
“Wait here a moment, please,” she said, and descended down to the banks of the river.
I waited anxiously, but a moment later she called out to me, and I joined her at the edge of the river. She was standing near a huge canoe, and she asked me to put the bags in the middle of the canoe.

I placed them at the end nearest the river, climbed in, and dragged them to the middle of the canoe. She took a long, stout pole and placed it inside the canoe. She removed her slippers and placed them in the canoe, then she hoisted the edge of her long skirt over her knees, tied it on one side, and the she shoved the canoe with me still in it!
“Hey!” I shouted in alarm as I almost fell into the river, and then I sat down hard in the canoe.

The witch was strong indeed! She had the canoe inside the river in a moment, and then she waded through the river and clambered on board. She stood at the end, and using the long pole, she pushed into the river and pushed, driving the canoe across the river.
Sitting at the other end in the darkness, listening to the river whispering along the length of the river, I admitted to myself that this was the very first time I had been in a canoe.

And, watching her dark silhouette standing tall at the end of the canoe, lifting the pole and driving it first on the right side, then left side of the canoe, rowing us across the river, I realized for the very first time in my life, that women were much more capable in other areas than opening their thighs.

This aged woman, abandoned by a whole village, shunned by her own people, driven from among them to live at the other side of the river, alone, sad, hated…was still standing strong and defiant, facing the world with a pole in hand, surviving from one day to the next.

Grudgingly, painfully, for the very first time in my life, I indeed admired the inner strength of a woman.
.