Dial - Season 2 - Episode 13

4 years ago

Dial - Season 2 - Episode 13

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“Lift him up and tie him to the pole!” Okomfo Basabasa ordered stridently as he glared down at me.

The four of the muscular men reached down and lifted me up, and then they pushed my body up against that hateful pole again. It occurred to me, in a funny kind of way, that I was really buddying up a lot to that pole. I was feeling dizzy and very nauseous mainly because of the sight of the sheep and all that blood. They tied my hands around the pole first, and then they cut away the cords binding my body, so that my back was exposed.
Okomfo Basabasa was dancing in a weird sort of way, making incantations and throwing his horsetail whisk, with glazed eyes shining in the flickering lights of the lanterns.

He moved around the covered basket of snakes, his bare feet squishing in the blood as he danced, occasionally striking the basket with the whisk, causing the snakes to shake violently in the basket.

Finally, he came to a halt, turned and pointed the whisk at the royal princess.
“It is time, Princess!” he said in a strangely multi-voiced sound. “Come and take the whip of the gods!”

He brought his right hand down suddenly, and I saw that a huge brown can had appeared in his hand. He walked toward the princess, who was still kneeling in the blood in front of her mother, weeping pitifully, and t----t the cane at her.

“Why her?” King Obiba demanded angrily. “I should be the one to whip the boy! He touched my treasure!”
“No, my Lord!” Komfo Basabasa said. “It is the girl’s duty to whip him!”
“But she wouldn’t hit him hard enough, can’t you see?” the king roared with uncontrollable fury.

Okomfo Basabasa turned and fixed him with evil black eyes.

“She would hit him hard enough, my Lord,” he said in a menacing voice. “Don’t worry about that!”

He looked down at the princess, and a savage look came across his face.
“Stand up, Princess, and take the whip of the gods!” he bellowed.

Miserably, painfully, Abena Adobea got to her feet and took the whip.

Okomfo Basabasa smiled at her evilly.
“The punishment for this stranger who has so grossly broken a sacred custom will either be this whipping that you chose, or death by the snakes!” he said tightly to her, and then he leaned forward so that his face was very close to hers. “The choice is yours, Princess. Whether this stranger lives or dies is in your hands now!”

“He lives, I chose that already!” she screamed fiercely into his face, and I admired her fiery spirit even in the face of such daunting stressful times. “I shall deliver the lashes myself!”

“Like I said, my dear royal princess, it is all in your hands!”

As Okomfo Basabasa turned and returned to stand beside the king. They all looked at Adobea as she walked on dead legs toward me, her face streaked with tears, her lisp swollen, and yet she remained the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.
She moved behind me, slightly to the side, and then she looked at me fully.

“I’m so sorry,’ she murmured. “I just wanted you gone…I didn’t mean any of this to happen. Please, forgive me. Twenty lashes, and I’m not going to hit you hard!”
I just glowered at her and made no comment.
She drew her hand back and the lash came forward and landed on my back, playfully, almost as if she were just pressing it to my back!

“Adobea, Abena Adobea, are you crazy?” the king screamed, incensed with fury, almost dashing forward but the fetish priest held him back.

“It’s okay, Nana, my Lord, it’s definitely better this way!”
“No, it isn’t!” the King roared. “Don’t you see what she’s doing? She’s just toying with him!”

“And I say it is better that way, my Lord!” the fetish priest said with bright eyes. “Just trust me on this!”