SHORT STORY: The hammer of Fatima

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SHORT STORY: The hammer of Fatima

Sunday, 21 March 2010 07:58 |

She was an Arabian beauty, surrounded by an aura of innocence, which aided the pull that attracted me directly under her hammer. I perceived the fragrance of blest Arabian oil from her skin and peeped through her green eyes into her inner woman.

I saw the hammer, the heavy hammer suspended in the air right above my head. The hammer of Fatima. The hammer which was controlled by her metaphysical strength. I was mindless of the hammer because I still looked into her inner woman.

She was a dreamer, who dreamt and believed in them, a “cheerful give” who gave only to the needy. She was a lover, so we did what lovers do and made vows of love everlasting. She always swore by her holy books, which gave me a cynical sense of holiness. She was desperate for matrimony, so I was willing to genuinely fulfil her desire. She narrated her most painful heartbreaking experience to me, so it appealed to my sympathy and I allowed my emotion to overtake my intellect. She wanted all immediately, so I, without hesitation, gave all my good passions. Because of the gravity of the haste I gave some bad ones too.

She gradually knew I had an uncontrollable passion for her, so she raped my conscience, and my judgement between good and evil always relied on hers. I was deceived by her generosity and her honey-coated prayers, so I didn’t see the serpent in her tongue. She knew I was drowned in her soul, so she drew her hammer closer to my head.

She also wanted me to wed her religion. I adhered, because I was already blinded by her natural charms. Worst of all, she said I must study Arabic. To me, that demand was like suicide bombing; I thought for a while, and I said to myself, if I die struggling with Arabic, may my soul be buried in her bosom.

To no avail her demands were. By the divine hand of God, her dream’s prophecies and hallucinations were stopped in a land far from where we dwelt, like the prophecy of Sister Lucy in Fatima (Portugal).

While I concentrated on the descent of the hammer, I lost total control and denounced my dignity. I cried, I cried broken-hearted tears, I begged for mercy but she insisted on releasing the hammer. As she did, I became drunk and I also lost my ex-spirit.

My ex-spirit got into my body on my birth date and on my birth date the following year, she finally left my body.
From the effect of the released hammer, I staggered towards the doctrine of karma: “The implications of the doctrine of karma is that we cannot blame anyone else for our sufferings. Of course this does not mean that others are not accountable; they will reap the reward of their action”.

I also staggered toward the sayings of King Lemuel’s mother: "o my son, o son of my womb, o son of my vows, do not spend your strength on women, your vigour on those who ruin kings............” (Proverbs. 31,1-3).

I can still see her hammer lifted once again, controlled by her metaphysical strength, waiting for her next victim.

PRAYERS FOR THE DISTURBED SOULS

I pray for those of us who strayed from the divine path made for us, to identify and acknowledge the lessons meant for us, for our spiritual, moral and mental growth.

I pray that those who have killed for love, irrespective of where they are, should realise that there is no justification for murder.

I pray for the spirit of those who have died or are about to die from heart-break, to realise that it is acute ignorance that drives one to that thought.

I am observing nine months of silence, with my pen between my lips for Abdullah who took poison and died on a mountain-top after being neglected by a woman he thought was his “Jamila”.

By Adogiye Opubo Ayerite
Edited by Rita Mazzotta

NOTE: The names used in this piece are all fictional and the story concerns both genders.

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