Premonitions: A Labyrinth of Life and Death

By Jennifer Arie

The seven intriguing stories in this collection unveil strange worlds, where the most disturbing events play out:

A Young self-believing Corper discovers a life-threatening truth about a dark deity in his past; this changes everything he thought he had known about himself. He shrinks into a vulnerable boy with a sharp sixth sense (Whispering ghosts) running from death.

In the strange tale of ‘Birds’, men are in enmity with peculiar crows and they struggle in one realm to survive each other. Young Corbin finds himself haunted, till he discovers his true self.

In ‘Dead man walking,’ the apprentice necromancer attends a funeral unwelcomed and raises the dead alongside a commotion from previous incidences surrounding the undead and the funeral is terribly stirred.

In ‘Decay,’ two army commanders are caught in a web of war, love and lust. In the middle of the trio, they take a stand, but there’s more than meets the eye. Mysterious death and rot consistently plagues the townlet, and beautiful commander Joanne unearths deep revelations through the guiding lips of a clairvoyant.

Some whores may want more than just money in exchange for sex, sometimes it is all of your possession, your heart or soul. This rather bizarre story ‘Whore hell’ paints a picture of whoredom that lets all hell loose.

In ‘The man next door’, an internet psychic helps a little girl unravel a tormenting mystery about their new residence plagued with recurrent robbery by the same mystery man.

Two pig-headed carnival organizers face the dark side of a carnival-gone-wrong with a blend of flesh and spirit attendees, and they try to salvage a rather beautiful disaster.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jennifer Arie
• Release date: Dec 20, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386303688

Book preview

WHISPERING GHOSTS

THE BARK OF TREES ON which the birds perch is good for you, plenty of them, but the bird that has been built by man is not. She spoke with a voice which shivered out of agedness. She was a fiery-eyed hirsute with hair as dark as death, her lips were thin, bloodless and etched with dry cracks. The moment she had opened them to speak, an execrable stench from the sickly passage of her breath had filled the room and the boy had impulsively held his breath for a brief moment. He stared into her eyes in utter confusion. What is a boy like me doing in a place like this? He asked himself once again. I am not some illiterate villager, I believe in people who foresee the future, but this certainly isn’t my kind. She couldn’t even as little as speak with clarity. I should have just tried the pages of a horoscope instead! He thought regretfully. 

Madam, I have no idea on how to go around the words of your prediction. I don’t even understand.

She took a long, noisy sip out of her gourd – a black liquid, perhaps tea, or herbs, then looked at him for what seemed like eternity and smiled before she replied,

That is all I have been permitted to tell you son. A word is enough for the wise. Now go, be diligent. she signalled to an empty plate on the ground.

He sighed, got up angrily and tossed a few rumpled notes of money into the plate, turned his back and stormed out of the thatch house, quickly drawing his breath to inhale a gust of the fresh breeze that wasted outside. A baobab tree stood tall over the cottage like an evil giant; the tree, a typical shade and meeting place for ghouls shed its spook and mystical allure in form of dead leaves over the small cottage.

Certainly, he believed in premonitions – the connection to something more than the physical senses are able to perceive, the unfelt touch from the other world to the physical body. He prided himself of having a proficient sixth sense as his lifeguard. He would always feel this quick intuitive hunch that surges up right before something bad happened to him. He would pick up telling signals from his inner consciousness and render them from his mind, he was always so aware of these signs; he could almost reach out and touch it, and he named it the whispering ghosts.

The walk back to the corpers’ lodge, a small distance from the orientation camp, was a little far but he didn’t mind. As a youth corper fresh out of any of the camps in Nigeria, after having gone through morning drills by army men, sleepless nights and mornings, climbed walls, rope bridges, crawled beneath iron thorn beds, dived through tire hoops, and endured endless imposed hikes under the scorching sun – a long walk back to the lodge under a mild morning sun was certainly too pleasant, he thought. When he had gotten closer to a field few steps away from the lodge he noticed a small noise on the ground beneath a hill. He peered closely and found a queer looking seed the size of a peanut shell vibrating on top of a green leaf. It looked like a cocoon ready to hatch. Looking around him he noticed a huge black moth that could be easily mistaken for a bat – as it was almost the size of a bird – dashing up and down the field. He had the feeling that the thing on the leaf must be a young moth trying to hatch out of its cocoon. It squirmed and swayed up and down, cracking up. He bent over and saw the young moth beginning to push out its wings, wriggling its body in a quest to free itself. His heart grew warm, he leaned closer affectionately and carefully opened up the cocoon shells with his fingertips, freeing the young moth and it crawled out. It was big but would certainly look bigger when it spreads out its wings, he thought. He felt as if he had partaken in bringing a new life, the feeling was refreshing. He walked into his lodge contentedly.

That evening his mind wafted through many things; His place of work, they were to go on a short trip in the morning to Yola for a governmental peace keeping agenda accompanied by youth corp members; his family back in the village; their numerous expectancies from him their beloved graduate son; his zeal to be a successful. His mind wandered eagerly at those thoughts until he slept off. That morning when he got to his office of primary assignment, he was in a strangely tart mood. He told his superior that he wouldn’t be flying to Yola with them. He stayed back doing extra paper works in the office instead, as it soothed his mood. Once it was over office hours he tuned into the news and as he watched the bad reports on television, one of the worst he had ever heard in his entire life, he clasped his hands on his cheeks in shock. He picked up his bag and started strolling home sadly, ignoring any member of the office who wanted to strike up a conversation with him about the news.

Once he had crossed the open field, his eyes met with the cracked moth cocoon on the ground. He saw almost immediately that there was a crawling moth a little distance away from the egg. He thought to himself pointlessly, shouldn’t it be flying? He bent over and noticed that it really wasn’t crawling, he nudged it slightly, and it was still. It suddenly hit him that the young moth had only been able to crawl a little distance and then died. He sighed disappointedly, and then, thoughts of the medium flashed through his mind and he changed his direction and started walking towards her cottage.

Evening madam. He said bending his slim tall figure in order to pass through the small cottage door. She turned around on hearing the sound of his voice.

Ikenna. You are yet alive! Her voice quaked. You must have heeded to the words of my forecast for you to have made it here again alive.

Your words! What has your words got to do with the fact that the plane I was supposed to be in this morning had crashed and almost buried itself in another man’s land. Perhaps people like you do not watch the news! Why did you not warn me about the flight? What if I hadn’t changed my mind? He burst out, holding back his sobs, his chest was heaving up and down furiously.

She wore a manic smile, ignoring his outburst and watching him with twinkling eyes. Seeing her expression, he paused, trying to understand the strange woman. You said to me, he reiterated from the recollections in his mind The bark of trees on which the birds perch is good for you, plenty of them, but the bird that has been built by man is not. He cocked his head to an angle, thinking hard. The bird...built by man...oh God. He was dazed. You sly wicked old lady! he got hysterical, his laughter busted through the cottage. She was smiling contentedly at him. So you see...and the paper works that kept you occupied were a very good thing, had you not being a hardworking young man. She giggled you see.

He was grinning. Ah ha! I get it all.  I can decipher your words. I can work with you and all you have to offer madam and I can work with my hunches, the whispering ghosts. He sat on the bare floor uncaringly, feeling more confident about the medium.

She was nodding. Is there anything you would like for me to further foretell?

Yes, yes. He was like a kid excitedly demanding more chocolates. Now tell me what my future holds and how I can go about achieving quick success in life.

She paused in thoughts for a moment.

Young man, life is all about patience. I must warn you, do not heed to the words of those who tell you there is a shortcut to lasting success. You must be patient and go through the grooming and hassles of life. Our lives can be compared to that of a young moth cocoon.

His heart skipped a beat.

Have you not heard before that while it is about to hatch, it faces difficulties getting out, it pushes its wings and wriggles its body, but those tussles are required to toughen its wings and prepare them for flight. If by any chance, the process of struggling to breakthrough with its wings and body are cut short or assisted by a foreign body...

He swallowed nervously.

...the young moth may easily crawl out of its shell, but that is all it will ever do in life. Crawl. And without moving any much further in its life span, it will die a crawler.

He faced the eerie mental torture of her words and the frightening fact of her knowledge about his little moth incident. He began to feel cold.

What you saw earlier, my dear, is not just a moth, but a black witch moth – Ascalapha Odorata. She sipped out of her gourd. We are very familiar with this particular moth in our realm for its fascinating cultural as well as natural history all over the world. It is mythologically called the harbinger of death by the white men, and a lucky charm in some parts of the world.

His mouth was parted but he was short of words.

"I cannot see. Something is standing by the way, like a