Welcome to this edition of Nuzo’s Nightmare Pit, and I hope you enjoyed last month’s short story, Veil Mary. The story I’ll be sharing with you this month is inspired by a song I heard in my childhood during our Tales by Moonlight sessions. I hope you enjoy it, and remember to share it with your pals 😊
This month’s story is one I’ve titled, The Time Master. Happy Reading!
I hate tardiness, people who have no respect for time or other people’s time, people like Justice Baku, who has delayed my hearing for the third time now because of…curse it…who knows what the latest excuse is. Last time, it was his wife that suddenly died, so my hearing was postponed. The time before that, his useless car crashed, a head-on collision, and he was strung up for weeks at the hospital with broken limbs and a battered body. It was a miracle he survived, they said. In the meantime, I’m still languishing in prison waiting for my case to be heard so I can know my fate and free myself from this relentless nightmare that dogs my every breath.
I hate uncertainty, the unknowing, the lack of information and the confusion it breeds. No one should be made to languish in darkness, ignorant of their fate. That’s what I told my wife, Biram, over and over, while I waited for her to change her mind about our marriage and put me out of my uncertainty once and for all. Like Justice Baku, my wife was infected with the lateness virus, which finally ended up making her the late Mrs. Biram Denge. I warned her from the first day of our marriage, gave her the crucial sermon for the success of our marriage – “Dinner must be served by 8pm, no later, not even by one minute,” I warned. “You must be in bed ready for me by 10pm and most importantly, my trouser and shirt must be ironed completely creaseless before 7pm the night before work.”
Biram served me our first dinner by 8:06pm. I only slapped her, just a tiny slap to jolt her memory. You’d think by the way she screeched she’d remember the next time and correct her defect. But no; three nights later and dinner was served by 8:03pm! I made her eat it alone, every last seed of fried rice in both our plates, then punched it out of her stomach, waiting for her to finish retching before giving her the successful-marriage sermon - yet again.
I gave her the sermon a few nights later at approximately 7.10pm, when my trousers – AND MY SHIRT – showed several creases that forced me to re-iron them myself. This time, I reinforced the sermon with my belt. Finally, it worked and dinner was never a second later than 8pm, while my clothes presented the smooth lines I required by 6.30pm. Biram was always in bed by 10pm in her nightgown, even as her body resisted my touch in silent stiffness. But that was fine; I satisfied myself as I wished and gave her the special sermon afterward.
But my wife’s sanity was ruined by having to live a disciplined life for the very first time in her pampered life, and she screamed for a divorce after one of my sermons, following her stiff bedroom-body. A divorce! Because I was trying to make her a better person, a disciplined person who respects time and other people’s time, a productive member of society, something her own sinfully-rich parents clearly never taught her? And for my efforts, she thanked me by asking for a divorce? Ha!
I redecorated her face for her ingratitude and gave her a sermon like none she’d ever received before. I told her to rethink her lunacy or face a mighty wrath beyond the wrath of Moses against the stubborn Egyptian Pharaoh. I didn’t mean to knock out her teeth, but I guess my fist was madder than my head. I would never deliberately knock out Biram’s teeth, not when I want her to remain as beautiful and attractive as the first time I met her at a mutual friend’s wedding, where she was the bridesmaid. It’s as I always say, we can never control any limb in our bodies, neither can we rein in our thoughts and dreams. All we can control is our relationship with time. We can save time or waste it; we can ignore time or respect it; we can use time or ruin it. Or, we can master time and own it. I consider myself a master of time.
In the end, after giving Biram several chances to change her mind and share my vision, I decided she was a danger to time; my time, my destiny. The longer she wasted my time, escaping from our house while I was at work, refusing to take my calls or see me, unfriending me on Facebook, and blocking my number, the longer my rage lasted. And a raging mind breeds an unproductive body. My work suffered…surprise, surprise…what with precious time being wasted tracking her down online and offline. I realised the only way to reclaim my time was to remove the virus infecting it.
I did the maths on the hours Biram stole from me while I gave her numerous sermons, tracked her whereabouts after she escaped our house, coupled with the countless hours wasted plotting how to bring her back and give her stronger sermons. It amounted to almost three weeks stolen from my lifespan! So, you can see what I did was purely self-defence, saving myself from a time-stealing virus that would steal my future if it weren’t destroyed.
***
I vanquished Biram in broad daylight, in full view of everyone, from the young orange hawker to the old taxi driver she had hailed to take her to her workplace. I killed her the way you kill time, by wasting her life with the same nonchalance she’d given me and our marriage. With calm deliberation, I shoved her onto oncoming traffic, in the prosecutor’s words, “as you would discard useless garbage”. I didn’t need to hear her scream or the screech of tyres to know my mission was accomplished. I walked off briskly to my workplace with a merry whistle, to reclaim my life and time again. The heaviness that had weighted my soul was finally lifted. No more sermons for an unmitigated ingrate. No more precious time stolen from my lifespan.
Now, everyone’s screaming murder, and her family can’t wait for Justice Baku to give me the hanging rope—as if I was behind the wheel that squashed her brains. The way they’re going on, anyone would think I wasn’t a victim too. My blood pressure is out of control because of the damned woman’s tardiness, and insomnia and I have become bonded companions. I too can’t wait for the wretched Justice Baku to give me the noose of their perverted justice. That’s the standard sentence for murder in our town, even though I know what I did wasn’t murder but self-defence. But, try telling that to them. Huh! Pathetic ignoramuses, the lot! Still, I’m more than happy to claim the hangman’s rope. Anything is better than this agony, this misery, this unremitting despair that I’m burdened with now in my prison room. My time is slowly being drained and I’ve lost all control of it, coupled with the other evil that now haunts my peace.
I have asked the prison doctor to give me something to kill myself, a pill, anything. But, he tells me everything’s in my head and to exercise more. Same with the visiting priest. I’ve begged the man to do an exorcism and free me from my horrific torture. But, he laughs and tells me to confess my sins and do penance and my hallucinations will disappear. All he’s offered are holy communion and a rosary, which have done fuck-all for me. I have no money to bribe someone for some rat poison and nobody, not even my own mother who gave birth to me, visits me in prison. I am alone, grappling with a horde of unruly prisoners and guards who have no concept of the word, “Punctuality”, and run the place with enough chaos to drive a sane man like myself to screeching lunacy.
And yes, I screech! My cell is known as the howling room, that’s how much I screech. Everything in this place has conspired to steal my sanity and my time. I thought things were bad in my brief marriage, but this place makes my time with Biram a paradise. They wake you up when they like, feed you when they like, punish you when they like, and send you to sleep when they like. I can’t control my time or their time inside this place and the blasted Justice Baku hasn’t helped matters either. I’d hoped today would be the final day, the day I finally get humanity’s sentence and face the hangman for my freedom from this living hell.
But, yet again, she has thwarted me, just as always. I know she’s behind everything; Biram, my late wife, who now insists on being very punctual in my life. I had given her countless sermons on the virtues of punctuality while we lived as man and wife, told her she would be late for St Peter himself at heaven’s gate if she didn’t grasp my sermons with uncomplaining enthusiasm. All with little success. In the end, her tardiness had cost her her life.
Now, our roles have switched. She has become the mistress of time, while I, in my trapped helplessness, have become the victim of time. I’d give anything now for Biram to be late, for Justice Baku to be punctual, for the hangman to be super punctual, and for the death-lord himself to be ultra-punctual. Yes; dear Jehovah in his good heavens, I would give anything – anything – everything….
***
My nightmare started on my first night in prison. I was shoved into a cell with three other prisoners who were also awaiting trial for crimes I never got to discover—mind you, I do recall Biggie’s crime alright—the muscle-freak arsehole. Like my other cellmates, the guy demanded to be removed from our cell that very night, and no one has ever joined me ever since, save for the ones the prison warders wish to punish. Everyone, even the most hardened inmates are petrified of my cell and treat me like a leper. I crave their company, would give everything for their presence, the companionship of blood and flesh and living souls. But it’s a wish that’ll remain a dream until the day the tardy Justice Baku finally does his job and sends me to blissful death. The bastard has postponed my hearing yet again, and I find myself back to the same old rot. I hate tardiness, people who have no respect for time or other people’s time—God! I could really kill that idiot, Justice Baku.
As the prison guards accompany me in the Black Maria, back to my cell of doom, I know with a sense of desperate despair, that my ordeal will resume again with the death of the noonday sun now blistering the earth and turning the vehicle into a mobile oven. Nightfall will bring back its familiar terrors and unwanted visitors and yet again, my piercing shrieks would send the chills down the spines of my fellow prisoners and send the guards into their locked offices, hurdled in silent terror, deaf to my screams and my pleas.
As I nurse the fresh bruises on my arms, I try not to remember, not to recall that first fateful night in my prison cell, the night it all began. But, as I already know, it is an exercise in futility. The human mind can never be reined in. It will do as it likes. My mind hops with manic glee as the Black Maria juggles its memory along the pot-holed tarmac, taking me back to that night, that cell, that visitor and that cold terror….
***
There was no lights-out because there was no light to switch off. The Nigerian Electricity Power Authority, NEPA, had cut the power earlier that day as was their norm. I heard there was a generator, but it was only switched on when important officials visited. The constant scarcity of petrol to operate it ensured we inmates remained in endless darkness while the guards powered their little office. I got that bit of information from one of my cellmates, Biggie, who had spent several months in the cell before my arrival, awaiting his own trial for armed robbery and murder; several murders.
The other two guys were already asleep and Biggie pointed me to my tattered mat opposite his side of the cell, the side nearest to the metal shit-bucket, rusty from the fear-piss of countless former prisoners. From the stench, I knew it hadn’t been emptied in days. I wanted to tell him to stuff himself, but the guy was built like a tanker and I knew better than to piss him off with attitude. So, I accepted my tattered mat and prepared to spend my first night inside a prison cell.
I flicked my wrist to check the time, and groaned—idiot guards have confiscated my watch, the bastards! In the deep gloom, I peered at the wall in search of a clock, but it was too dark to see, and when I cocked my ears, I heard nothing, no reassuring tick-tock of a functioning clock. And for the first time, I was forced to confront the beginning of my doom. Heaving a deep sigh, I stretched myself on the mat, wrinkling my nose from the pong oozing through the gaps in the covered shit-bucket.
For what seemed like years, I stared wide-eyed into the dark, willing sleep to free me from the ugliness of my environment and companions. The seconds crawled like snails and I could feel every limb in me trembling—what’s the time...what’s the bloody time? Curse it; I have to know the time…must know the time.
“What’s the time? Does anybody know the time?” the scream was out of my lips before I could rein in my panic.
“Shut the fuck up, fucking lunatic,” a prisoner yelled, soon followed by other curses and abuses till I felt my ears ring. Biggie threw something hard at me and I winced.
“If I hear a fucking word out of your mouth again, I’ll do you in, you hear?” his voice was as brutal as his scarified face. I didn’t have to answer; the menace in his tone was enough to shut me up. Anyway, I was quivering so much I doubted I could speak even if I wanted—God have mercy! Time is passing me by. I started counting the seconds with maniacal frenzy; 1,2,3,4,5..33,34,35…57,58,59,60, One minute! 1,2,3…ten minutes—curse it! If only I can hold time…just freeze it, trap it with myself till I can escape this place and regain control of my time…
A sudden light flashed, illuminating the cell with blinding brightness. It felt like lightning, except there was no rain in the skies. It was the middle of the hot season, and I could feel the heat seeping through the cement floor. Moreover, lightning didn’t linger like this strange light dousing our cell in an unnatural blue hue.
“What was that?” my cellmates sat up groggily, shielding their eyes from the brightness.
“What the fuck?” Biggie sat up too, his eyes glaring red rage at me. For some inexplicable reason, the guy had it in for me and would blame me for thunder, lightning, or tornado if he could. I looked away from his angry glare and my eyes caught the sight of a round clock on the prison wall—Thank God! A clock! I was ready to dance as I noticed the time on the clock—10pm.
Suddenly, I froze. My heart started thudding, hot sweat dampening my face. There was something wrong about that clock. It had no business being on that wall—it’s not possible! There’s no way my bedroom clock could have landed in this cell! I knew that clock like I knew my own face. It was a unique clock, a wedding present from Biram’s sister. The gilded rims from the elephant ivory glowed an unearthly blue hue like the strange light inside our cell and the eery chiming of the clock could be heard three cells down the corridor—ding, ding! ding! Ten times it struck the hour, tolling my doom. My cellmates were staring at the clock in disbelief.
“Who put that clock there?” Biggie asked threateningly. My cellmates shook their heads, a dazed expression on their faces.
“You!” Biggie turned at me, an ugly look in his eyes. “I warned you, didn’t I? Now, you’ll…”
He didn’t finish his threat. A greater threat killed his own. A figure materialised before us, a ghastly spectre of unimaginable horror. One bulging eyeball lolling outside its socket, the other eye a bloodied orb of undiluted hate. Its head was so squashed that the grey matter of bloodied brains dripped like pus down its sunken cheeks. Oh Jehovah…Oh Jehovah…Bir-Biram! I felt something hot between my thighs as I voided my piss-bag in an involuntary act of icy terror. For a brief second, the ghost glared at me with unrestrained fury before turning to Biggie. A quick flick of her hand sent Biggie flying across the small cell, smashing him against the hard wall by the door. Biggie’s shrieks, coupled with that of my cellmates, soon had the entire prison in an uproar.
As the spirit staggered towards my direction, the guards arrived. They took one look at the scene and fled in extemporaneous terror, screaming louder than my cellmates. I was bereft of reason. I was a bundle of mumbling insanity. Terror froze me in the damp pool of my piss, and my eyes were ready to pop.
“It’s ten o’clock, dear husband,” the ghoul said, her voice a gurgle of horror. “You told me to be ready by ten o’clock every night and I’ve come to obey your command.”
“No…no…oh Jehovah, nooo!” I finally found my voice, but it was too late. Biram’s ghost fell on me, seeking my terror-wilted manhood with putrid hands that stained my flesh with pus and slime—Jehovah! Jehovah!
By the time Biram’s ghost was done with me, I was ready to join my ancestors in blissful death. My torture endured for countless hours, yet when she was finally done with me, the accursed clock on the wall remained at ten o’clock. The blue light winked out as rapidly as it had appeared and the chiming clock vanished with it. When the guards finally returned with reinforcement, my cellmates had passed out and Biggie was whimpering in his own stinky shit.
As for me, my body was a mass of pain, stinging and throbbing from Biram’s vicious ministrations. Bleeding bruises marked every part of my flesh. I lay groaning on the thin mat as the guards removed everybody from the cell. They relocated us in different cells while waiting for the Chief-warder to arrive.
By daybreak, the entire prison knew what had transpired in our cell and nobody would touch me with a badge-pole. I was quickly returned to my old cell and locked within for the rest of the day. Before night-time the following day, people started gathering outside my locked cell to witness my curse. And they weren’t disappointed. At exactly ten o’clock, Biram appeared with her infernal blue light and chiming clock. And with a fling of her arm, she dispersed the screaming crowd with the force of a fury-wind. I saw people flying, flung with such force that their bodies crashed into each other before hitting the walls and ceiling. Pandemonium followed, the injured howling pitifully while the rest fled for dear life.
And once again, Biram’s ghost did its business with my battered body, leaving behind fresh bruises and new nightmares. Even in the days I gave her the marriage sermons, I never treated her body with the kind of violence she subjected me to. Later in the week, I heard some of the prisoners saying that the Chief-warder had instructed I be transferred back to the police cell till my trial. But I guess it came to nothing. The police wouldn’t have me, same with the nearby army barracks. A month after my first visitation, and I was still stuck in my accursed cell, waiting for time to stand still at ten o’clock every night, and praying for Justice Bako to finally set me free.
But the useless man is once again indisposed, just as he’s been from the day my case was assigned to his court. I know Biram is behind it somehow; she’s determined to keep me alive as her toy-thing for as long as her soured soul desires. And now, as I count down the hours to nightfall, I pray…oh Jehovah pity my soul! I pray that for once in her accursed life, Biram would be late.
End
Little Note
I hope you enjoyed this short piece of horror. As I mentioned, the story was inspired by a song I heard as a child. Growing up, we always listened to various stories under the bright glow of the full moon, and those stories were always accompanied by interactive songs and choruses. One of those songs had some terrifying lyrics that used to keep me awake every night my uncle retold the story, usually when he was inebriated and couldn’t remember new tales to tell. The lyrics went as follows:
“Our husband wrote us a letter, instructing us to return at night, at the stroke of midnight. It’s now 12 midnight and we’ve obeyed his words. Our husband, good evening; our husband, your wives greet you; our husband, we have returned.”
Innocent-sounding lyrics, except the wives were all dead, each one murdered by their husband and their bodies used for juju rituals to make him richer than the richest king in the land, so that he becomes eligible to marry the princess. The vengeful ghosts of the murdered wives returned nightly at the strike of 12 midnight to haunt their fickle and murderous husband. I used to lie awake expecting to hear the shuffling footsteps of the sister-wives, their ghosts wailing like my uncle’s voice, little bells tingling ominously in the dead of night, heralding their arrival. This story was to exorcise that horrible song from my head and kill the fear it bred in my childhood heart, right into my adulthood. I hope I’m now free of its terror and wish you all a peaceful sleep 😊
Remember, do share your experience of these thought-provoking tales of terror and mystery. Introduce your friends to Nuzo’s Nightmare Pit.
The Time Master
From the title, I was expecting a sci-fi story, maybe a take on Doctor Who, but this was really cool and original. Great last line, too.