"Will you get back inside!" My dad raised his voice when we crossed him in the parlour on our churchy dress with the small 'New Testament' bible in our hands. The voice made me and my two sisters startle and we stood still on the spot like we were under remote control.
"We are going to church crusade," Judith, my eldest sister said boldly because, in normal circumstances, my dad doesn't hinder us from going to church programs.
"Crusade keh? So you're telling me that you've not been hearing what's trending about the so-called priest?" My dad paused and murmured some words that were only understandable to him but we knew he was angry and we needed to approach it with caution. He continued, "Every time crusade, crusade, crusade! You're not going anywhere. Even if what they're saying is not true, where there's smoke, there's fire"
At this moment, our faces changed, got darkened like clouds that were full and wanted to release rain. We sluggishly went back into the room with our hearts boiling with anger due to disappointment.
Before that moment, there were trends about the crusade we were about to attend, it's said that the priest was using voodoo to perform miracles and that's the reason my dad refused to allow us to go because according to him, such miracles would come with a side effect which may not occur instantly.
As for us, we weren't interested in the miracles, we just wanted to go and watch the performance in order not to be left out when it came to gisting about the two-day crusade. We couldn't attend the first day which was on Thursday night and when we got to school on Friday, the happenings on the crusade were the talk of every student and we vowed never to miss Friday's night version which was the last day and it promised to be a very entertaining show but my dad came as a blockage.
"Go and beg him, tell him that we won't stay long" Judith suggested to Joy, the last born which she didn't hesitate. She went out and came back in a jiffy, "Dad is not around, let's go, let's go" She said fastly in a whispering tone with a smile on her face and we quickly picked our bibles and headed out very fast and just as we came out of the compound feeling escaped finally, we met daddy, coming back opposite us, he had escorted a friend that came to visit him.
Immediately we saw him, we did a quick turn and ran back inside with fear. We knew he was going to beat us, so we sat in the parlour waiting for him with a remorseful face as a way of reporting ourselves for violating his rules.
He walked in and moved passed us without saying anything and immediately that, we looked at each other and smiled. We just did the magic that softened his heart and it worked. One thing about my dad is that, once you commit a crime and report yourself, he'll take a pass.
We decided to finally obey him that evening and wait patiently for those who went to return and spread the gist on our table.
Just as expected, the next morning came with loud talks about the crusade and the magic-like miracles that happened. Neighbours in the compound exaggerated a lot and the more I heard, the more it pained me that I wasn't around to witness all the drama. The most interesting thing was that at the end of their stories, they always ended up with "God forbid, all those miracles can not be real, God will expose him very soon" and a very loud "Amen!" would be echoed by anyone around them.
All through the season, we were very entertained by the stories of the crusade and to the extent that it got to a stage we began to narrate the event to others as if we were there and that's due to how well fed we were with the stories. It was a one-of-a-kind happening in town because the dead were raised back to life but the funny thing is that the dead were not people we knew, they were from other villages around us which made it look fishy as well.
Just when the stories were about to finally die down after a month of the crusade, a news came that the priest had run mad and there were videos of him circulated everywhere.
"I said it! God is not asleep!"
"Finally, the butt of the fowl has been exposed!"
These were in the mouths of everyone who heard about the issue.
Not quite long ago, we heard that the priest had died also and it was confirmed by people that visited the village where he was buried.
Thanks for reading.
This is for the 'where there's smoke there's fire' prompt. I missed the deadline