Its between Loveth and some rainmakers now .

[Calllaris]

 

 

"Everytime one tried to contest the authority of rainmakers over the sky, in Anobi town, a cynical allusion was made to Loveth of the Lord's Chosen. 

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Loveth was a flaming Christian. She was among those, as the saying was, who overflowed in the spirit. The feeling she had for the time -honored traditions of her people bordered strictly on disdain. Bone-faced, loud-spirited and shoulder-high, Loveth’s faith was as shrill as her voice. 

 

 

This ultra-radical Christian was getting married in the heart of July.  A far-reputed Christian she is, she invariably refused to send kola to appease the Makers of rain. 

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Indignation would’ve been staved if she did that quietly. But it was done with some chest-thumping. She boasted to the hearing of all and sundry that the God of chosen would be on ground to show himself mighty and to demonstrate to unbelievers that he still ruled the world and everything therein. 

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There was a further addition of salt to injury. With unhidden egoism, 

Loveth further bragged that prayer warriors from the Lord’s Chosen would be around to ridicule the 'false prophets of Baal'. 

 

That 'sacrilegious' intelligence got to the eldest rain maker in the town – the man who carried, as it was said, the mysterious bag of harmattan. His informer was deliberately bent on adding 'fuel to the fire'. He mangled the message to rile and arouse the old man to anger. The old man was told that the little but loudmouthed Loveth said that they have never made a drop of rain but were a pack of fraudulent impostors sustained by the ignorant credulity of the people. 

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 Old man was unspeakably aroused – so angered that he sprang up and ran to his blood-dripping shrine in what approximated battle-readiness.

As that wild passion mellowed, he thanked his informer and dignifiedly dismissed him. It was clear that the gloves were off. 

 

Old man was restless with indignation. Such matter could not have waited. He wasn’t the only one whose name was besmeared. Those of his fathers of remote antiquity who began to make rain from Adam’s time were likewise sprinkled with insult. In a state of unbalancing rage, he sounded the bugle. 

 

A message was dispatched to all the rain makers in the town.  They were told to put on their most efficacious amulets come July 14.

 

The town went into transports of ecstasy and  wild glee. 

It was as if Elijah and the prophets of Baal were meeting again to measure strengths. 

 

Appointed day finally arrived, It was the most anticipated day in the town’s (all) history. Not even the great festivals nor the day the first king was crowned held the people in greater tenterhooks. Nobody could’ve missed that drama for all the world. 

 

Loveth  kept her words. Apron-wearing prayer warriors from the Lord’s chosen milled into the town and threw it into bedlamic confusion. It was a striking, uncommon sight. They were singing repetitively, praying stridently and  energetically marching and thumping the earth. It was just as if a considerable bevy of partially uniformed lunatics were gathered and doing some enchanted acrobatics. 

 

The old man- rainmaker was an August creature. A being in whose repose dignity and high-borness were harmoniously interlaced. He was a miracle of tranquility – of dangerous, ominous tranquility. The fireside of his ancestors was an oasis of chaotic peace. It was in that un-strirring attitude of a meditating Buddha that the extraordinary creature settled down to business – wordlessly. 

 

It began with a most ferocious wind. Trees were seen swaying and flapping violently as surcharged gales swept through them. The prayer warriors intensified the universal uproar. They began to pray with a desperation and vigor which no pen can describe. One of them was preeminently fired up. He was a runtish man with aggressive shoulders and fanatical eyes. His was measureless intoxication, speaking in some outlandish tongues, he dashed into the elemental madness, making as cutting the image of a stunted human figure in the midst of the heartless wild and wind. That was unavailing. Disappointingly profitless. 

.

Main destruction ensued. Canopies hired and erected for the ceremony were seen flying off and tumbling down. Women and children fled in a mood that was a mixture of palpitant panic and enthusiastic excitement. Men and elders made off in hurried dignity. The world was going stark mad. Rain began to fall. 

 .

Their faces became wretched expressions of woe and crestfallen defeat. Their apron, the reputed insignia of their strident faith and might, were sodden and stuck to their quivering bodies like hiding flags of defeat. Any painter or sculptor who did not behold those rain-drenched prayer warriors in their fagged exhaustion and shamefaced attitude should not venture into any painting touching on the vanquished prophets of Baal. 

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Unremittingly and pitilessly it continued to come down in bucketfuls. It was intermittently punctuated with blustering gales that only seemed to have burst more fountains in the sky. Awful peals of thunder and fear-striking flashes of lightning compounded the mad din. 

 

For six frightful days and devil-dark nights it rained hells and demons. Night's brought neither pause nor respite. They were dreadfully starless and impenetrable.

People feared earnestly that the rainmakers were destroying the world by the means of a second flood. 

 

Their fancy was not overstretched. What happened bore near resemblance to Noah’s flood without the benefits of his Ark and mountain Ararat.

 

What could have happened if some sashed and respectable elders did not intervene should be left to imagination.

In all those indescribable fear and mad racket, the rainmaker, that august creature, that son of the thunderbolts and of the sky, managed to preserve his unflappable tranquility. 

 

And Nobody could tell to this day when Loveth gave wine to her husband. Her marriage was one breachless flood. She is still single, at least in the eyes of tradition"

 

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