Mekson stares at the freshly filled grave as sympathisers mill around him. It’s been four weeks of agony for him. It’s just like a dream. May dead and buried? He shakes his head, willing the fleshly filled mound to disappear. But no, it won’t – a reminder that May is gone forever. His heart aches.
He loved May! She was such a quiet, well behaved girl; a very shy type too. They met about 10 months ago through a mutual friend and hit it off so good. The first day she saw his huge dangler, she screamed. She was so scared. She wouldn’t allow him come near her with the dangling monster.
She was scared that after taking such, another one would be like a teaspoon in a teacup. He had assured her that he had no intention of allowing her taste other ones as he wanted to get married to her. Of course, she insisted that he saw her uncle and make his intentions known, which he did before they got down to it. Even then, he knew it was the love she had for him that made her to bear his huge dangler.
They both looked forward to the time she would be used to it… unfortunately, that dream is dead and buried with her. …. The case with the police wouldn’t have been so difficult if May’s people didn’t try all possible to take their pound of flesh. Geez! What a culture! Even when the police cleared him! Left to the police, it was a kind of open and close case. Robbers visited a home, raped a female to death and carted valuables away. That was the statement Mekson made. The robbers visited two other flats.
His neighbours made statements too. The pathologist’s report said she was sexually assaulted. It said something about rupture. It said something else, that May was six weeks pregnant! That tore through Mekson’s heart like a knife. May’s family was beside itself with grief. Her only sister cried and rolled herself on the floor.
They are orphans. She is now alone in the world, she wailed. Mekson is sure May’s uncles asked him more than 100 times how their daughter died. “Mekson or what do you call yourself, who did you say killed our daughter?” one would ask when he wasn’t expecting it. “Sir, armed robbers came to my house. They robbed me and killed May, sir,” he would reply.
“How did they kill May? Where were you then? Why didn’t they kill you too?” another uncle would ask. “I was in the sitting room and May was in the bedroom,” he would reply. “You mean you ran to the sitting room and left our daughter to fight the robbers? Is that how you treat a woman? People like you live off women. You are a coward. You are not qualified to marry our daughter… ehen…how did you say she was killed? Tell me…tell me,” the first would ask again.
He should have known that horror awaited him in May’s village. After making him say all he knew about May’s death at her burial, they dropped the bombshell…he must be joined with her in wedlock! He thought it was a bad joke but he got wiser. Six hefty youths appeared and stood before him.
He was forced to pay May’s bride price before she was buried. It was a short ceremony. Mekson shudders. The brief ceremony was eerie. It’s part of their culture, they said.
The lady was pregnant out of wedlock and there’s grave consequence if she is buried without being traditionally married to the man responsible. Of course, if he knew about this, he wouldn’t have attended the burial. He wouldn’t have travelled to this interior village. If he had a choice, he wouldn’t have been joined to a ghost. The four friends he went with took to their heels immediately everything turned ugly. He wouldn’t blame them, May’s people act like warriors.
The youths are fearsome. After the cursed marriage, he was given the position of a chief mourner. He sits there, looking but not actually seeing anything. He couldn’t wait to get out of this community. He hopes nothing else would be required of him after the funeral rites. His mind travels back to those days when he sought solution to his then thumb-sized penistus.
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He was the butt of dozens of jokes in his secondary school hostel. The other boys laughed at him each time they took their bath. They told him he was not complete as a man.
The first woman he had sexual dealings with was all but flabbergasted. She told him in no uncertain terms to go seek solution. She’s an older lady and he had just finished secondary school and was waiting for admission into the university. He pleaded with the lady to help him and she referred him to an old man who deals in herbs.
The old man brought out three sticks of different sizes and asked him to choose one. Mekson picked the biggest. The man gave him a concoction to rub on his penistus and told him to stop using it when it got to the desired size. He paid, thanked the man and went his way. True to the man’s words, his penistus got bigger as he rubbed the concoction on it.
He was so happy seeing it grow that he never noticed that it was growing out of proportion. By the time he realised it was bigger than all he’d seen, it was too late.
Even the lady that took him to the man was surprised at the result. “Do you know you’ve become the man some women will pay to have? I could introduce you to some women that will change your life for good,” she told him admiringly. “I don’t want it so big. This is monstrous. I haven’t seen one this big,” he complained.
He was able to prevail on her to take her back to the old man. “My son, you chose the size you wanted. That’s what you got,” the man said. “This is not the size I chose, sir,” Mekson whined.
“Let me see…it’s quite big…you’re right. But I told you to stop applying the medicine I gave you when you get to your desired size,” the man said. “It was when I noticed that it was getting too big that I stopped sir,” Mekson said…
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Wow! So there’s more to this killer dangler? Getting married to a ghost is freaky, isn’t it? Let’s continue on this interesting journey with Mekson on Sunday.