In a modern age like this, the use of voodoo is practised in privacy, the only people that put an open show to it are the herbalists which we commonly call 'native doctors' because they're native and deeply rooted in spiritual stuff which aid the effectiveness of their herbal mixtures. All these were a thing of opposite to Boniface who was one of the hostellers in the hostel I stayed in my second year in school. We weren't close friends initially, we were neighbours who chitchat during cool hours of the day and with that, I got a bit closer to him and learnt that he uses voodoo to charm girls to him.
I didn't get to know it from him, it was from one of the hostellers in the compound, and immediately I was told, I went to him directly to confirm.
"Bro, you don't know?"
"Haaa! You surprised me because I used to see you as a smart person"
"The voodoo thing is not hidden, everyone in the compound knows about it"
Borniface said with laughs in between from the bed he was lying down.
I was a bit shocked at how boastful he claimed it. I was dumbfounded for some minutes while I stared at him pressing his phone lying on his bed with one of his legs raised and resting on the window.
"So all these girls that followed you to this place were all charmed. Omo!" I've heard about the love potion but haven't seen anyone using it. It was a thing of shock to me, to know that someone I'm very close with has that power. I sat down on his reading plastic chair and began to preach holiness to him;
"Do you know that using charm to get a lady liking you and having your is likened to rape? How do you even enjoy their company when you know that the bond is not genuine?"
"Pastor Kingsleeeeeey!" He hailed me, got up from the bed in jubilation like he was intoxicated by alcohol and rushed to his clothes hanger nailed to the wall, checked on the pocket of one of the trousers and returned to face me with his right hand stretched towards me with the palm tightly closed and with a very serious face said, "where do I drop the offering?"
"You're a fool oooo!" I couldn't contain his sense of humour and we burst into laughter.
The laughter pushed him back to the bed and after some seconds, he cleared his throat and began;
"Like I told you, I'm not hiding it. Even some of the ladies know that my attraction to them is not ordinary and they don't care too. It's my easy way to live and I don't see it as I'm committing a crime"
It was as if Borniface had done training on how to defend himself. After he said all that, I became speechless and the next thing I altered as I got up to leave was "May it not backfire on you one day" and he jokingly screamed a loud "Amen!"
I'm someone who doesn't easily detach someone, the only thing I do in such a situation is to be cautious of what I eat from such a person. So yeah, that's exactly what I was doing, we were still close, we still came out to gist at night in the space in the compound but in the midst of that, I never took in anything food-related from his house.
To be very sincere, I was bothered a lot at how a young guy with a light complexion which is every lady's dream would be using love potion when he can easily charm any girl with his light skin. And at the other end, I kept wondering how some of the ladies would know the attraction is not ordinary and still be very seriously locked in it. Anyway, that's the work of a love potion.
Towards the end of the semester when we were preparing for examinations, on one of the weekends, Borniface decided to travel home to get a little food that would sustain him for the examination period. It was easy for him to travel home because he has a motorbike and also, the distance from the school city to his home is within two hour's journey.
He travelled on Friday and the next day, Saturday, he called and said he was admitted to the hospital.
"Hospital? How? What happened? You had an accident? You weren't sick yesterday?" I rushed my questions in one second due to the shock of what I just heard.
"Not accident? I've been keeping it to myself for a while and it became severe that Friday, that's the major reason I decided to travel home. I'm sick and it's gonorrhoea" His voice was shaky, not the lively voice of Borniface I used to know.
I pleaded to talk to his dad with his phone which I did and according to the dad, the sickness was severe and he needed to stay away from school until he was treated. I related to the father about the upcoming exam and asked him to come to school and relate the health status of Boniface to the school management so he could be exempted from writing the exam till when he's fully back to health.
The father did just that, he was allowed to stay off while we wrote the exam.
Each of the weekends of the exam period I made sure I reached out to his parents to ask how he was fairing. Many times I requested to talk to him directly but I wasn't allowed due to how severe his health was.
He was recovering and that day I finally spoke with him, I was so excited and pleaded that he turn over a new leaf and his response was what melted my heart, "you don't need to tell me that, I'm turning to a pastor once I come out from this hospital bed" and we laughed.
Thanks for reading.
