I Once Dated A Girl Who To The Devil Wanted To Destroy

In 2017, I went to one of the polytechnics in Ghana for a project. We spent three weeks there. There was this girl who was coming to our project site each morning. Very slim and tall. She had a smile that brightened her face. She would come to me each morning and ask me, “Jeff, how is it going?” Soon we were friends. She was a student. She was doing a course I studied in the university. When we realized we had that in common, our friendship thickened. She came to me with assignments and I helped. A day before we left the project, I proposed to her. She asked me why and I said, “We are leaving this town. I don’t want this to be our last time of seeing each other. I love you. I want to see more of you.” She laughed, “If seeing me is all you want then no problem. You’ll see me again.”

“No that’s not all I want. I want you to be my girlfriend too. Will you?”

“No problem. I’m your girlfriend. Where do we go from here?”

The next time I saw her was in my room in Koforidua. She had travelled from campus to visit me. We spent our first weekend together. She was doing her project work so I helped and even gave her a different angle she should go with it. She started coming to me every once in a month. She would come on Friday night and leave on Sunday evening. We were only three months together when we started talking about marriage. She said, “I’ll do my national service here with you. We would be closer and that would speed up things.” I loved the idea so I said yes.

One dawn she was on my side when I had a nightmare. It looked so real that I woke up from the dream shouting. She woke up with her heart in her palms. She said, “You scared me. What is wrong with you?” I didn’t remember how it started but I remember being chased by two men with machete. They had blood dripping from the side of their mouth and wearing black mask that covered only their eyes. They were so close to catching me when I screamed “Jesus” and woke up. When I told her the dream she smiled. She said, “You’re lucky that it’s just a dream. By this time you would have been a meat.”

She left the following day and I didn’t make anything out of the dream. A month later she came. She was lying next to me when I had another nightmare. I was in prison and being tortured by three huge men who looked like they were sent from hell. The reason they were torturing me wasn’t clear but they kept screaming, “Where is the girl? Where did you hide her? Do you want to die?” I’d been beaten for so long I didn’t have the energy to talk. I woke up from that dream and couldn’t walk well all day. It felt like I’d been beaten for real.

The next nightmare too she was lying by my side. I started connecting the dots. “She’s always here when I have these dreams. The last time they were asking me about a girl. Could she be the one?” So I told her, “Have you realized that I have nightmares whenever you are here?” I didn’t approach the subject well. The way I said it felt like I was blaming her for my nightmare. She said, “Don’t worry. I won’t come here again.” I apologized right there but my apology didn’t get to her heart. She said, “I travel every Friday night to this place because I love you. The best thing you can do in return is to accuse me of bringing nightmares into your life? No problem.”

For more than two months, my girlfriend wasn’t coming to me so I decided to travel to her one Friday after work.

My car moved around 5:30pm. We didn’t get anywhere until the car started shaking. The driver got out and opened the bonnet. Minutes later, he was back behind the steer. I dozed off along the way. All I heard was the screaming voices of peoples; “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” I opened my eyes and saw the car running into a ditch. Few seconds later, it hit a rock and fell on it side. The women were screaming. The men were trying to get out of the car by all means possible. Nobody died. I didn’t get hurt. I called her and told her what has happened and she said, “Please go to the hospital. Don’t come. You might be hurt internally.”

I went back home and went to the hospital the following day. After series of scans, I was declared fit. A few days later, I had a dream again. The same huge guy. He sniffed around me and walked away. I called my mom and told her everything but I omitted the fact that it only happens when a certain girl comes to visit me. She said, “Pray about it. I will also pray about it.” Days later she called and asked me, “What times do you have those dreams?” I said, “But mom, when do we dream? Is it not at night when we sleep?” She said, “I went asking about it. That’s the question they asked me. Is a woman involved?” I shuddered. I said, “Yes.” She said, “Don’t go to work on Friday. Come home.”

I was with her in the house when a woman entered. She was dressed normally like a woman going to church. My mom said, “This is my son. The woman looked into my eyes and I tried avoiding her gaze. She screamed “Hey, hold it. Keep looking into my eyes.” For several minutes it was “Look into my eyes’ contest. She said, “Cut all contact with that girl. She’s a link to your destruction. If she would listen to you, then bring her to me. She’s being pursued.” Right after her last word, she walked out. I asked my mom. “What was that?” She said, “Do as she said and you’ll be fine.”

I got home and called the girl. I told her everything and she said, “Don’t get me involved in your witchcraft. The only one I depend on is God.” I said, “Then that’s ok. We can’t be together again. It has become that critical.” She laughed at me and called me feeble. “You’re leaving a girl you said you love because of what a fetish told you? Ain’t you a Christian? Don’t you know God? Are you such a weak believer?” She took the whole thing as a joke and called often to mock at me. “I’m visiting you today, let’s see if you’ll die”

She came. We spent the weekend together and surprisingly, I had no nightmares. She left on Sunday evening and a few minutes after she left my mother called me. She shouted on the phone, “Herh Kwabena, if you don’t like your life, I like it. We eat because of you. Don’t be silly and waste your life because of a woman. Are you getting mad? Is she the only woman in the world?” I was like how did this woman know?” I asked her, “Mom what are you talking about?” She said, “The woman just left my house a moment ago. She said you’ve touched what she asked you not to touch so I should ask you if you want to die.”

I shrunk. I shivered. I slept that fight with fears in my heart. I blocked her line and blocked her everywhere. The following Friday she came around asking why I’ve blocked her. I explained to her. She screamed at me, “You’re just using excuse to get rid of me. You’ve gotten what you want from me so you want to discard me like I don’t matter? No I won’t allow it.”

I called my mom. I said, “She’s here please talk to her.” My mom held nothing back. She said, “If you don’t believe what my son is saying then please leave him for me. It’s the same God you worship who revealed this to us. Just leave him alone.” When she cut the line she said, “No wonder. The thing is rooted in your family. I will walk away. I won’t like to be associated with a family like this.”

She walked out and I didn’t hear from her again until she completed school. She sent a text telling me about her graduation. She said, “I wish you would be here but the devils in your family won’t allow you so just wish me well.” I laughed. I told her, “Let’s see. I may come and wish you well on that day.”

A day to her graduation I called her phone. I wanted to know how the program was going to go. I called her several times and she didn’t pick. In the evening I saw her calling. I picked and it was a different voice. She said, “You’ve been calling her, right. We are all waiting for her to answer but…” Then she chocked on her words. She started crying. And then she said, “But she couldn’t make it. She died.”

She was returning to campus for her graduation when she had an accident. She was rushed to the hospital and she died on arrival. She was the only one who died in the accident. You look at the car that had the accident and you wouldn’t believe the car had an accident. Everything was fine and everyone was fine except my girlfriend. She died that day when I was calling to find out about her graduation.

I cried for days. I couldn’t eat and couldn’t even go to work. I called my mom and told her everything. She mourned, “If only she believed.”

According to what the woman told my mom, it was her aunt who carried out that mission. My mom said, “You would have been gone before her if you didn’t listen.“ I asked, “But why would they come for me? I was only a lover. They could have taken her without involving me?” My mom said, “You don’t understand. Those who wish to destroy you don’t need to have a reason to do that. They only have to want to destroy you and they’ll do it. Do you think the girl did something wrong? No, her existence alone was enough.”

I picked up my bible and never put it down. I’ve held a lot of positions in church but the greatest position I’ve ever held is to be called a Christian. I think of her sometimes and tell myself, “If only she listened, she would have been here with me.”