In a small village there lived a young woman. She was blessed with beauty, intelligence, charm and wealth. Her long silhouette slipped voluptuously through the streets and her stately posture made people think she must be a queen. Her large gazelle eyes charmed all men although she never looked at any of them.

No man found grace in her sight.

“Too ugly, too dumb, too poor, too difficult,” she would think.

She lived alone, all alone in a large house, in love with nobody but herself.

Time passed. No compliments nor promises of marriage, no gifts, even gifts of herds of cows, jewelry or precious cloth could find their way to her heart.

One morning she woke up worried. So many years had gone by…. And now she wanted to be a mother and began to look at men in a different light. But still, they didn’t appeal at all to her.

So she went to a magician and explained her problem. She wanted to have a child all by herself, so that the fruit would be as perfect as the flower that had produced it. The healer was at first taken aback, but then agreed to his client’s wishes. He gathered together some buffalo grease, wet it with toad blood and pronounced a ritual formula. From the mixture he made a black doll that he covered with clay and blew on. The clay began to quiver, and they heard it crying feebly. The mother was delighted and took her child home, telling anyone willing to listen that her treasure was pure because it had been conceived without any man’s help.

The child grew and began to become noisy like the toad, ill-tempered like the buffalo and as pesky as a hungry mosquito. It became as mean as its mother had been perfect. The life of that family turned into a disaster. Everybody avoided them because they feared the child so much.

And the beautiful woman’s life became a desert. Because she had sought what was inaccessible, she hadn’t recognized the happiness within her reach.

Tale by Kama Sywor Kamanda