It was 3 a.m. I was alone. But the terror was still there, clinging to me like a living shadow.
I got up and went to the kitchen. I drank some water, trembling.
I couldn’t close my eyes again until morning. And that image… that hand in the puddle… remained carved in my mind like a warning.
When I woke up that morning, I felt strangely light. As if the night had wiped everything away. No fear, no memory… Even the uneasiness that had followed me for days seemed to have vanished.
I didn’t remember the dream. Not at all.
It was as if it had never existed. The hand, the puddle, the voices… everything had been erased from my memory.
I got up, cleaned the house a bit, opened the shop as if nothing had happened.
Customers came in, like before. Some smiled at me, others gave me sad looks and whispered condolences. But I felt… fine.
At least, that’s what I thought.
Around noon, as the sun beat down hard, I felt something strange rise inside me. A heat.
But not the normal heat from the weather or the sun. An inner heat, like a burn.
I didn’t understand. My hands were damp, my throat dry, my head heavy. I tried drinking water first. But the more I drank, the hotter I felt.
A customer was talking to me, but his voice sounded like a distant echo. Then another voice. Then several.
And suddenly I said out loud:
— I’m hot… I want to wash myself…
They looked at me, surprised.
But I couldn’t take it anymore. I was suffocating.
So I started taking off my pagne, right there, in front of everyone. First my headscarf, then my chest…
— Ingride! Ingride! What are you doing?! a neighbor shouted.
But I didn’t hear her anymore. I didn’t hear anyone.
I saw only one place in front of me. The puddle.
The puddle in the neighborhood, the one that never dries.
In my mind, it wasn’t a puddle anymore. It was a lake, my lake, my bath, my purification.
I walked naked, slowly, my eyes fixed on the murky water.
The children stared at me in shock. The adults shouted my name. But my steps didn’t stop.
I walked toward what had been calling me for a long time without my knowing it.
Toward what I thought I had forgotten.
Toward the lake.
I don’t remember exactly how I got there.
I only remember the murky water. Cold. Dirty. Yet soft on my skin, like a calling.
I was already half-naked inside that puddle everyone avoids. The one that never dries, even under the blazing sun. The one children point at but never dare approach — but I was inside it, washing myself slowly, as if each movement freed me. As if I was shedding an invisible weight, an enchantment, a spell.
Then suddenly, screams.
— Oh Lord!
— Ingride! She’s washing herself in the puddle!
— Someone cover her!
— She’s naked ohh! She’s possessed!
I heard them, but their voices seemed so far away.
A woman ran to fetch a cloth and tried to cover me. She begged me, even shook me a little, but I was absent.
Then Mama Jeanne arrived, panicked.
She pushed through the crowd:
— Let her be, let her be!
She leaned toward me and called gently:
— Ingride… Ingride, my daughter, come…
With the help of two men from the neighborhood, they lifted me out of the water.
Mama Jeanne covered me and took me to her home.
I didn’t speak, didn’t cry. I stared into emptiness.
At her house, Mama Jeanne placed a bucket of warm water beside me, rubbed me down, talked softly while taking care of me.
But nothing reached me.
Then she had an idea.
She grabbed my phone. No lock. Thank God.
She searched, found “Mom,” and dialed.
— Hello, Ingride’s mother?… It’s urgent. Come. Quickly. Your daughter… she’s not well at all.
Mama Jeanne’s voice trembled.
Around 5 p.m., Ingride’s mother finally arrived, terrified, her heart racing. She rushed in and, upon seeing me, broke down in tears.
She knelt beside me, held me in her arms, but I still didn’t react.
I was there… without being there.
Around us, the neighborhood was buzzing with rumors.
Some said I had fallen. Others said I was possessed, that Malaba had taken me.
But for my mother, I was just her daughter.
Her daughter she had to save. And she would do anything for that.
