Battle for Ubeli: A Modern Tale of Morality and Faith

“So you’re a priest?”

The man, Wakutu, only nodded.

“And you can do magic?”

He nodded again.

I smiled and motioned to my bowl of water containing a few coins and a ring. “Mind if I try something?”

His eyes narrowed. “What are you hoping to see?”

I lifted the bowl in front of me and began to wave it around. “Well, I want to know if you can influence luck or not with your…magic? Can you make this coin go into the center of the bowl?”

Wakutu hesitated for a moment before he nodded. “Yes. But this is not what I was trained for. We do not manipulate chance, but we interpret it. We don’t change fate, but we interpret it for those who need guidance in their lives. If you want luck then buy a lottery ticket or play blackjack at the casino tonight. That is why I am here, little girl. Fortune telling is not my gift.” He leaned forward and his voice dropped. “Nor is reading minds. Nor casting out demons from men who have been possessed by them. Nor healing the sick or injured with my hands or laying on hands upon many who were ill and they were healed by God through me because of my faith and sacrifice to Him. All that I do, no man can do unless he has faith in God as well. And even then it is God who moves through us to heal and cleanse this world through His followers here on Earth!” His eyes blazed with intensity as he stared at me while he spoke, so I dropped my gaze back down to the bowl in my hand and continued waving it around while he ranted about his powers until he took a deep breath and fell silent again before continuing to speak softly once more about what I had asked him earlier, saying that he could indeed influence luck with his magic, but it was never guaranteed to work every time because there was always some risk involved as well as an immense amount of work that needed to be put into these spells in order for them to succeed every time without fail because there were spirits out there that fought against him when he attempted to draw upon their power and if they could stop him then he would never be able to make this coin go into the bowl now floating in front of me, which was exactly what I wanted him to do because then maybe he was just another fraud trying to trick people out of their hard-earned money!

I kept swirling the bowl around until Wakutu had begun talking again about how faith in God was required in order for any of his magic spells to work just as they did every time when they were cast by other priests like himself throughout history because all of us were imperfect beings who were born with free will so we could choose whether we followed God or not and no matter how much faith we had in Him that faith might still be tested by doubt when we thought our prayers weren’t being answered or when we asked Him something which seemed impossible so we questioned whether He could really help us or not and if He couldn’t then why bother following His ways when He wasn’t strong enough to help us so He let bad things happen instead and what kind of god would allow evil things such as murder and rape and torture to happen if He truly loved us anyway so we might decide that believing in Him was pointless so Wakutu prayed for my soul so that maybe I would have faith too so one day after death I could join him in heaven!

He went on ranting about his god for a while longer until finally he fell silent again except for the sound of his breathing which was slow and steady now while his eyes remained closed as though he was sleeping while sitting up straight like this (though no one can sleep sitting up on a bench like this) so I decided now was my chance! I slowly lowered the bowl back towards each of my knees where it began spinning round slowly between them like a carousel as I watched Wakutu intently for any signs that he wasn’t asleep but merely faking it but nothing appeared! Not even a movement! The man didn’t budge an inch! He didn’t even twitch! The only thing wrong with him was that his chest wasn’t moving up and down any more like it should be doing while someone slept…or pretended they were sleeping! So maybe this guy wasn’t just another scam artist trying to trick me out of my hard-earned money after all! Maybe this guy really did have magical powers after all though surely anyone could take advantage of someone else if they put their mind to it but maybe not everyone would care enough about putting their skills towards helping others as well which made sense since most people are selfish assholes who only care about themselves anyways so obviously they wouldn’t want to help others unless they got something out of it themselves which made sense! Why else would most people do anything?! Sure some people might donate money or food or clothing etcetera without having anything directly returned from others but most people wouldn’t unless there was some sort of benefit for them personally involved somehow like helping them get closer with someone else which made even more sense since eventually one person would have less than another although surely if everyone helped each other equally then eventually everyone would end up with everything equally too but obviously that wasn't going to happen any time soon since most people are fucking selfish assholes who only care about themselves anyways so obviously everything would remain unequal forever just as it always has been throughout human history with kings ruling over peasants slaves serving rich masters slaves finding their own freedom and joining forces with other slaves breaking free from their masters forcing even more slaves down into slavery etcetera until finally everyone became equal though the poor still suffered due to living conditions while many wealthy elites lived lavishly off their wealth made off those poor masses underneath them making sure they kept being poor while they lived richly off all the money they stole from them making sure they stay poor while they lived freely off all the money stolen from them making sure they stayed poor while they lived freely off all the money stolen from them making sure they stayed poor while they lived freely off all the money stolen from them making sure they stayed poor while keeping stealing from them etcetera until finally everyone became equal though the poor still suffered due to living conditions while many wealthy elites lived lavishly off their wealth made off those poor masses underneath them making sure they kept being poor etcetera until finally everyone became equal though etcetera until eventually everyone becomes equal etcetera!!!