Tales OF The INVISIBLE

BY

Eric D.Mabuto

Copyright 2014c

Tales Of The Invisible“Invisibility creates a neurotic oscillation between a sense of entitlement and a sense of unearned privilege.” (Kimmel 2000)

Chapter ISo it happened in that year. Rivers dried up and trees stood naked as their leaves became as rare as a pangolin. Crops withered. The soil became a hard-fissured ground. Hunger was knocking on every doorstep. Household after household he collected tribute to deliver to his master: Death. Not a day went by without the echo of news that someone had joined his or her ancestors. Little children were a hideous sight. They stood by the roadside their big balloon shaped bellies sagging as if they were pregnant. Stomachs full of starvation. Hunger was still roaming the village. Little children were a ghastly sight as they stood there with their dry slimy saliva drooping white lips furnished with cracks showing red dry blood. It was a pitiful sight. Death was still hungry. Even after gobbling piles of villages, still his appetite was not appeased. He wanted more. Therefore, Hunger continued to raid the village. Mothers mourned their dead children until they could cry no more. All their tears dried up. One could not waste water in tears when it was so scarce. Crying became a luxury only a few could sacrifice doing. The cat slept in the cooking place.So it happened in that year. Grass went on a holiday and forgot to come back. Cattle roamed the forest looking for Grass but she was nowhere to be seen. A waistcoat of ribs was visible on the flesh of the cattle and their spines protruded like that of a malnourished dog. Grass had abandoned the cattle. Cattle died in multitudes. Most were discovered only as a pile of bones lying in the forest. Death’s ferocious appetite was getting

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Tales Of The Invisibleworse. He ate, ate, and kept eating. More, more, and even much more.One sunny day when the sun scotched and burnt like a furnace and the rare patches of dry grass sang songs of trials to come, songs of hardships to follow and songs of changes to happen. Bones to fall and rise again. The words of the Great Spirit medium Chaminuka came true in that year. The great prophecy of the coming of the dry season was finally fulfilled when the people were waiting for the rain, living in a house of hunger for there was no harvest but a harvest of thorns. Men with no knees dressed in clothes as bright as the wings of a butterfly arrived in the village. They were tall, with a pale light-toned completion and red large glaring hungry eyes. News of their presence spread across the village like a wildfire. Descriptions of them tickled ears of old and young alike. The tall-knee-less-strangers was what the villagers called them. They sauntered across the village, never speaking to anyone. When villagers greeted them, they stood still and their red hungry eyes drilled deep into the depth of the puzzled eyes of the villagers. They were always silent with hungry eyes. Hungry, hungry, eyes always hungry for something. One day they...A log landed on the fire. Sparks flew upwards in quick succession and exploded like fireworks. The fire ferociously consumed the log. A flare of light sparked and slowly faded. Joshua was startled. He was consumed by the story. He had forgotten that he was in the cooking hut. Buhle was sitting next to Joshua. She was waving away smoke from her face, sneering at the fire. Three other siblings sat next to Buhle. Gogo sat on the other side of the fire opposite Joshua. They were all gathered around the fire, enveloped in a round mud wall and a thatched roof with dangling black sooty locks. A mat made from grass lay between their buttocks and the mud floor coated with cow dung. A large metal pot with legs like a tripod stand sat against a darkened mud wall, next to a cupboard of shelves made from clay. Plates were neatly packed on the shelves. A

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Tales Of The Invisibledried goatskin hung on the old wooden door covering large and small meandering crevices. Flickering flames in the fireplace serenaded the night, and offered soothing warmth to the six people that were encircling it. Shadows on the wall kept on moving in a grotesque rhythm to the erratic movement of the smoking flames from the fireplace. The log that Buhle had thrown into the fire had interrupted Gogo’s story. Everyone in the cooking hut was given a jolt by the log that suddenly landed in the fire. Buhle had launched it into the fire at a time when everyone was hedged in, in Gogo’s story.A wave of anger engulfed Joshua, he was an enthusiastic fan of Gogo’s stories, and Buhle’s interruptions of the narrative greatly irritated him. He thought Buhle was being disrespectful and ought to be taught a lesson. “Don’t let her underestimate you, girls need to be disciplined, a beating is the only language they understand” the other boys had constantly told him. He never wanted them to think of him as being weak. After all, Mandla, his brother was feared and respected by all the older and younger boys in the three villages. Mandla was a fierce fighter that never turned down a fight. A self-proclaimed and fearfully acknowledged king of the Kusile forest. A bully many envied but never dared to challenge. He was the elephant whose footsteps hit the ground and it responded in earthquakes. If he thrashes you with his leather whip, you absorbed the pain as if it was pleasure. It was like a badge of honour to receive lashes from the king of Kusile forest. The lion whose roar thundered and shook the leaves off trees. Mandla’s great reputation rested largely on his beating of Sibonelo in an intense fistfight, which turned from a village headline into a legend. The story of the fight was told like a mythic tale that transformed an ordinary village boy into a symbol of power and authority. The fight was unforgettable, two giants drubbing the life out of each other. Each punch from both fighters thudded on human flesh like the Hiroshima bomb hitting the ground. The blows were explosive. Blood oozed from Mandla’s mouth, his teeth were soaked in a red slimy dense mixture of phlegm

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Tales Of The Invisibleand blood. It was a challenge simple based on Sibonelo referring to Mandla’s father as being a witch. Sibonelo had for a long time sort a way to provoke a fight with Mandla. So when he called Mandla’s father a witch he refused to apologise. Rather he added salt to the wound by taunting Mandla, to do something about the allegations. “So what are you going to do son of a witch. We all know your father uses dead people’s body parts to make the medicines he sells or wait maybe those are the body parts your family eats for supper” Sibonelo guffawed. Mandla had maintained his composure throughout all the provocation. He had been silent for a while. Skimming and formulating a plan for a retaliation. The fight dragged on. A crowd of boys circled them. No one cheered. There was dead silence. The crowd absorbing the thumping sounds of punches that were landing from one fighter to the other. Thumping like a drum being played at the inxaba festival. Punches kept flying. From Mandla to Sibonelo, back to Mandla again, then to Sibonelo. Time kept ticking. The fight continued. Neither was tiring. Joshua stood at a safe distance viewing clearly the entire fight. He was a small boy then, only seven years old. The dreadfully expected finally happened, when it was most anticipated. Sibonelo threw a punch, Mandla dodged. Sibonelo landed ponderously face down on the dusty brown soil of the Kusile forest. He sighed heavily and some dust filled his mouth. He spit it out quickly. Before he could raise his head, punches rained on him like a hailstorm. On the back of his head, on his face, on his forehead. Everywhere. The pounding continued on every part of his head. It felt like being stung continuously by a swarm of bees. The pain stung. Pierced like a needle being pushed in and out ceaselessly. He fell on his back, more punches visited his face. Pummelling it hard till all he could see where blurred images. Moving shadows wavering above his numb face. That was the last thing Sibonelo remembered about that fight. He lost consciousness to a mass of fists-flying and head-butting. Everything else was a blank darkness, a sweet sleep. This was the rise of Mandla, the great

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Tales Of The Invisiblefighter who trounced Sibonelo and left him close to death. The fight lingered in Joshua’s mind. The scenes of the fight would sometimes pop up in his mind like flashing images of a mashed up dream. Such was the legacy of Mandla that haunted Joshua. “Buhle is a girl, she ought to act like one,” Joshua thought to himself. Joshua’s forehead was furrowed with folds as he glared at Buhle’s neatly plaited hair. He jutted out his red large eyes as he absorbed her image like a lion preparing to strike an unsuspecting prey. Buhle unknowing of the prevailing danger bent forward and pricked the fire with a stick, innocently removing red-hot embers from under the log she had thrown into the fire. Joshua zeroed in on his target and prepared to launch a fist on her unsuspecting face. He lifted his arm and slowly directed a fist towards Buhle. His entire body moved almost as if in slow motion, preparing for a fateful landing that would resoundingly shake the room.“Joshua! “, a voice pierced his ears.The voice echoed in his head as his body froze in mid of delivering his intended attack. His head tilted to look at the direction were his name had been called. Gogo sat cross-legged like a meditating Buddha looking directly at Joshua. He wanted to pretend as if he had not heard his name being called, so he turned again to his target and once again prepared for a second attack. “Joshua! What is wrong with you? Don’t you dare hit her, you hear me!”The voice shot into his ears again. This time around, he was more certain of whose voice it was. It was the same voice that had scolded him when he had taken mealies from the pot without asking. It was the same voice that had comforted him when his father had drawn stripes across his body with a whip. He knew from the tone that this time the voice was warning him and if he did not heed to its warning, consequences would follow. He wilted and settled himself down resting his shoulders

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Tales Of The Invisibleagainst the wall. Gogo was staring sternly at him like a snake preparing to strike a zestful rat. No one spoke for some seconds, as Gogo’s warning to Joshua seemed to have cut off the tongues of the people present in the cooking hut. A hurtling opening of the door broke the silence that consumed the cooking hut as all eyes turned to look at the figure that was entering. The door screeched open scratching hard the floor with the great force of a strong push. A short stout woman adorned in a goldish-yellow blouse entered the cooking hut. Her head was covered with a red doek with white lines and a red zambia with little yellow dots was wrapped around her plump waist. She stood at the door her eyes probing the cooking hut as if trying to identify a culprit. The little children stared at her with sagging eyes weighed down by sleepiness. “You are back,” Gogo asked gazing at the rotund woman standing at the door. “Yes Iam back, Iam surprised these little cockroaches are still awake,” the rotund woman replied with a frivolous grin, looking at the three little children seated next to Buhle, who were competing to yawn. “Evening mama” the three children echoed together. Buhle followed suit with a similar greeting whilst Joshua was silent almost as if unaware of her entrance into the cooking hut. He sat in dead silence staring at the fire as if studying the flames or awaiting something amazing to happen to the flames. The stout woman looked at Joshua for a few seconds and then turned to look at Gogo who was leering at Joshua.“Has SaMandla returned?” the stout woman enquired“Not yet MaHadebe, you know how your husband is, whenever he is at a place where there is beer, he tries to outdrink everyone, ah that one”, (Gogo coughed a little, shook her head vigorously and continued to speak)

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Tales Of The Invisible“Let’s hope he returns in one piece, you cannot trust these popular village events my child, people are dangerous yoh! Even a good friend can put poison in your cup. I feel sorry for you malokazana, my son can be a burden but worry not for the ancestors are on your side and God is with you eh, leave him be, he that does not heed to a warning only learns after bleeding”.MaHadebe turned her head away from Gogo and looked at the fire. Her face was filled with wrinkles of concern. She didn’t want the children to see her troubled face so she quickly turned to the three little ones who were staring at her with sharp eyes. She shouted with a tone of tortured voice being forced to come out.“Thabo, Zenzo, Moses quickly go to bed!”The three little children mechanically stood up and marched out of the cooking hut, yawning on their way to the boys sleeping hut.Tears were brimming in MaHadebe’s eyes when she turned away from the three people remaining in the cooking hut. Her tear flooded eyes shone, lit by the flickering flames of the fire. The flickering flames created distorted shadows across the mud wall. The formless shadows moved and wavered in a mocking manner. As if taunting her. Without saying another word, MaHadebe sauntered out of the cooking hut. She dragged her feet and by the time she arrived at her sleeping hut, tears were freely coursing down her cheeks. With trepidation and agility, she opened the door to her hut. Her nose was trying hard to hold back a blob of snot that wanted to flow out. She closed the door and threw herself on the bed. The helpless bed creaked and responded with a squeaky sound as her plump body heavily landed on its bumpy old springs. She lay in bed facing the thatched roof. Owls were crooning outside and trees were swinging, dancing romantically to the groove as directed by the wind. Tears had stopped gashing out of her eyes, but her eyes

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Tales Of The Invisibleremained red and puffy and her lower eyelids were swollen. Silence was her only roommate. It lay next to her, comforting at the same time puncturing her heart with deep thoughts of love and suffering. She pulled a thin blanket from under her and covered her body from the waist down.Gogo sat silently staring at the fire. Joshua was still frozen like a corpse. Buhle was studying her nails, twisting and turning her hand, trying to observe the nails from various angles. The flames were slowly dwindling away. A cloud of smoke filled the cooking hut and strike Gogo’s nose like powder being blown into her face. She coughed earnestly. “Buhle, have you checked on your sister?” Gogo asked suddenly whilst coughing.“No,” Buhle replied in a low tone, sounding uninterested in the conversation, her eyes still fixed on her nails.“Hehe! You child do you want your sister to sleep hungry, are you trying to kill her with starvation now?”Buhle remained silent and continued to observe her fingernails closely, constantly blowing them as if removing dust from them.Gogo picked a piece of dry tree bark and threw it in Buhle’s direction. It slammed on her forehead and a thumping sound was heard. Buhle stood up suddenly, screaming mama lo! Before she had ascertained what had hit her, another bark flew towards her and insults followed the bark.“Fuseki bloody mgodoyi! Quickly go give your sister food, Iam speaking to you and you act like you can’t hear me, hurry! Take food to her before I beat the stubbornness out of you! (Gogo paused and spoke calmly) nxa bloody rubbish”Buhle hurriedly took a plate from inside the large metal pot and dashed out of the cooking hut, heading towards a hut that was next to the cooking hut.

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Tales Of The Invisible

Chapter II “Fire! Fire! Help! Someone help please!” a screaming voice echoed. Then there was silence. “Fire! Fire! Help! Someone help please!” the voice screamed again. Joshua was lying on his back facing the roof. A thin blanket tattered at the edges covered half of his body from the waist down. He began to fidget continuously. Turning his head left, then right, then left again. His whole body was soaked with sweat. His heart throbbed loudly. He couldn’t breathe. His nose couldn’t take in any more air. He felt his soul sink and his life being held by a thin thread. He opened his mouth and gasped for air. There was no air to take in. He was dying. Slowly, slowly, slowly but surely. He tried one more time to take in air. Nothing came in.

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Tales Of The InvisibleThat voice was back again. Louder than before. “Fire! Fire! Help! Someone help please!” the screaming voice echoed. Then there was silence. “Fire! Fire! Help! Someone help please!” The voice was getting louder. It sounded like someone screaming directly into his ears. Joshua sighed heavily, pushing his chest in and out; panting like a dying horse. “Fire! Fire! Help! Someone help please!” That voice again banged on his ears like a festival drum nearing climax, throbbing spirits mediums into a frenzy. He snuffled. He couldn’t take it anymore. He had to breathe or else he would die. With one great push, he heaved and woke up. That voice was gone. He sat on his blanket; his body was drenched in sweat. Many voices were murmuring and mumbling outside. He could hear them but couldn’t gather what they were saying. He probed the room checking for his three younger brothers. They were not there. He got out of his blankets and tottered outside to see what was happening. Many people were racing towards a huge light that was visible from afar. The light glistered like the sun setting. It was red but flickering like the blaze of burning dry maize stalks. Joshua’s eyes gazed at the light and his legs mechanically began to run towards the light. He joined the crowd racing towards the light. Many thoughts lingered in his mind but he paid no attention to any of these thoughts. The light was all he cared about at that moment. He felt an urge, a desire to find the source of the light. The more he ran, the more his curiosity grew. The light was getting closer. A crowd of villagers was assembled around the light. The light was no light at all. It was the councillor’s house. It was flaming. Locked in a fulgent blaze making a twilight of the dark sky. Tongues of flame were peering through the windows, doors and every opening in the house. The drum-roll of the fire rumbled like a mighty tsunami. Men were shoving buckets of sand into the flame-consumed house. Some men were thrashing the flames with wet branches of trees. “Move, move let’s go, we have to defeat this fire, come on!” Maphosa howled, bashing the flames with a tree branch. He was one of the most respected men in

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Tales Of The Invisiblethe village. He worked hard such that his yield was the highest in the village every season. Some people accused him of using juju to farm so efficiently. But none ever confronted him to make such an allegation in his face. He was a tall muscular man with turgid limbs. His face had a disfigurement; a large scar that looked like a lightning bolt cutting across his face. Rumour has it that the scar was a result of being hit with the butt of a gun during the liberation struggle by freedom fighters who accused him of being a snitch. Some of the villagers claimed that Maphosa was a supporter of the colonial government; they said this because he did not attend any of the pungwes held on the mountain. But when the councillor’s house was ablaze, he was one of the most vigorous fighters against the blaze. Women were murmuring in dismay, some cupping their mouths with their hands and some clamping their heads with their hands. A few screams here and there, but mostly whining voices and murmurs filled the tumult. One of the trusses supporting the roof broke and collapsed into the house. The fire was chewing the other beams ferociously. They cleaved and the roof sunk into the house and exploded like a bomb. Little children watching the burning house scurried away, as a cloud of dust and smoke spread filling the air.“Oh my lord has anyone seen the children?” an elderly woman asked without directing the question at anyone in particular. Silence replied her. A caterwaul squawked from one of the woman that stood close to her, tears spattering from her eyes. “Ngumhlolo lo! Oh those dear children I hope they are ok my Lord” Another woman muttered clutching the doek on her head. The councillor’s house was the only house in the village that was built from bricks with an asbestos roof. The house was a symbol of prestige. Admired by all the villagers. But on that fateful day, the councillor’s house was nothing but one big ball of flame, blazing with flames that sounded like an angry wave.

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Tales Of The InvisibleJoshua squinted as the light of the flaring flames hit his eyes; his feet were glued to the ground and his face was gleaming with the light of the blaze. The man battled the flame but their efforts were like trying to scoop all the water out of the ocean. The flames blared and incinerated like a furnace. Black thick smoke flew upwards and disappeared into the horizon. Joshua continued to gaze. The fire continued to blaze. Teenage boys were hurling buckets of water in a futile gesture of putting out the fire. The fight against the flames was long but fruitless. The men began to tire, the fire continued to blaze. Louder, mightier and brighter. After six hours of battling the fire, it was now certain that the fire could not be defeated. There was nothing more they could do. They simply watched the fire run its course. The flames shone in the eyes and faces of the villagers as they stood watching the blaze helplessly. The flames flickered tauntingly blasting sparks into the dark sky dotted with stars. The flames eventually gave up their war and died a slow death. In the morning all that remained were ruins. A darkened white brick wall with a collapsed roof was all that remained of the councillor’s house. Burnt utensils, pieces of burnt furniture, some resembling a sofa or a table and a floor completely covered in ash. Chunks of darkened asbestos lay strewn on the floor that was covered in glistering tiny pieces of glass from the exploded windows. The police came that morning to investigate the scene of the tragic fire. They uncovered two badly burnt bodies. Two police officers wearing uniforms stood in front of the two corpses whispering. Their eyes probing the two dead bodies lying next to each other. “This one looks like the body of a child,” one of the police officers remarked pointing a finger at one of the corpses.“Hmmm, maybe but it’s too burnt to tell” the other police officer retorted clutching his chin with his forefinger and thumb.

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Tales Of The Invisible“The villagers said they are only three people who live here, of which, two are children. (He paused) But it’s funny, how come we only found two corpses?” The other officer remained silent staring at the corpses; his hand clutching a pen raised in the direction of his mouth and his teeth biting the butt of the pen.“Do you think…?”“No I don’t know,” the other officer replied quickly, without waiting to hear the rest of the question.They stood in silence staring at the corpses. Villagers were gathered outside whimpering. Some of them clambered on the broken windows looking through, trying to get a glance of the corpses. Others peered around the doorway. A petite light-skinned woman adorned in makeup pushed her way through the crowd. The hum of talk came to her dimly, her mind was locked in the curiosity of the news she had received; that two bodies had been discovered in the gutted house. She burst through the gathering at the doorway and strode towards the two officers who were examining the two corpses. She stood beside the two officers for a few seconds observing the corpses.“What have we here?” she enquired, crouching so she could touch the corpses.“Ah! After…noon…noon… dete…ctive” the two police officers stuttered clumsily like a child stealing sugar who had suddenly realised that someone was staring at her. “Yes, yes the…the bodies we have two here” one of the officers quickly remarked with a frantic smile on his face. Surprising himself with his new bout of stammer. She carefully observed the corpses. The two officers were watching her, crouching, her dress slightly pulled back as her knees were touching her chin. Her bangles and beads were making a noise to the rhythm of her movement as she perused

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Tales Of The Invisiblethe corpses with her forefinger. She was completely absorbed in the act. Suddenly she stood up. The two officers jittered and one of them let out a slight quick cough. Without looking at them, she stared at the darkened wall, and spoke as if reading from the wall. “Well looks like we have a big one in our hands. A burnt house belonging to a prominent politician. Two badly burnt bodies. This is quite a case. I guess the newspapers will have a field day with such a story. If there is anything fishy in this case, Iam going to find the underlying cause of it. Has the fire brigade carried out an examination about what caused the fire?”“No madam,” one of the police officers replied with a wry smile on his face. “Ok, it’s fine. Just see to it that you give me that report as soon as the fire brigade has completed compiling it.”She clonked out of the burnt house with the eyes of the villagers weighing heavily on her.

Chapter IIII got my things and left. The sun was coming up. I couldn’t think where to go. I wandered towards the beer hall but stopped at the bottle store where I bought a beer. There were people scattered along the store’s wide veranda, drinking. I sat beneath the tall Msasa tree whose branches scrape the corrugated iron roofs. I was trying not to think about where I was going. I didn’t feel bitter. I was glad things had happened

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Tales Of The Invisiblethe way they had; I couldn’t have stayed on in that House of Hunger were every morsel of sanity was snatched from you the way some kinds of bird snatch food from the very mouth of babes. And the eyes of that House of Hunger lingered upon you as though some indefinable beast was about to pounce upon you...She placed the book on the chest of drawers that was next to her bed. She yawned as she propped her shoulders against the wooden headboard of the bed. She had read the book countless times but it never seized to amuse her. She sat on the bed silent. The electric bulb gleamed, lighting up the modestly furnished bedroom. The large Arabic mirror that she had bought during her trip to Dubai was gazing at her. The image on the mirror looked familiar. Its head wrapped in stockings. She had seen it before. Its large golf ball-like eyes and its ebony skin were all familiar features she had once seen before. She examined the face in the mirror closely. Reading its every detail. The door hurtled open, startling two mating cockroaches that were lodged in the door’s hinge. A petite light-skinned woman wearing shoes with pointed heels tottered into the bedroom. Holding a plastic cup with coffee in one hand and a black leather handbag hanging on her shoulder.“Hey love, you still awake” she uttered, leaning towards the woman sitting on the bed.Their lips locked in an intimate kiss. They separated and she placed her handbag on the chest of drawers, on top of a book titled The House of Hunger. The woman seated on the bed spoke suddenly.“So how was work? You look exhausted”“Nothing much just the usual. Paperwork, paperwork and more paperwork. No real criminals to arrest you know. It gets frustrating at times when you always have to deal with the same old work every day.”

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Tales Of The Invisible“Oh yeah I know the feeling. Imagine teaching the same things every year to a new group of students. You can swear they get dumber every year. They just make you want to light them up with a clap.”“Yah also on that note of lighting up, oh my God, Lorcadia I almost forgot. You won’t believe the new case I have been assigned.”“What? Which case love? Do tell now”“The councillor’s house was gutted down by fire”“Oh my, was anyone hurt?”“Wait let me finish. Everything was burnt. Iam talking furniture, books, clothes. Everything. Nothing survived. It was bad. Ash everywhere…”“That poor man just six months after losing his wife to cancer. Now this.”“Yah it’s unfortunate eh but that’s not the good part”“The good part. What do you mean?”“We found two bodies in the house. But we are not yet sure who they are.”“Dead bodies?”“Yes my dear, dead bodies. Badly burnt bodies. If the fire brigade reports any sinister cause of the fire, I will have to open a docket. Imagine me Detective Rambanepasi, investigating a murder.” clasping her hips Rambanepasi pranced in front of the mirror.“Wow so when are you getting the fire brigade report?” Lorcadia Ncube enquired leaning forward, her eyes wide open in admiration.“Soon. Tomorrow I think. I was the one sent to check the scene so definitely this case is mine. I have it in the bag. All those

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Tales Of The Invisiblebloody wolves have to watch me, a lady crack a major case. A murder. They won’t know what hit ‘em.”“Yeah ahah, come on Detective Rambanepasi show them who is boss. Do this one for me love.” Lorcadia nodded her head rhythmically as she chanted praises to her lover.Detective Rambanepasi stood gazing at the mirror, her face looking firm and confident like a three-year-old child ready to prove a point to other children in the playground.

Chapter IV

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Tales Of The InvisibleThey came for him that Sunday morning. He was cuddling himself on a corner. Squeezing his knees against his chest. He had folded himself on that corner for eight hours. Refusing to eat, bath and talk to anyone. His wife had locked him in the bedroom after he launched a flower vase at her. He sat on the lonely corner, shivering and muttering senseless sounds. The two male nurses, one tall and the other short, slowly swished open the door. The tall nurse jutted his head in and probed the room. He saw him cuddled up on a corner. Phlegm drooping from his mouth and snot flowing from his nose and into his mouth.“Ok I see him,” the tall nurse whispered to the short nurse who was standing behind him holding a straitjacket.He had dealt with several cases that were similar to this one but this particular one had many uncertainties. Considering that, the patient this time around was a former soldier who was known for his brutality and physical agility. They prowled into the room, their eyes fixed on the man sitting on the corner. He did not see them tottering towards him. His wife was peeping through the door. Silently praying for him not to get violent. He continued to mutter senseless things to himself. His head was clamped between his knees and a stream of urine was flowing from his pyjama trousers. The wife accidentally pushed the door and it squawked. She quickly held the door but it was too late. He jumped up and sat up. His eyes caught the eyes of the two nurses stalking him. For about ten seconds they all froze. “It’s ok Mr Matamba; we are here to help you” the tall nurse explained.Mr Matamba gazed at them; his eyes did not blink for a long time. The two nurses stood in front of him; plotting how to capture him and get him to wear the straitjacket.“Let’s just grab him fast,” the short nurse holding a straitjacket whispered to his colleague.

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Tales Of The Invisible“No wait…just wait for my signal ok,” the tall nurse drawled.“What do you want from me? It was not my fault…they told me to do it! Leave me…leave me alone…no…leave me alone!” Mr Matamba yelled folding himself against the wall.“Now!” the tall nurse signalled his colleague to advance.They jumped on top of Mr Matamba. The tall nurse’s knee pressed hard on Mr Matamba’s shoulder. Mr Matamba shrugged violently. The tall nurse held him down. The short nurse was jostling to get him into the straitjacket. Mrs Matamba stood by the door, cupping her mouth, tears brimming in her eyes.“No! Stop! They are coming…they are coming!” Mr Matamba bellowed.The tall nurse took out an injection from his pocket and shoved it into Mr Matamba’s shoulder. He shrugged more violently pushing the nurse off him. The two nurses retreated and leered at Mr Matamba. He fidgeted, scratching aggressively the part pierced by the needle of the injection.“Help me…don’t let them take me…please save me…please…” he growled.Then slowly he dozed off. He now lay like a sack of potatoes piled up on the corner. The two nurses quickly placed his hands into the straitjacket and locked it.“Finally” the short nurse remarked with a deep sigh. Mrs Matamba stood next to her husband’s sleeping body, tears coursing down her cheeks.“Don’t worry madam; he is going to be alright. We will take very good care of him.” the tall nurse reassured her.They placed Mr Matamba in an ambulance and drove him to a psychiatric hospital. Mr Matamba was deep asleep when the ambulance docked at Ngutsheni Psychiatric Hospital. He was

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Tales Of The Invisiblebrought out of the ambulance and into the hospital by a stretcher. They placed him in an isolated room. Little dots of light wavered around his eyes, flickering and disappearing. He slowly opened his eyes and light diffused into his iris. He blinked rapidly and tried to scratch his eyes but his hands couldn’t move. He fidgeted but the straitjacket bound him firmly. He shrugged and groaned trying to set himself loose.“It’s no use wasting your energy, trying to break out of that. It’s the best jacket on the market, you can’t break it” a voice spoke in the direction of the door.A middle-aged man in his early fifties stood at the door adorned in a white dustcoat. Mr Matamba glared at the man, sweat drops forming in his face. “Dr Msipa. Iam Doctor Msipa. Iam here at your service, I will help you with whatever is haunting you. Don’t worry I understand what you having been saying. I just want to make sure these things stop chasing you ok.” the doctor smiled wryly staring at Mr Matamba.Mr Matamba lay on his bed, silent, his eyes focused on the doctor.“Iam your friend, iam only here to help you. Let me unlock the straitjacket. I just want you and me to talk.” The doctor approached him slowly raising his hands as if surrendering. He unlocked the straitjacket and helped Mr Matamba remove it. The doctor placed the straitjacket on a table and sat on the chair that was next to the table.“Ok are you ready to talk?” the doctor enquired.Mr Matamba sat up gazing at the doctor, his face damp with sweat. Many thoughts were racing in his head. He was thinking: the fire that burnt the house the family that died but it was a directive from our leader how can I have killed so many no wait

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Tales Of The Invisibleit was not my fault it was my job my wife oh my children what am I a monster fire fire dead bodies blood screams crying babies shots bullets dissidents bloody war fire fire it was not my fault they want to kill me it was not my fault it was my job a fountain of blood my country that is my master dissidents bloody murderers killers not my fault it was my job I had to bloody hands oh lord don’t let them touch my family it is me they want iam right here burn me beat me shoot me leave my family alone where am I where is my family oh my they are not safe blood dead bodies dissidents they are coming bloody hands save them I have to get out of here my family they need me blood blood everywhere“Mr Matamba! Mr Matamba! Mr Matamba! Are you ok sir?” the doctor yelled.Mr Matamba sighed heavily and continuously.“Yes, yes iam fine. What do you want? Who are you?”“Dr Msipa, a friend, iam here to help you. What is wrong what were you seeing when you kept screaming last night?” “You don’t understand. You can’t understand. It’s not that simple.”“Try me.”“Ok if you say so. Let me tell you then who I really am. Listen closely. My name is Nhamo Matamba; I was born in Bindura, Mashonaland. My father was a farmworker in a white man’s farm. The name of the farm owner was Mr Brown. A bloody racist man. He was a short fat man with a protruding belly. He had bloody ugly skin. It looked like the skin of a bloody pig. Quite disgusting I must say. His face was cream with red freckles. Not something, you would want to look at for a long time.

The farm was huge with multiple areas of lush vegetation and healthy green crops. The rich red soil was embellished with maize stalks in various stages of growth. The vast wooded

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Tales Of The Invisiblepaddocks were a fulgent green carpet that spread into an exquisite paradise. Cattle lay on fresh green grass chewing succulent cud under a serene shade. The rains showered the fields and the paddocks leaving an aroma of fresh clean air. The farmhouse were Mr Brown lived was a lofty picturesque mansion with a shimmering roof made of asbestos tiles that were splendidly laid like a tarmac. It was encircled by a hedge and adorned with multi-coloured flowers emitting sweet scents. The house was built to last, all stone and steel, cobbled on every side. The mansion was decked with dazzling lights and the trashcans overflowed with strange and wonderful garbage, undreamed-of leftovers, and delicacies. We peered through hedges catching a glimpse of the spacious mansion and the tranquil life that was lived inside its doors.

The worker’s compound where we lived was a bustling derelict. A chain of sprawling attached shanties with a jagged design. The roofs were made of metal sheets that were cast on top of the hovels. It was paved with dust, loose soil that arose and pierced your eyes when a riot of rowdy children racketed playing pathetic games. The raucous of gossiping mothers added to the tumult plunging the compound on a daily basis into a pandemonium. We competed for sleeping space with rats, cockroaches and many other bugs. The stench coming from the blair toilet slammed your face like a blow. Some people missed the hole and their dungs lay on the floor like a coiled snake, some faeces were yellow and watery and some faeces were hard and brownish with red lumps. Scattered piles of musty rubbish decorated the compound and sent a reek into the air that blended perfectly with the torment of the ear splitting raucous. Mr Brown had two children that he forbade from playing with the black kids in the compound. There was a girl much older than I called Charlotte; whom I suppose was attending a boarding school for we rarely saw her at the farm. The second child was a boy; Ronald was his name. He was the same age as my older brother. Three years older than me. Ronald was evil. He was a bloody bully. He came to the compound with a paint-ball gun and fired shots at defenceless black children playing in the compound. Mothers could only grab their children and hide

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Tales Of The Invisiblethem in the house. No one could dare confront the boss’s son. We all received a fair share of shots on our backs, legs, and bellies. Sometimes if you were unlucky and if your feet couldn’t run fast enough you would receive several lashes from Ronald. He would chase you whilst riding on his galloping horse. Leaning from his horse, he would thrash you with a flexible whip twanting on your naked back. All mothers at the compound hated Ronald. He had a firm and brutal hand like his father. If a man absconded from work without having a cause that Mr Brown viewed as justified, the man would be lashed thoroughly. I never saw Mrs Brown it is said she passed away before I was born. Rumour has it that she shot herself because she was tired of living in the jungles of Africa that turned a civilised man into a savage. Her death was rarely ever discussed; it was only spoken in hushed voices at the compound. My brother Boniface and I were the only children my parents had. Boniface was three years older than I was. So when he was eight ways old when he came back from school he would go and work at Mr Brown’s cotton fields. He wasn’t earning much but the money helped to pay his school fees. My mother also worked at Mr Brown’s farm. One day when I was nine years old, my brother fell ill. He came back from school complaining about a stomach-ache. Mother prepared a sugar, salt and water solution for him. He drank it but the following morning he got worse. He couldn’t even stand up. He lay in bed for days, groaning and growling in pain. I remember the look on my father’s face when he returned from work every day only to look at his suffering son that he could do nothing to help. The hospital was far from where we lived. Besides my parents couldn’t afford the hospital fees. It was clear that if he was taken to the hospital they would admit him for several days. My father tried to beg his friends to lend him money so he could send my brother to the hospital but they all didn’t earn enough money to lend to someone else. I recall vividly one particular day when my father came back late from work, my mother

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Tales Of The Invisiblewaited for him in the sitting room which was divided by a curtain into a sitting room and a bedroom. My brother and I slept on the other side of the curtain. I remember my mother asking my father where he had been.“I went to see the boss” my father replied hesitantly.“So what did he say? Did he lend you the money?”“I don’t know what to do anymore. The boy’s condition is getting worse.”“So did he give you the money or not?”“You know the boss.”“That stingy old man. Oh my lord does he want my son to die now. Oh my husband what are we going to do?”My father sunk into his chair, the only sofa we had in the house. He stared at the metal roof as if answers to his predicament were scribbled on the metal sheets. I don’t remember seeing or hearing him go to sleep that night. I think he slept on that chair staring at the roof. Days went by my brother became worse. His condition was getting critical. He wasn’t eating, moving or talking. He just lay there breathing hard like an asthmatic person. I think my parents were beginning to get desperate because one morning, two men came banging at our door.“Open up! Open this door!” they shouted.“Yes how can I help you?”“Are you Mrs Matamba?”“Ah ye…sss…ah how can I help you?”“Are you Mrs Matamba? Yes or no?”“Yes, iam”“Ok eh don’t waste our time here mother. We want to search your house, quick, quick.”

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Tales Of The Invisible“Why? What is the problem?”They pushed mother and stormed into the house. I was peering from under the curtain that divided the room. They searched everywhere, throwing clothes, papers, pots, and plates into the air.“Yah! I have found something.” One of the men exclaimed.“Hehehe what have we here?” the other man brayed looking at a sack of maize stuffed in a corner.“Where did you get this maize?” the man asked my mother.She stood shuddering, her hands cupping her mother. A clap slammed on her cheek and she crashed on father’s chair. Blood trickled from a gash on her forehead. I peered from under the curtain. I felt useless. Hiding and watching my mother being bashed. I did nothing to help her. The feeling of betraying my mother has never left me. I still feel the helplessness, the lack of action, the fear diluted with anger that filled my heart still floods my heart till this day. I wanted to help her, but my feet were immobile, my heart throbbed, my knees were powerless. I have never felt so worthless. The anger of watching those you love being abused yet not having the courage to help them is what irked me. The neighbours heard my mother crying and did nothing to rescue her from the scourge. They undressed her and forced their manhood into her. I watched my own mother being stripped of her dignity. The neighbours hearing her racket but choosing to ignore her screams. The scene has never left my memory; it plays at times in my mind, taunting and haunting me. Later in the morning, a meeting was convened at the playground. All the workers at the farm were present. A large crowd gathered, chattering many things. Mr Brown arrived seated on a stallion accompanied by the two men who had assaulted my mother earlier. The two men were walking on foot following Mr Brown’s horse. The two men were dragging a man

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Tales Of The Invisiblewhose hands were tied. The man they were dragging reminded me of Jesus being led to the cross. We watched the man being dragged to the centre of the crowd were Mr Brown stood next to his brown stallion. I was quite short then, I couldn’t see clearly who the man with bound hands was. But as soon as the man’s face became visible, the crowd brawled. The murmuring crowd turned into a raucous. Mr Brown took out his pistol and fired a shot into the air. The crowd muted. He barked loudly.“I called all of you here because I have something to say to you all. My name is James Austin Brown; my father is Gilbert Brown, a great soldier that served in the First World War. Let me make this clear to you all. No one! And I repeat no one! Can steal from me and get away with it. If you steal from me, I will catch you and you should pray that I do not catch you. This fool here, do you know him? (he pointed at the man with bound hands) he dared to steal from me and now I will show you what I do with thieves” I pushed my way to the front of the crowd to get a better view. The sight that met my eyes when I reached the front of the crowd dried all the saliva in my mouth. My father lay on the ground, his hands bound with ropes. I looked around for my mother; she was nowhere to be seen. Mr Brown took out a sjambok from the saddle. The two men who acted as his guards pressed my father to the ground. Mr Brown lifted the sjambok and it writhed like a twig snake, swooshing through the air and thumping on my father’s buttocks. Mr Brown breathed profusely and his sagging belly swayed wildly as he lifted the sjambok repeatedly letting it descend on my father’s buttocks repeatedly. Each strike tore through my heart, puncturing it permanently. My father groaned. Sweat was coursing down Mr Brown’s face; he growled like a pig as he flogged my father in front of the women, the children, and the dogs of the compound. My father looked up and stared at me. His eyes were red and dead. The sjambok thrashed his buttocks; his eyes drilled into mine. A sharp scream from the back of the

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Tales Of The Invisiblecrowd tore the crowd into two halves. All eyes turned to face the source of the scream. I looked down and saw my mother rolling herself on the ground like a demon-possessed person. She was screaming and crying. “Oh lord why have you forsaken me? Why oh lord? Why tell me lord? Why have you done this to me? Why did you take my son? Oh lord why?” she wailed louder. The crowd’s attention and sympathy fell on her. I turned to look at my father, tears were gashing from his eyes. All my life I had never seen him cry but that day I saw my father’s tears. Even now, I recall them vividly. Mr Brown stood beside my father motionless. My mother’s cries thundered across the compound. Some of the women approached my mother and embraced her. But she refused to be comforted. She screamed louder. Mr Brown grimaced and roared:“Shut up! Someone shut that bloody woman up!”The two men, who were pressing my father down, quickly leapt up and trudged towards my mother. They ordered her to leave and to stop crying in front of the boss. I was not sorry when my brother died. The shame that filled my heart overwhelmed the pain. It dried all the tears from my eyes and left my body powerless. The shame of watching my father being beaten like a mischievous schoolboy weighed heavily on my heart. I couldn’t cry for my dead brother. For me he had been dead for a long time already, he died the moment he made father ask for money from his colleagues. My brother’s death was also my death. I wished he had died with me. How was I to live in a world where my mother was a rape victim and my father was thief? The shame! The shame! It was just too much. The thought of watching my mother shrugging and wrestling the men off her body yet they continued to push their manhood into her. That thought ate my brain like a cancerous wound. It

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Tales Of The Invisibledevoured my heart, leaving nothing but tattered remnants. Things fell apart on that day. Nothing was the same. The funeral procession followed as is custom but my family was never the same again. Mr Brown allowed my father to continue working at the farm. The money my father earned for two years went towards the payment of the stolen maize. The maize my father had stolen to save a life; my brother’s life. That same maize was the source of the pain, shame, and poverty that befell my family shortly after the death of my brother. My father became a different man. Ever since the day when he was punished in front of the whole compound, I never saw him sober. He was drunk during and after the funeral. Sometimes he would go away and spend several days away from home. My mother maybe was the one most affected by the changes in my father’s lifestyle. She never spoke about it; at least with me. But I could see it in her eyes. The shame and the breakdown in their marriage was written all over her face like graffiti. I guess my father couldn’t accept the fact that my mother had been raped. I remember a conversation they had one evening in the sitting room. I eavesdropped from my curtain-demarcated bedroom. “We have to talk about it” my mother stuttered.“What? Talk about what?” my father bellowed.The baby, we can’t ignore it forever it will be here soon“I don’t care about thing! I told you to get rid of it a long time ago. Why are you still asking me such silly questions?”“But we can’t…we can’t do that…it’s not the baby’s fault that it was conceived in that way.”“That way? Which way woman? hah say it. That bloody thing is the product of a rape! That devil you are carrying has no place in my house. If you give birth to that thing, I will leave you. I will find another wife. I can’t stand to watch you raise that thing. I swear if you don’t kill it now I will kill it myself the day it is born.

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Tales Of The InvisibleI swear by mother’s grave I will kill that thing.” My father jumped off his chair and dashed out of the house. Leaving my mother weeping like a toddler. I think that was the conversation that propelled my mother to go see the inyanga. The inyanga lived faraway at the barren tribal trust lands. She left me in the custody of our neighbour MaiGladys. A stout woman who was a devout Christian. She accredited all events that happened in people’s lives as being the mysterious works of the Lord. God to her was responsible for all disasters and miracles. My mother didn’t dare tell her she was going to see an inyanga. If she had done so, she would have received a strong rebuke. She just told her she needed to go see a sick relative at the hospital. I knew she had gone to see an inyanga; I eavesdropped on a conversation were my mother informed my father about going to an inyanga to remove the pregnancy. I couldn’t be left in the custody of my father, he was always in a drunk stupor. My mother left on a cold Monday morning in the middle of June. Three days went by still she did not return. I thought that the procedures at the inyanga took quite some time to be successful. I was very wrong. The news came like a flood in the midst of a drought. The letter was delivered to MaiGladys, because my father was nowhere to be seen. The facial expression I found on MaiGladys face when I returned from school, told a tale of horror. Her words still echo in my head today.“Nhamo your mother didn’t make it. She is gone”Her words sounded like a whisper in the midst of a dream. A nightmare to be exact. But this was no dream nor nightmare. My mother was gone. Just like that, I was left with a drunkard of a father. No brothers, no sisters, and worst of all no mother to wipe my tears.My father became increasingly a rare face at the compound. I lived with MaiGladys. She treated me like her own son. But her

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Tales Of The Invisiblehusband was not very fond of me. I could see it in the way he looked at me. His scowling eyes glaring at me, made me shiver with fright. Even at my young age then, I could tell that my stay at MaiGlady’s house was straining her marriage. I was not in any way related to her family. She was just a good friend of my mother. It came as no surprise that my father came to MaiGlady’s house and commanded me to pack my things. I stuffed my clothes into a suitcase that had belonged to my mother. One of the few things my mother’s relatives left behind after looting all her belongings soon after her funeral. As soon as I was done packing my father and I hastily marched to the bus terminus. It was sometime in the afternoon. We waited for quite some time, the bus arrived, and we embarked on a trip whose destination I did not know. The bus travelled on the smooth undulating tarred road for a long time. It pulled at numerous stops. I fell asleep and awoke at the bus rank. I had never been there before. The only time I travelled by bus was when I was visiting my mother’s brother; Uncle Thomas. The bus that serviced the route where he stayed did not pass through any bus rank. I peered through the window of the bus admiring the various buses that thronged the bus rank. Various sounds filled the air. Hooting buses and shouting vendors impregnated the air with a humongous noise. We disembarked from the bus and waded across the bus rank. The sign at the entrance of the bus rank read: KUDZANAI BUS TERMINUS. We boarded another bus that had a sign written Maboleni. It cruised through ridged landscapes, long stretches of jagged mountains looking like a resting anaconda with multiple humps. I saw sun-drenched barren sandy soils. Tumbledown clay huts some smeared with irregular patterns and thatched roofs in varying stages of collapse. Parched grazing lands spread and disappeared into a dreary abyss. An army of vendors was spattered on every bus stop. Dirty children danced and played in the dirt like piglets. Donkeys lazily chewed patches of brown dry grass under an incinerating sun with no trees in sight. The rugged meandering dusty road was spluttered with potholes.

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Tales Of The InvisibleThe bumpy road bounced me up and down making me feel like throwing up.We arrived at my grandmother’s rural home in the evening. The sun had just set when we hobbled into her yard. We had not eaten anything, the whole day. My father had picked me up very early before breakfast had been served at MaiGlady’s home. I also did not bother asking for breakfast because I was desperate to leave that place. The way MaiGlady’s husband looked at me sent chills down my spine. I feared him and I also did not trust him. He was a large man with a charcoal dark face that never smiled. He had a huge nose that was as if a frog was glued to his face. His eyes were big red ambers, steaming with an unprovoked anger. It was my first time being at my paternal grandmother’s place. She was an old pauper living in a crumbling hut with a worn out thatched roof that allowed rainwater to freely pour in. Wrinkles raced down her face like streams coursing into a delta. Her skin was dark and hard. A symbol of the many years she had suffered raising her children and living alone after they all had neglected her. She had three children. Two sons and one daughter. My father was the youngest child. My grandfather had left for South Africa to seek employment at the gold mines of Johannesburg. He never returned. My father was an infant when my grandfather left. The only memories of him my father had were those drawn from an imagination fed by photographs and stories told by my grandmother. The eldest of my grandmother’s children Uncle Robert also went to Johannesburg to seek greener pastures. Like his father before him, he never returned. The second born who is a girl got married to a Zambian man whom she accompanied to his homeland. She also never returned. My father was the only child that never left the country. When he was sixteen, he sought employment at Mr Brown’s farm. My father’s uncle was a guard at Mr Brown’s farm he invited my father to seek employment there. When my father began working at Mr Brown’s farm, he sent most of the money he earned back home (my grandmother told me). When he got

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Tales Of The Invisiblemarried, things changed. He stopped visiting or sending money. He just vanished like his siblings and their father. The old woman lived alone. Grappling to stay alive. Farming on her barren field, harvesting parched grains. Just enough to stay alive. When my father’s uncle died from food poisoning, my father never again came to see his mother until this fateful day when we arrived together. The old woman lived in a tumbledown hut locked in a forest of thorns and shrubs. My drunk father who had been drinking the entire journey refused to enter the hut. “I have to return to work. My duty begins in the morning. I must be back by then.” He explained clamping a cigarette between his teeth.My grandmother responded with two slow nods, and then she crept into her dreary hut. I stood at the door of the desolate hut gazing at my father. He was facing the night sky, puffing and blowing mushrooms of smoke into the air. “I have to go. You stay here with your grandmother ok.” He spoke with his eyes still fixed on the dark sky. “Are you going to come back.” I asked him, my eyes melting with tears.He turned around and faced the crumbling poles that acted as a gate. Without looking at me, he muttered: “just get in the house boy.” He sauntered out of the yard and did not look back. I watched the dark night enveloping him and smoke from his cigarette flew into the air like the smoke from a steam-engine train.”

Chapter V32

Tales Of The InvisibleThe mine entrance was a narrow passage that led into a dark abyss. The surface of the tunnel was jagged, with razor sharp protruding rocks. The soil inside the tunnel was moist, soft and often caved in like an avalanche. It was warmer in there, heat rose up the shaft from the lowest levels of the mine and the cold night wind was cut off by the rough-hewn walls. The empty shaft yawned below Mandla. Murmuring voices echoed at the bottom of the tunnel. Mandla stepped on a protruding rock and his hand searched in the darkness for a clinging rock to support his body. He touched a sharp rock; it cut a gash on his palm. “Oh shit!” he hissed. He licked the blood oozing from his palm - it tasted stale - he spit it out quickly and cursed. A voice echoed from below the tunnel. “Hey what’s your problem? Who’s up there?” Mandla did not respond. He probed the surface of the tunnel again with his hand. He found a crevice on the wall. He shoved his hand into the crevice and climbed down the tunnel slowly. The murmuring voices became louder and more defined as he travelled deeper into the tunnel. A dotted light was now visible at the bottom of the tunnel. “Hey Mandla, I thought it was you. You here for the night duty man?” a trembling voice welcomed him as he stepped into the water-drenched bottom of the tunnel. He did not respond. The darkness enveloped him, he couldn’t see anyone; he only heard voices. The dotted light gazed at him. “Is it you who was spitting?” a voice enquired from behind the dotted light. He did not respond. “Iam talking to you man?” the voice behind the dotted light barked. “Where is my shovel? Let’s get to work” Mandla gnarled wading towards the dotted light. He felt a metal object touching his thigh; he grabbed it and threw it on his shoulder. He passed by the side of the dotted light and slammed on someone’s shoulder; he pushed his way through without even excusing himself. Wading footsteps and the dotted light followed him. He heard some mumbling behind him. He grumbled; the mumbling turned into silence. There was nothing

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Tales Of The Invisiblebut darkness in front of him but he trudged with confidence, very certain about the direction where he was going. A rumbling bang echoed from afar; for a few seconds he was startled but quickly he regained composure. “They are blowing again. They must be getting close to the money now” a voice behind him remarked. “Those fools they keep blowing they is no money in that bloody hole.” Another voice exclaimed.“That’s what they told Tony when he was digging in that former German mine across the hill. But one day he hit it big, he made big money from that mine. When they heard about it they all forgot the bad things they said about his mine. They all wanted a share of the mine.” Another voice jumped into the conversation.“He dead. They killed him for that bloody mine.” More voices joined the conversation.“He might be dead but no one ever found any more money in that hole anymore. His death cursed that hole, I tell you.”“No way there is no such thing.”“These things happen man.”“Oh please! you really believe that bull shit! There is no such thing.” “Shut up! Don’t you people have something better to talk about?” a grim-faced Mandla roared.Silence filled the tunnel. The voice behind the dotted light grumbled. Conversations about death always made Mandla feel tense. Besides he always preferred to walk through the tunnel in silence. Silence allowed him to think and reflect on things; a hobby he had found to be amusing in the two years he had spent at the small-scale mines. He had moved from a mere member of a gold panning syndicate into a fierce group leader

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Tales Of The Invisibleof a ruthless gold panning and stealing syndicate. “Leaders are thinkers,” he had often told Tawanda the youngest member of his gang. But Tawanda was too naïve to appreciate the philosophical insights that Mandla was sharing with him. Thus realising his gang was filled with hooligans who preferred action to thinking, he decided to keep his philosophical insights to himself. Pondering on his observations in silence. His quietness and pique commanded discipline, respect, and fear from his followers. The night was long but they knocked off early. They were disappointed by the ore they found on that day. The samples were not promising; the rocks had too much copper. They lay under a makeshift structure made of plastics tied to a limp tree. The morning was serenaded by chattering birds cooing in the magnificence of sunrise. Mandla took out some marijuana balls, grinded them between his fingers and placed them in a thin sheet of paper. He rolled the blunt with patience and precision. The other members of his gang were looking at him curiously. Tawanda was jostling with the cans that they used as pots. He was preparing the morning meal. Steven brought the good news. He arrived running at the fireside where the gang was lying idle waiting for Tawanda to finish cooking the morning meal. “Mandla…Mandla they have found it.” A panting Steven stuttered; sweat coursing down his face.“What have they found?” Mandla responded irritably attempting to light the blunt with a glowing stick, he had pulled from the fire. “The found 2 kilogrammes of gold at the mine where Thomas and his boys are digging.”“Are you sure?” Mandla asked showing a sudden interest in Steven’s report.

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Tales Of The Invisible“Yes Mandla it’s true. I swear by my mother’s grave. Everyone is crowded at Thomas’ mine as we speak.”“Where is Thomas now?”“He left for the city I think.”“Dammit! It’s only a matter of time before the greedy authorities run their stinking asses to the site of the gold. Let’s go we need to take over that place.”

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Tales Of The Invisible

Chapter VI“Fuck independence. We went to war poor, we returned poorer. Do you think these maggots care about us? They eat and fill their big tummies. These fucken Hippocrates drink the sweat of the poor. We fought for freedom and all we won was the word. We are poor because we are black; we are black because we are poor. How can you be free in a world where you imitate your enemy? The greatest battles are won in the mind. When someone defeats your mind, they have defeated your whole being. You cannot fight an enemy whose superiority you acknowledge. The moment you accept that your enemy is superior to you, you have already accepted that you yourself are inferior. We eat their food, we wear their clothes, we talk their language, we sing their songs, we worship their ancestors, we dress like them, we try to think like them, we hate ourselves the way they hate us. Slaves! Slaves! Bloody slaves I say! That is what we are. We are a mere reflection of the enemy. Our lives are a fissured mirror reflecting a distorted alien. We are foreign in our own land. Answers to the problems that bedevil our home are sought from our neighbours the enemy. How can you depend on your enemy to sell you a light bulb? He will of course give you the bulb that has less glow than the one he uses. Only a fool can let his enemy be his children’s teacher. The mind is a battlefield not a cemetery. It is always at war. Every day we fight many battles in our minds. It’s unfortunate that most of us have lost the battle. We only fight to lose over and over again just confirming an inferiority we have come to accept. If you want to see a hero. Look in the mirror. Fuck liberation if it doesn’t put food on my table. Fuck freedom if it doesn’t pay my child’s school fees. Fuck independence if it

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Tales Of The Invisibledoesn’t pay the bills in my house. These are your heroes. They fought for you, now they eat for you.”“Ah stop it SaNkululeko, don’t feed our son politics.” NaNkululeko protested.“Politics, he is a man now he needs to know the truth about what is going on out there. He will be a father soon; he needs to know how difficult it is to pay fees and bills in this bloody house.” SaNkululeko retorted.“My Nkululeko will be a doctor. He won’t have problems with money.”“Doctor? What is a doctor? Those people are earning fucken peanuts. Doctor? That is just a bloody name, bloody name I tell you.” SaNkululeko dug into his plate of rice savagely with a spoon. Nkululeko watched his father prudently, as he shoved spoonfuls into his mouth. SaNkululeko ate as if he was in an eating competition. Nkululeko clasped his spoon and gawked at his father. “Pass the salt.” His father said; with his mouth full with half chewed rice. Nkululeko sneered and looked away as he handed him a ‘salt shaker’.“So are teachers still coming to class?” SaNkululeko mumbled, his mouth chewing and speaking at the same time. Nkululeko continued to sneer. He was still not eating.“Something wrong with your food?” SaNkululeko asked.“No” Nkululeko replied.“Eat then, you city boys are spoilt. It’s your mother who does this. You born frees have chicken bones. You are all bloody soft mani.” SaNkululeko guffawed. He picked up a glass of beer and guzzled fiercely. He hiccupped and belched loudly. Nkululeko scowled at his father. His father’s eating habits disgusted him

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Tales Of The Invisibleand his tales and insights on politics were very underwhelming to him. Nkululeko was very popular at school. He was a handsome and stylish boy that donned all the latest trends from South Africa. Teenage girls adored him; they admired his dress code and good looks. His father was a very popular man who owned a kiosk in the Bulawayo residential area of Mganwini. At the height of the economic meltdown in Bulawayo, he was a successful businessperson selling basic commodities such as mealie meal, cooking oil and petrol at black market prices. He also operated an illegal foreign currency exchange business from his house. He had a metal box that he kept under his bed. It was bursting with piles of money. Bearer’s cheques, Rands, Pulas, US Dollars and many other currencies. Nkululeko sat staring at his father who was digging into his plate. NaNkululeko strode into the sitting room where Nkululeko and his father were seated eating their supper. “There is a man at the door.” NaNkululeko said.“What does he want?” SaNkululeko enquired.“He wants to change some Rands into Zim dollars.”“Oh let him in. come in!” SaNkululeko shouted.A thin man in his late thirties entered the sitting room. He had a grotesque face that was dark. His face was very oily and streams of dry sweat were visible on his face. His clothes were shabby with numerous patches of various colours. A straw hat torn at the top rested on his head. As he trudged towards a sofa in the sitting room, he took off his hat and kinky black and brown filthy hair popped out. He let out a smile as his dirty buttocks rested on the sofa. NaNkululeko sneered. “Evening. Iam very sorry to be disturbing you at this time of the night.” Simba paused and clasped his knee. “I need to change

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Tales Of The Invisiblesome money my wife is sick I need to send some money ekhaya.”

“How much do you want to change?” SaNkululeko asked.“I have 50 Rand. I just want to send some money so she can go to the clinic. Things are hard these days; the money is hard to find.” Simba smiled drolly and yellow slimy teeth bulged from his mouth.“Yah it’s hard out there.” SaNkululeko sniggered as he strode out of the sitting room. He returned clutching bundles of money that he placed on the table. “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Billion dollars.” He counted the notes loudly and pushed the bundle he had been counting towards Simba. “6 Billion; but the rate today is 8 Billion for 50 Rands.” Simba protested. His face was perplexed and worried. “That is my rate. Take the money or leave it.” SaNkululeko glanced at NaNkululeko and she smirked.“I understand but I really need the money. My wife she is sick in the rural areas and they have no food. Please help me.”“There is nothing I can do, this is the current rate. These rates change in minutes it is not my fault. That’s the way things are. Take your pleas to your fat old leaders. So are you taking the 6 Billion?”“Ok, thank you.” Simba took out a 50-Rand note from his grimy tatty pocket; threw it on the table and picked up the bundle of Zim Dollars that had been placed before him. He plodded out of the sitting room with his head staring at the tiled floor. He was disappointed. All his plans had come to ruin. He had not received the 8 Billion dollars he expected. Now it was night he couldn’t risk going to change his money at the shops. He might be cheated or even robbed.

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Chapter VII 7 DEAD AS DISSIDENTS STRIKE AGAINNYAMANDLOVU- Seven people died yesterday at Donhill farm in Nyamandlovu when a group of armed dissidents raided the farm. Among the dead is the owner of the farm Mr James Brown. The other victims were his employees who comprised of three males and three females. The white farmer is said to have been strangled to death before the shooting of the six workers. Eight workers witnessed the murder of the seven victims. Mrs Sibanda an employee at the farm who witnessed the murder claimed that, “the dissidents entered the farm around 11pm, knocking on everyone’s door ordering the workers to assemble at Mr Brown’s house.” The dissidents are alleged to have used brutal force in directing the workers to Mr

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Tales Of The InvisibleBrown’s house and are said to have been wielding AK47 assault rifles that they used to bayonet the farm owner…A knock at the door startled him. He was skimming through the newspaper that was raised directly in front of his face. It was now some sort of a custom for him to read that same article every morning. No matter how many times he read it, he always felt the curiosity one felt when reading a recent article. The article was dated 17 August 1984. It was now more than twenty years since its publishing but to him it felt current. He grumbled as he rattled open the drawer on his desk. He tossed the old newspaper into the drawer. Scowling he pushed the drawer this way and that way to close it. The drawer banged as it closed. The knock at the door continued, it was getting frantic. “Come in!” he commanded. The door rattled open. A head wrapped in a yellow doek peered through the door. “Salibonani linjani? Good morning Baba Councillor?” the woman wearing the doek enquired. “Can I help you?” the councillor replied irritably. He was clad in a black suit that was similar to the one worn by the President in a portrait that hung in the office. He was also wearing his favourite tie, a blue tie that his wife bought him in South Africa. The woman tottered into the office and sat on a chair that was in front of the councillor’s desk. The councillor gazed at her, closely watching her every movement. “My son is a…a form four he is writing...this year” the woman stammered. The councillor frowned. “They are…are…begin...ning their exams very…very soon…”“So what is the problem?” the councillor barked.“I don’t have money for paying exam fees. I was hoping that maybe you could…”“Could do what?” he roared.

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Tales Of The Invisible“Help with…”“Help with what? What do you people think iam? A miracle worker. You bring this case to me now; what am I supposed to do at this point. You were supposed to report this issue of yours earlier before the council budget was set.”“Is there any way that you can help me?”“Woman were you listening to anything I said. You came too late; there is nothing I can do to help you.” The Councillor drawled banging his desk.“Even a little money Baba. Please.” The woman was now rubbing her shoulder with her hand and her head was resting on her shoulder.“Eh, mama I have already told you there is no money. We are facing sanctions. The government is going through a tough time. The sanctions are killing everything right now.”The Councillor scowled at a piece of paper that was on top of his desk and began to scribble. The woman stared at the Councillor for some seconds and then stood up and plodded out of the office. When the door closed, the Councillor looked up and sighed. Another knock banged at the door.“Come in.,” he grumbled.A petite light-skinned young woman wearing tall-heeled shoes wobbled into the office. She was carrying a piece of paper that she placed on the desk. The Councillor stared at the piece of paper.“Your reference numbers for the tickets to Spain have arrived sir. The details of the hotel arrangements have also arrived.”“Did they give me three rooms?” the Councillor enquired.“No sir, they said they are overbooked. They gave you two rooms.”

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Tales Of The Invisible“Two rooms! Do they expect me to share a room with my children? How much is a room?”“US$3000 a night sir.” “Ok tell them I will double whatever they charge per room.”“US$6000 sir?”“Yes I will pay them US$6000. I can even throw in some extras if they give me good rooms.” “Let me see to it right away sir.” She took the piece of paper and dashed out of the office. The Councillor watched her buttocks bouncing as she left the office. He sighed and started scribbling on the paper again. Suddenly he remembered something. He opened the drawer and took out a file that was written Xi Ping Construction Company. He placed the file on his desk and skimmed through it. He picked up his phone that was lying on his desk and dialled a number.“Mr Wang, morning how are you?” he said to the phone.“Fine, fine, you how is you?” a voice in the phone replied.“Iam well. I need to confirm the date when you will be delivering the money into my account.”“Oh money, it come soon. We wait for papers from ministry to start work, then you get money soonest.”“Ah I sort of need the money now. There is a trip iam organising for my family. Is there anything you can do to speed up the transaction Mr Wang?”“No I need time. Time is problem. I need more.” “But I said I don’t have time to wait. I need the money now!”“Very sorry nothing I can do. We only wait.”

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Tales Of The InvisibleThe Councillor slammed the phone on the table. “Dammit!” he hissed. Flora! Flora!” he called. The petite woman dashed into the office. “Yes sir, yes sir.” She stuttered.“How much money did the council allocate for the repairing of the water canals?” “US$4000 sir”“Transfer it into my account. Be a good girl and don’t dare mention this to anyone ok.”“Yes sir.” She gulped.“Here take this and spoil yourself. Buy some shoes; fix your nails or your hair.” The councillor dug into his pocket and took out a bundle of money. He tossed it on the table. Flora tittered; picked the bundle and muttered, “thank you.” The Councillor nodded and groaned. Flora trudged out of the office clasping the bundle of money.

Chapter VIIIThe new school was beautiful. Its walls dazzled in the sun. The corrugated roofs were a magnificent sight. There was no trace of soil. The ground was paved all the way from the gate to the classrooms. Flowers and a neat rockery added to the beauty of the school. Students where neatly dressed strolling on the clean surfaces of the school. “I hope you like the new school.” Miss Lorcadia Ncube remarked.“It’s beautiful. So perfect.” A giggling Buhle responded.

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Tales Of The Invisible“Ok run along now. Go to class, you don’t want to be late on your first day.” Miss Lorcadia Ncube said.Buhle strode towards the classroom blocks. She read the numbers written on the doors. Her eyes probed the entire school, admiring everything that fell into their sight. The walls, the roof, the students, the flowers, the trees-it was so perfect and beautiful to her. She bumped on someone.“Hey watch where you are going, you blind, or something.” A tall girl hissed.“Sorry, I was…” “Whatever just move along kaffir.” Buhle continued to read the numbers on the classroom doors. Checking the number on the piece of paper Buhle noticed a similarity in the two numbers. She teetered into the classroom peering through the door. A raucous greeted her. Students sitting on desks chatting, papers strewn on the floor, students writing and drawing on the board, students dancing on the corner. Two particular girls seated at the front of the class caught her eye. She trudged towards them and tilting she asked:“Hie, my name is Buhle, iam new here. Is this 2M1?” “Yes it is, hie my name is Lucy and this is Rudo.” A smiling pimple infested face responded pointing at a girl sitting next to her.“Nice meeting you, Lucy and Rudo.” A chuckling Buhle said.“Come sit with us. You can sit next to Lucy.” An excited Rudo said, standing up to show Buhle the place where she should sit. Almost suddenly as if previously unaware Rudo whispered, “oh there is no chair.” The two girls accompanied Buhle to the janitor’s room where all the extra chairs were kept. The janitor was an old slim tall man. The children called him ‘Gum tree’. His head was covered in white hair with black patches. His

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Tales Of The Invisiblesunken cheeks always made a wry smile whenever he met someone. He was a very friendly man; liked by students and teachers alike. He always wore a blue overall; no one at the school had ever seen him wearing any other clothes. He had a nasty cough that seemed to never end. When he coughs, he would spit out a glob of mucus on the ground and rub it with his safety shoe. He spoke with a wheezy voice.“Can I help you children?” The janitor asked.“Morning sir, this is Buhle she is a new student we are looking for a chair for her.” Rudo stuttered.“Oh I see. How are you young Buhle? Where are you from?”“Tsholotsho in the villages.”“You are from the villages. I know Tsholotsho it is where…” The janitor was suddenly overwhelmed by a violent spasm of coughing. He tilted his head and spit out a glob of mucus on the ground. He cleared his throat before speaking again. “Where do you live dear Buhle?”“I live with Miss Ncube in Nketa.”“Oh Lorcadia; is she your sister?”“She was my teacher at my former school. She is now my guardian.”“Are you an orphan?”Buhle was beginning to feel embarrassed. The old man’s questions were exposing her life to these two strangers that were gawking at her absorbing every detail she revealed. The janitor stared at her with his big red eyes desperately waiting for a reply. The other two girls were also very attentive. She gulped; she felt as if a lump was stuck on her throat. The janitor, Lucy and Rudo were all gazing at her. Waiting for a response.

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Tales Of The Invisible“Yes iam an orphan.” The answer popped out. The words sounded so foreign she could not believe such a lie had come from her own mouth. She felt like the truth was standing in front of her, taunting and mocking her. She looked at the three faces in the janitor’s room and felt as if they all knew the truth and they were ashamed that she had told such a lie. But the truth was hers alone. They looked at her with great sympathy. Admiring Miss Ncube’s good deeds; her kind heart that had given this young woman a chance at a better future. The three girls were handed a chair by the janitor who recorded Buhle’s name and the reference number of the chair on a record book. The girls carried the chair to class with each one clasping one of the four legs. The three of them shared a desk and they sat at the front of the class. Buhle noticed a boy ogling at her. The boy was handsome and smartly dressed. He sat at the back corner of the class with a group of smartly dressed boys who never spoke with the rest of the class. “I think Nkululeko likes you.” Rudo remarked. Buhle glanced at the boy and giggled.

Chapter IXStella arrived at the bustling bus rank early in the morning. She had boarded the 3AM bus. A small group of people had gathered at the bus rank early in the morning to catch the popular bus. It was her first time in the big city. Bulawayo was a

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Tales Of The Invisiblebig difference to the raunchy countryside she came from. It had tall buildings, tarred roads, and a hive of cars honking, blaring, and rumbling. Many fumes rose to the air. Black fumes from the car exhausts and big dense smoke coming from large chimneys at the thermal power station. She gawped in admiration, observing all the splendour of the city.“Yebo Sisi wam’ can I help you?” A voice came from behind her.She turned around and her eyes caught the eyes of a teenage boy. He smiled at her and a gold-coated tooth was visible in his mouth. He was wearing an oversize shirt with decorations of colourful flowers and a tight trouser that spread out at the bottom. She gawked at him and did not say a word.“Iam Simba. Do you need any help with your bag?” the boy said advancing an open hand towards her.“No iam fine. Iam looking for transport that goes to Suburbs.” “Oh Suburbs I know the place it’s filled with white people but not for long we gained independence we will be taking over those houses soon just you wait. What did you say your name was again?”“Iam Stella.”“Oh like the tea brand but I think you should be called Gold Star because you are more of sugar than tea.”Stella chuckled and Simba joined her with a chortle. “Where did you say I can find the transport going to Suburbs?” “You won’t find any transport going to Suburbs. The white people living there drive so there are no cars that ferry people there. You might as well board a taxi.”“How much will that cost me?”“Not much just 50 cents.”“Oh my God.”

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Tales Of The Invisible“What’s wrong?”“I only have 20 cents left.”“Don’t worry about it. I will give you money for the taxi.”“No I can’t take it.”“It’s ok I don’t mind helping. Where are you from and who are going to see at Suburbs.”“My aunt recently got married. She was working at a house in Suburbs. The white woman she was working for asked her to recommend a replacement. Iam going there to work as a house cleaner.”Stella spoke with an excitement that astonished Simba. She spoke with a glow in her eyes that made the job appear as being the apex of her life. The greatest event to have ever happened to her. “Don’t let those white bastards treat you like a slave. You are free. We are free. Our whole country is free. We are independent people now. We won the war. Our boot stomps the ground now. If those white fools mistreat you, let me know. I swear I will send them back packing to Britain.”Stella turned and gaped at the buses, entering and leaving the bus rank. Simba suddenly sensing that Stella had little interest in politics quickly changed the subject. He asked about the rains but Stella’s responses sounded less interested in a conversation. Simba accompanied her to a place where taxicabs rank. He gave instructions to the taxi driver to see to it that she arrived safe and he paid for Stella’s taxi fare. He hoped to see her again but felt shy to let his intentions known. He was only able to smile ruefully and wave goodbye at the taxi as it left for Suburbs. Stella peered from the window of the back seat and waved goodbye Simba. The Smith residence was a modern two storey spacious house with a brick Dura wall encircling the house. The ground was

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Tales Of The Invisiblepaved and tall green trees leered on the carpet-like lawn. The taxi left Stella at the gate. Clutching her bag, she knocked at the gate with a small stone she found lying around.“Who is it?” a shrill voice caterwauled from a window in the upper floor.“It’s me Stella.” A timid voice responded in English.“What do you want?”“Iam here for work.”“There is no work here.” The white woman standing at the window waved her hand dismissing Stella like a dog.“I was sent here by Mary.” Stella quickly retorted.The mention of Mary’s name caught the white woman’s attention. She called the gardener and ordered him to open the gate and let Stella in. The interior of the house was astounding and cosmopolitan. It had Chinese vases, British armchairs and Arabic carpets spread on Italian wooden tiles. Stella gawped at all the splendid things in the house. She sat on a sofa that was spongy and comfortable. The white woman strode into the sitting room where Stella was seated. Her shoes were clonking the tiled floor. She sat on a sofa opposite Stella. “Oh well Iam Mrs Smith and you are Stella as you have already stated. This is my lovely home. I hope you will take the very best care of it. Mary did a marvellous job of taking care of this place. Oh Mary who is she to you?”“My aunt madam.”“Is she related to your father or your mother? You African folks have complex family relationships.”“My father madam.”“Oh I see. Well I will have you know that Mary was both well behaved and hard working. As her niece, I expect nothing less

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Tales Of The Invisiblefrom you Stella. I do not want any trouble in my house. No boys are allowed to visit you here and if you have any guests, they may see you in the afternoon when you are done with your chores. Do you understand me?”“Yes madam.” Suddenly a white fat 12-year old boy dashed into the sitting room carrying a toy gun. He stood still, frowned, and glared at Stella. “Where did you get this kaffir mother? Is she one of them bloody terrorist that killed Walter?”“Enough Brian I will not have that kind of language in my house young man.”“But they are terrorist mother. Pa told me so. You won’t kill me like you did my brother.” Brian flung the toy gun at Stella. It smashed on her forehead and she felt a sharp pain.

“Die terrorist die!” Brian shouted.

“Oh my! Brian what in the world is wrong with you? Get out of here now!” Mrs Smith whimpered pointing a finger at the kitchen.

Brian hesitantly left the sitting room. Stella gazed at him watching his every movement. When Brian was about to disappear into the kitchen he glanced at Stella and muttered, “You haven’t heard the last of me kaffir.”

Chapter X “Kill the oppressor hayi hayi! Kill the oppressor hayi hayi!” the chanting bellowed at the entrance of Mr Cornwall’s farm. The

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Tales Of The Invisibleangry mob violently shook the farm gate and when it collapsed, they surged forward charging towards the main house. “Kill the oppressor hayi hayi! Kill the oppressor hayi hayi!” A cloud of dust engulfed and followed the angry mob marching en route for the main house. Peering from his upstairs bedroom window Mr Cornwall was clutching a rifle on one hand and a phone on the other. He dialled a number frantically as drops of sweat formed on his pale face.

“Is this the police? Come quickly there is an angry mob attacking my property. Come quickly my family is in grave danger. Iam James Cornwall my farm number E16/27 Newling Farm. What do you mean you can only get here after 30 minutes? My family is in danger you bloody fool.”

Mr Cornwall hurled the phone and it smashed on the wall. Clasping and pulling his long blonde beard, he stared at his wife Kate and their two children cuddled on a corner. His son John was 11 years old and his daughter Florence was 4 years old.

“Kill the oppressor hayi hayi! Kill the oppressor hayi hayi!”

The chanting mob was now bawling at the door of the main house, banging at the door and shattering windows. One of the rioters noticed Mr Cornwall peeping through the upstairs bedroom window. The mob-lobbed stones at the window and breaking glass showered inside the bedroom. “Kate stay here with the children.” Mr Cornwall ordered his wife. Racing downstairs with the rifle swaying steadily in his hand Mr Cornwall thought much about the danger facing his family. He fired a shot at the ceiling. The mob drew back and fell into a hushed murmur. Mr Cornwall hurtled open the door and pairs of red angry eyes met his.

Joshua was armed with a garden fork, which Cobra the leader of the chanting mob gave him. Joshua and a group of other teenage boys were recruited by Cobra who was creating a gang that would carry out the mandate of implementing the land reform programme in their constituency. The President had given the order that triggered the land grab. Joshua an unemployed school dropout living in a quagmire of poverty found the $20 job offer quite attractive. Cobra was not acting

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Tales Of The Invisibleon his own ideas. The attack of Mr Cornwall’s farm was the Councillor’s plan. He financed and organised the attacks. Speaking at a rally in the village the Councillor spoke so passionately about the need to use force to drive out the white oppressors.

“The liberation struggle is not over until we fully regain our land that the white man stole from our forefathers. The third Chimurenga will return what is rightfully ours!” The Councillor barked at the rally.

Raising a fist in the air the Councillor roared. “Ahoyi independence ahoyi!”

The crowd bellowed the slogan in one large unison. Cobra an unemployed well-known cattle thief who had been arrested several times in relation to stolen cattle in the village and vomited back into the village by a corrupt and inefficient justice system went to see the Councillor that evening at his house. They sat in the balcony drinking whisky.

“Do you know why I called you here?” the Councillor enquired.

“No” a hesitant Cobra responded.

“I want you to gather a group of energetic boys and pay Mr Cornwall a visit.”

Cobra gaped at the Councillor whose face was half lit by the thin light of the moon. Taking a sip from his glass the Councillor glared at Cobra.

“Is there a problem Cobra?”

Cobra remained silent staring straight into the Councillor’s eyes. The Councillor took another sip from his glass and gulped. Cobra’s eyes were big and red and his face was frozen like the stare of a dead man.

“Do you want him dead?” a question popped out of Cobra’s mouth.

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Tales Of The Invisible“Do I need to spell everything to you as if you are a little child?” the Councillor asked his voice tense with anger.

“That is going to cost you quite a lot.” Cobra spoke his eyes now fixed on the full moon.

“You will make sure it doesn’t cost me too much. We both know the things I know about your operations. The disappearance of political opponents and cattle.”

“But I made those people disappear because you told me to do that.”

“Come on Cobra look at me and look at you. Do you seriously think that any sane detective would listen to your silly version of events? If I want you to rot in prison, I can just make one simple phone call.”

“So how much are you paying me for this mission?”

“Mission? Ha…ha…ha…” The Councillor guffawed. “It’s not a mission. It’s part of the final phase of liberation. Taking back what is rightfully ours from those white rats. We will kill and beat them until they evacuate our land.”

One of the young man in the angry mob reached out and attempted to snatch the rifle from Mr Cornwall’s hands. Clinching the front end of the rifle, the young man wrestled Mr Cornwall to the ground. BANG! A noise erupted from the rifle like the crack of a herd boy’s whip. The young man lay resting his head on the doorframe. Clutching his stomach, he watched in disbelief as blood oozed between his widespread fingers.

A sudden shocked silence fell upon the mob and it was far more terrible than the shouting that had gone before. Then a rumbling roar of anger shot up from many throats and an avenging flood of angry youths charged forward. The hostile mob surrounded Mr Cornwall. He tried to push his way through them but he was already too late. Numerous hands grabbed his rifle and clothing. Shrugging violently Mr Cornwall attempted to

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Tales Of The Invisiblebreak free from the strong grasp of the mob. Seizing the rifle from his hands with one strong pull, the clutching hands of the mob became fists and pummelled mercilessly at every reachable part of Mr Cornwall’s body. Covering his face with his elbows, blood oozed from cuts on his elbows.

A pistol was lodged on Mr Cornwall’s waist. He tried to grab it and Joshua’s sharp eye noticed the black steel on his waist. Pushing Cobra to the side Joshua launched the garden fork at Mr Cornwall. It pierced his stomach, intestines, and pancreas. Blood exploded out and was followed by the reek of yellow and green fluids. Mr Cornwall released a sharp cry. A knobkerrie clubbed Mr Cornwall on the head. Blood coursed down his face. Other weapons pounded Mr Cornwall. They hit every available part of his body. The white man lay motionless. Stepping on his body the mob rushed into the house. They tossed ceramics to the ground, tore portraits, and chopped furniture. Joshua stood at the door panting and gripping a blood soaked garden fork in his hand. Behind him, Mr Cornwall lay sprawled on his back in a spreading puddle of blood. His head was battered and his wide-open eyes stared into eternity.

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Tales Of The InvisibleChapter XI“Do you think I joined the liberation struggle because of land?” Mr Matamba glowered at Dr Msipa who was seated with his back resting on the reclined chair. Dr Msipa did not respond. He sat in silence staring at Mr Matamba. “There was far much more to fight for.” Mr Matamba continued. “After my grandmother died there wasn’t much to keep me at that slum. My father never returned to check how I was living neither did he send any money for my upkeep. My grandmother and I survived by the mercy of the almighty. I heard he married another woman. Of course, it was just a rumour, I never did confirm it. Life was hard for me, before and after my grandmother died. She was my pillar of strength. I saw hope in her eyes when hunger ravaged our home. Those eyes held deep insight. They spoke of a deep well of wisdom whose waters could quench any thirsty mind. She was respected in the village. Maybe it is because she was the oldest person in the village. She had seen much. She was a little girl when the white invaders occupied our land. But her eyes where sharp and her memory was deep. She recalled vividly the coming of the white settlers. The massacre of our ancestors in the first Chimurenga. She remembered it all as if it had happened yesterday. These were the stories she fed me when there was no food in the pot to fill our empty tummies. I recall vividly the night I went to my first pungwe. It was held at Mount Sigogo. Villagers swarmed the mountain. People were as if little ants packed on top of the mountain. My grandmother was old and frail. She did not attend the pungwe because her legs could not carry her up the mountain. I was in my teens, fifteen to be exact. Men and boys sat on rocks and women spread out their zambias. A tall man with a bushy beard and a black beret resting on his head stood in front of the crowd. His large red eyes probed the crowd from one end to the other. A black AK47 rifle was dangling in his hand. Its tip digging into

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Tales Of The Invisiblethe ground. Raising the AK47 rifle above his head the tall man shouted:“Pamberi nehondo! Pasi nevadzvinyiriri!”

The crowd echoed the tall man’s words. A group of armed men stood behind him. Some of them were not really men. I think they were boys because they looked like they were my age. The tall man barked pointing his AK47 at the star spluttered night sky. “Our time has now come! What we now need is action, a blow which will tell!” The tall man paused and women ululated. He cleared his throat and the crowd fell into a deep silence again. “We went to the white man’s church. The white man in white robes and we the black sheep in black rags. He said: Let us shut our eyes. We did. The white man’s eyes remained open so that he could read the word. When we opened our eyes, our land was gone and the sword of flames that kept Adam and Eve out of Eden stood on guard. The white man went on reading the word, beseeching us to lay our treasures in heaven where no moth would corrupt them. But he laid his on earth, our earth!” The crowd sat in silence their eyes fixed on the tall man. They digested every word the tall man said as if their lives depended on the words he was dishing out. “You must disown your mother and father if that is what it takes. We will die if that is what it takes to take back what was stolen from our ancestors. Blood! Blood is the water that waters the flower of freedom. We will fight until the petals of blood bloom. Pamberi nehondo!”

The crowd fell into a frenzy. Women ululated and men whistled raising fists into the air. I never liked farming. It was never my interest. I sat in silence. I felt a constriction in my throat; I could not clap for words that did not touch me. I did not hate the white man because he had fertile land. I hated the white man because Mr Brown had caused the collapse of our family. Thoughts of the life I had lived and the life I could have lived if only my mother was still alive raced in my head. I did not want

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Tales Of The Invisibleland. I wanted to make the white man pay for the pain he had bought into my life. In that hopeless land, that I lived with my grandmother there was nothing to look forward to and nothing to expect. As the crowd bawled, a loud revolving sound hovered above our heads. Eyes turned to face the source of the horrendous sound. A light beckoned in the air and came towards the large gathering of villagers. Without warning bullets showered the mountain. Screaming women and men ducked and ran in a rampage. The mountain fell into a commotion. A bullet went past my ear and landed in the chest of a woman next to me who was raising her hands in a gesture of surrender. Her breast exploded and bits of flesh and blood splashed on me. Some of it entered my mouth. The blood tasted acrid. I spit it out quickly and rolled myself under a rock. I saw the tall man and his comrades shooting back at the helicopter. One of his comrades sat in a pool of blood with a bullet lodged in his skull. The firing of shots lasted about twenty minutes and then silence fell upon the mountain again. The helicopter flew away and the tall man and his comrades disappeared into the night. Bodies lay sprawled on the mountaintop. I could hear some groans and see some movements in the dim light of the stars. Standing up and tottering past dead and wounded bodies I found my way down the mountain. I ran as fast as I could heading in the direction of home. I needed to ensure that nothing had happened to my grandmother.

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Chapter XIINkululeko opened his bedroom door stealthily. Jutting out his head, he probed the dark passage. He could hear his father’s drunk snoring in the next room. He eased his way out of his bedroom. Tiptoeing through the dark passage, he could see the green light of the microwave in the kitchen. He was clutching a black leather bag full of clothes.Rummaging through a kitchen drawer, he took out a loaf of bread and stuffed it into the leather bag. Turning his head from left to right frantically he finally remembered the real reason he had come out of his bedroom. He sneaked into the sitting room. The television set sat on a wooden unit and below the television set in another shelf in the unit a silver WIZTECH decoder sat staring at him with its green light showing a channel number. He clasped the decoder with both hands and fumbled stuffing it into his leather bag. It fell and thumped on the cement floor. His heart skipped a beat. He paused and his ears shot out trying to catch the slightest sound from his parents’ bedroom. Sweat coursed down his face and agitation made him pant like an exhausted dog.A door rattled open across the passage. Nkululeko froze like a stature. He saw a shadow walking towards the sitting room. As the shadow was about to enter the sitting room another door rattled open and the shadow entered the toilet. Nkululeko sighed. His father’s heavy groans in the toilet were audible in the sitting room. And a waterfall of urine hitting the toilet seat was also audible in the sitting room. The shadow once again entered the passage and sauntered into the bedroom. As soon as the shadow had disappeared into the bedroom, Nkululeko

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Tales Of The Invisiblereturned to his mission. He stuffed the decoder into his leather bag. As he was about to leave the sitting room a thought hit him, he returned to the wooden unit and took out the DVD player. He tried to imagine the price of the two devices but his mind was too anxious, he could not ponder over small matters. Peering over the fridge his hand scanned the top of the fridge searching for the main door keys. He felt a metal object that was on top of the fridge. Picking it up he noted that these were the keys he was looking for. In the dim light of the moon shooting into the house, he gazed at a large picture on the wall, which had a woman dressed in a white gown smiling, holding the hand of a formally dressed man in his early thirties. The people on the picture were his parents on their wedding day. Nkululeko knew it was highly unlikely that he would see them again. He thought about how his running away from home would affect his mother. She would be devastated. His father might act indifferent but deep inside he knew his father would be disappointed. Nkululeko contemplated abandoning his mission but the thought of his parents finding out about the pregnancy would wreck them.The pregnancy had shocked him. He had never imagined being a father in his lifetime. He and Buhle had used condoms every time they were intimate but one night at a party things happened differently. The party was at a friend’s house whose parents had gone on a holiday to Kariba and had left the house in their son’s custody. Receiving the invitation through a phone call Nkululeko, quickly dialled Buhle’s number. “Hello can I please speak to Buhle?” “Ok, hold on.” An older female person’s voice answered the phone.“Hello, how can I help you?” a younger voice spoke through the phone after a couple of minutes.

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Tales Of The Invisible“Hey love, what you doing?” Nkululeko flirted.“Nothing, just missing you.”“Oh is that so. What you doing Saturday night?”“Nothing.”“Good so it’s on. Meet me at Thabo’s house party at 7.”“Ok I will see you there. I love you.”“I love you more”On Saturday, they met at the party as planned. The house was packed with enthusiastic drunk youths. Alcohol and rowdy behaviour infected the house. After downing several glasses of alcohol Nkululeko, led Buhle to a bedroom. In the darkness of the room, they stumbled to the bed. Buhle’s hair brushed against Nkululeko’s face and the smell of alcohol coming from Nkululeko’s mouth filled her nostrils. In the darkness, he reached for her. As his mouth sought hers, her forehead touched his and their lips locked. He mouthed her hungrily and his body leaped into urgent life against hers. Clutching his shoulders she wriggled free of his hands. When she returned to him, he felt her nakedness. Lying on the bed body to body, they strained to each other. Grappling to pull out the condom in his pocket, her hands coaxed him as she gasped for him to love her. Nkululeko was overwhelmed by the ferocity of her body entangling his; he let the condom fall to the floor.Now he stood in front of the fridge re-living the scenes from the party in his head. He liked Buhle but not enough to marry her. Becoming a father was out of the question. His friend had advised him that in South Africa he could start a new and better life. A local malayitsha could take him across the border for just the price of a satellite decoder. The decoder was now packed in his leather bag and the DVD would pay for other expenses he encountered. There was no turning back now he had to leave.

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Tales Of The InvisibleHe flustered open the main door and it opened to a new world of uncertainty.

Chapter XIIIRonald Brown stood in the middle of his maize field. From the field he saw a white Land Rover driving into the farm. It was a familiar car; one that visited his farm often. The Land Rover belonged to Henry Davis, Ronald’s neighbour. Henry Davis was a grumpy old man who was a very close friend of Ronald’s late father James Brown. Davis took part in the war against the ZIPRA and ZANLA terrorist (as white people preferred to call them). Davis was relieved of his duties in the army after a bullet tore through his thigh and shredded a muscle into smithereens. The bullet left him crippled. He often told the tale of how he killed six terrorist with only three bullets. He was an intense storyteller who achieved capturing his audience’s attention with ease. When the liberation war intensified, James Brown sent his children to Britain to live with his sister Juliet. Charlotte the eldest child of Mr Brown was found floating dead in a bath tub in Juliet’s London apartment. An autopsy concluded that she had overdosed abortion tablets. It was an event that haunted

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Tales Of The InvisibleRonald for all his days on earth. He wondered who might have been responsible for the pregnancy. Why had Charlotte attempted to abort the baby? He never found answers for these questions. Ronald was still in Britain in 1984 when armed dissidents murdered his father and six other workers during a raid at his family’s farm. It was an event that made him wary of black people.Ronald Brown was born and raised in Rhodesia amongst black people who were farm labourers at his family’s farm. He treated them with suspicion and hate. Especially after his Aunt Juliet told him, the story of how his mother had committed suicide because she had discovered his father had an affair with one of the farmworkers. The affair was never spoken. A rumour was quickly spread that Martha Brown had suffered from an emotional breakdown that had caused her to take her own life. James Brown himself instigated the rumour. The affair with a black woman was too shameful to let other white folks know about it. It had to be contained at all cost. This knowledge only prompted Ronald to hate black people even more.In London’s modern landscape, Ronald had always felt like a stranger. The skyscrapers that brooded around him were not a pleasant sight to him. He felt trapped in an artificial world he could barely appreciate. The world he had become accustomed to be was one were Msasa trees loomed around him as he rode through the paddocks on a horse. Africa was the home he had known for the first fifteen years of his life. At the age of twenty-three, he returned to Rhodesia, which was then called Zimbabwe. He began revamping his family’s farm and preparing to bring it back to full production. Henry Davis visited Ronald’s farm often but today’s visit was no ordinary visit. As Ronald treaded from his maize field, he could see old Davis hobbling out of his Land Rover assisted by his black driver, Farai. Taking out a cigar from his pocket, Davis rested his back on a garden chair. Ronald’s maid brought out a footstool to rest Davis’ crippled foot.

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Tales Of The Invisible“Little Ronnie how are you this morning?” a voice spoke from two lips encroached by a bush of beard on Davis’ face. “Iam well, what brings you here this morning old man?” Ronald enquired as he sat on a garden chair opposite Davis. Davis lit and took a whiff of his cigar and blew clouds of smoke into the air. Turning his head to Farai who was standing next to him, Davis directed him with a movement of his head to leave. Farai trod to the Land Rover. Davis spoke after Farai had disappeared into the Land Rover. “You heard about Cornwall?” Davis asked pulling down the brim of his cowboy hat over his eyes.“No what about him?” Ronald responded without looking at Davis’ face.“They got him. The blood thirsty bastards tore him to pieces.”Ronald did not respond he scratched his head and stared at a flower vase that was next to Davis. “The land reform is intensifying. We have to leave.” Davis continued. “They won’t stop attacking us until we are all bloody dead. Leaving the country is our only hope.”“Our only hope of what?” Ronald retorted his voice blaring with anger. “We leave and go where? This is the only home I have known all my life. I was a stranger in England. I was born and raised here in this country. This is my home. Just because I have a different completion from most folks here doesn’t make me less Zimbabwean.”“Who do you think is going to listen to your sad little story?” Davis spoke with a wry smile on his face. He took another puff of his cigar before speaking. The smoke choked him. Blowing smoke out of his nose, he coughed and squinted. “They want us out. It’s safer to leave now while we still can before they feed us to the dogs like the Jews in Germany. I know you are a brave

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Tales Of The Invisibleboy but you have never seen war. I have been there, done that. Don’t forget how them dissidents killed your Pa.”Ronald leapt up from the garden chair and paced towards the main house. Davis’ eyes followed him as he trailed to the main house. Before entering the house, Ronald stopped and turned looking Davis dead in the eye. He fumed, “Don’t ever talk about my Pa again. If you want to run Mr Davis, you are welcome to slip your tail between your thighs and hobble to England. But me iam going nowhere. If I die here at least I die at home.”

Chapter XIVThe sun glistered on a Sunday morning. People were dotted all over the mining area. Gold buyers, gold panners, and food vendors were roaming the place. Gold, money and food was exchanging hands swiftly. Mandla and his crew were standing under a Msasa tree collecting tribute from a gold panner. Mandla ran a protection syndicate that protected the gold panners findings in exchange for a portion of the gold. Those who refused his protection were violently robbed of their gold by his gang.

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Tales Of The InvisibleIt was just another day in Mandla’s violent life. The area that he was operating in on that day was one that had recently been hit by a gold rush. “So where is yesterday’s payment?” Mandla spluttered. “I didn’t…produce…anything yesterday.” The young gold panner stammered. “So are you saying iam a liar?” Mandla seethed.“No…no…it’s…” Grabbing the gold panner’s tattered collar with one quick hook Mandla swept the gold panners feet with a kick and the poor gold panner crashed on the dusty ground. Rising slowly back on his feet, the gold panner begged for mercy.“Here is the tribute from yesterday.”“Give me the rest of the loot you made yesterday. You think you are clever ha! I will show you who is in charge. Give me all of it!” Mandla demanded.As Mandla held the gold panner’s shabby collar, there came the sound of galloping horses. A gun fired and a woman screamed hysterically. People dashed in numerous directions. A squad of uniformed soldiers pounced on the gold panners bashing them with sjamboks. Mandla bolted towards the forest. A soldier on a horse charged behind him. Launching the whip, it brushed past Mandla’s ear. He turned left and the horse strayed away. Pulling the horse back, the soldier charged in the direction of Mandla. Missing his step, Mandla fell headlong into gold panning mineshaft. He smashed his head on the rock hard side of the shaft. Razor sharp rocks grazed his head and outstretched hands. With a loud thud, he crashed on the bottom of the shaft and dislodged rocks spewed from the tunnel mouth and covered Mandla’s dead body. Pulling his horse the soldier rode away and pursued other gold panners and buyers.

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Chapter XV“Push! Push! Push it’s almost hear!” “Ahhh! I can’t.”“One more time dear. Push!“Ahhh! Ahhh! Ahhh!”

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Tales Of The Invisible“There it’s coming. Oh nkosi yam! Thank you it’s a boy.”The Councillor was born in a rural village in Rhodesia’s sun drenched tribal trust lands of Lower Gwelo. He was his mother’s only child. He never knew his father. His mother had returned pregnant to Lower Gwelo her parent’s home after spending six years living in Bulawayo. It was very rare for a woman to leave the rural areas and go to the urban areas to seek employment. Only young men were common employment seekers in the city. She was one of a few breed of woman who dared to live in the hustle and bustle of the city. When she returned to her parent’s home in the village, elder woman in the village viewed her with scorn. “What kind of a woman lives in the city? She must be a prostitute.” These were the comments that arose whenever her name was mentioned. When her mother passed away, a few months after the birth of The Councillor, she raised her son by herself. She never got married but many men entered exited her hut on countless nights. She was considered a whore. As they say in Ndebele, a wheat plant by the roadside never grows to maturity. Men used her but never considered her marriage material. She raised her son in abject poverty. The rains were rare in that arid area. She and her son survived through the clemency of her many lovers. Sometimes they left foodstuffs and in some occasions, they left money. The Councillor grew up not knowing who his father was. The stigma of growing up in a family with no father figure lingered on him from all sides in his community. Other boys shunned him. His mother’s lifestyle was well known in the community by young and old alike. Young boys eavesdropped when their parents were gossiping about the promiscuous life of The Councillor’s mother. This made them scoff and spurn playing with him. The Councillor grew up an outcast and he was very conscious of his status in society. When his mother passed away in her sleep, The Councillor was sixteen years old. She had been sick for days and had spent the

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Tales Of The Invisiblegreater part of her sickness in bed. One morning when The Councillor had woken up early in the morning, set the fire and cooked porridge as usual, he proceeded to take the porridge to his mother’s hut. He found her fast asleep. But she was not breathing heavily as she usually does. Shaking her, The Councillor announced that he had brought her breakfast. She did not respond. Shaking vigorously The Councillor shouted,“Mama Wake up your porridge is ready!.”Placing his hand on her forehead, he felt her cold face. It was dry and pale yet so peaceful. Tears coursing down his face The Councillor raced to the Headman’s house to tell him that his mother was unconscious. The village midwife confirmed that she was dead and a funeral procession followed the next day. Relatives who had never visited her ever since she returned with a pregnancy from the city thronged her funeral. People who had never advanced a hand to help her in her times of greatest need wept floods at her funeral…

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