Themba

He takes the short road through the forest. He has been around here and if you were to blindfold him he would be able to find his way home still. An owl howls in the trees and he feels his skin cringe. They are bad omens those. He knows he has crossed paths with the witch doctor on their to their grizzly business of eating whatever remains of the dead bones in their graves. It’s been a while anyone has died in these paths. Probably they are very hungry and if they are to see him here one of them might start getting a cannibal’s ideas and maybe impale him with some invisible magic spear and they will have his still throbbing heart ripped out of his still twitching body to be roasted while he’s watching on some fire lit at the snap of the fingers of one of the witches. He shakes his head angrily to clear his head. He shakes his head. The fear of the forest however is nothing in magnitude compared to his mixed troubles now. The troubles that drive him through thre forest to his home. A home he has not seen for over a seven years now. He allows himself a smile. What man cannot? He has been incarcerated for the past seven years now. For a murder he never committed. He stops and shuts his eyes for a while. The dizziness that always follows whenever he thinks of that sweeps over him and he reels on his feet a little. The tide of nausea and dizziness washes over and he resumes his night travails. Yes, what else can this be called? What if he finds her married off to another man? What if she doesn’t want him anymore? Even worse, what if he finds that she, at the dead of this night she is entertaining a lover on his bed. A bed he bought with his own hard earned money? This is too much for him and it wipes the beautiful feeling of freedom he had welcomed and carried halfway into the depth of this otherwise peaceful forest. Suddenly the urge to be home deserts him and his feet turn to lead. He drags these over a few metres and with a defeated sigh, lands on both his knees on the ground and stays there his bowed head digging its chin into this matted chest. A sudden rage wells up his chest and he raises his head and bellows at God. It is not clear whether in anger or self-pity but his strong voice and clenched hands hanging loosely by his sides just scrapping the cold. Hard soil suggest the strongly suggests the former. Tears of frustration and anger well up and cloud his eyes. He lets them fall. Its ok to cry for a man when there is no one around, he thinks. Ten minutes pass with him thus absorbed in self-pity. He thinks he has shed enough and prepares his mind and body for what lies ahead just at the tip of this forest where stands his father’s home, his home. Where his wife must be, should be, might be, may be waiting for him. He thinks of her then two year old baby. She must be grown now and if she took after the mother she is definitely going to be a stunning gorl in the village and thi gives hiom renewed vigour. He thinks he will do anything for the girl. He ;oves her with everything in his heart and kneeling here on the forest floor alone in the cold where he can be honest without fear of being judged he knows he loves his daughter more than anything, probably more than the way he loves his own wife. Wife? There could still be hope. She of all people must believe he did not kill that boy. This unsettles him a bit but he assures himself that she will never doubt his innocence. Thinking about his only child, his daughter gives him hope and he tells himself that he can take anything for the child, yes even his wife’s betrayal. He feels disgusted with himself for thinking so lowly of his wife. Of course in all those years in prison he had shut her out. He didn’t want her troubled by the memories of her husband in red and overalls and the look of dejection and self-pity as his years wasted away behind bars doing his time. Time he had no business serving. The man stood up and with renewed vigour attacked the remaining of his journey.
*****

The man lying with his head propped against the pillow in the dead of the night cannot believe his luck. He bents his head and kisses the woman who snugly smiles with content and gratitude in his arms. Of course he cannot see the smile. Yet he feels it. he feels her heartbeat quicken and he knows she is dreaming of their love making. She never fails to comment on that by the High gods, she loves sex this woman. He will never of course neither admit that he is having trouble satistfying her nor that he wishes they could at least have it like normal human beings and not all that clawing and slapping she is so in love with. He wishes they could ago at least for a day without it anyway. Hell, he loves sex but compared to this woman, he is nothing. Of course when he does show that he wont have it she takes that graciously without a compliant but they never make it to the morning wothuit her riding him and pumping him into her like a wild young stallion on heat. Then afterwards they will lie content and spent in each other’s arms without a care in the world for their sweaty and clammy bodies. They have done it every day of their life together of course. Even when she is going through her periods, twice they did and used a condom in the process. Not that he had not enjoyed the otherwise usually seemingly to him disgusting espionage. He had to give it to her for she was fire when it came to bed matters and knew exactly the proper and hot buttons to get him going even when he felt like layiong his head on the pillow and dozing off. he kissed her forehead again and was remarded by her hand travelling down his lap. He let her play wioth his genitals and he couldn’t resot the fore that her fingers left on his penis. He found himself divinf deeper into the blankets in response to her demanding fingers. They kissed fiercely and the blankets slide off their shoulders and went slithering onto the floor in abandonment. He took her lower lip and she trembled as he played his tongue over that. Her hands moved to his matted chest and played with those springy hairs and he gasped with pleasure. He slide his fingers into her wet anatomy and she moaned groggily. He knew she was still asleep. He did not waste time and climbing atop her, he slide his full length into her. The dogs broke into fierce barking outside but the two were two engrossed in their act of lovemaking to mind the dogs.

The dogs rushed him. He stood there not sure what to do. Dogs from his own house chasing him away. He wondered if it were still the same dogs he had raised before he went off to prison. His home was still the same as he remembered it. he looked at his bed room and a tight hand closed on his heart. Something was not right here and his instinct had never been wrong. It had warned him those many years when he approached the moaning behind the bushes only the boy to die later in his bloodied hands with the knife he had pulled out of the boy’s body held in his hands. He remembered the voice shouting behind him to drop the boy and move back. It had been the police and the girl who was shrieking behind the policeand gesticulating wide eyed with fear and wonder had accused him positively in a high shriek, ‘’You killed jhim, you murdered my brother!” That had been enough to secure him seven years behind bars. He fought back the tears that threatened to choke him. In a rage he had shut his wife, the on;ly [person who perhaps could have saved him or even lessened his sentence commendable by a significant years out. He had told the police he had not dine the deed but the existence of a witness and the suspect caught red handed on the crime scene was enought o convince the jugde of the occurance of a fisrt degree murder and he had been sentenced to thirty years behind bars. He had been lucky to serve only a straight seven years tanks to his good behavious that had awarded him probation. They had told himhow easy it was to land back in jail in case he sid stepped the law. He didn’t have such plans. He didn’t fel any bitterness towards the girl who had mistakenly sent him to prison. She had been very distraught, the poor thing. It was over and he was home now. He knew his father had left him enough cattle for his wife to take care of herself and theior child. He knew he was not going to be in want. He would pick up his life where he had left and rise to be the most respected man in the village and he thought at twenty-nine he was still very young. He was a hard worker too. Dogs. He stood there helplessly, then one of the dogs moved towards him. It the dark he could see its shinny eyes. He realised that it wasn’t barking but its tail was sawying form side to side. Before he could duck it jumped onto him and with its tongue lapped his face. He went down heavily under the dig dogs weiyth and the barking fro the other dogs suddenly stop*ed. They all stood around him uncertainly. They knew benter thsn to go beyong their viscious mother. They were all still puppies although hsd growen to the size of most normal full grown dogs. But these beasts were not normal dogs. They were huge as their aged mother. The dogs quickly picked the jovial mood of their mother and in the failing light they uncertailnly helped their aged mother welcvome her former master back home. Themba hugged his old bitch so tightly that the dog had to gently bite him off. he stood up foolishly and dusted his pants and smiled woith happiness. He was nbackl home and his dog remembered him. It was good to be home. He walked to his bedroom door and put his hand on the handle. He wasn’t sure what to do. Push the doot open and go into his wife or knock. Was she still his wife? Was he still entitled to her nakedness or should he knock. Something caught his eyes. He put his head against the door and he had his wife’s famous moans. He knew instantly it was her. She was loud, his wife was. He was calling out a name and it wasn’t his. His wife was having sex with another man in their bedroom on his bed! Themba slide to the ground, his fears confirmed. He had lost his wife to another man, his wife was entertaining man on his bed! Hiw could she? The treacherous bitch! He put his head into his arms and wept bitterly. His dog sat there licking his head, aware of its master’s sorrow while her litter looked uncertainly at this strange man who seemed to have captured their mother’s heart. He dozed off despite the cold eating into his body.

It was ma Lilian who woke up first and went to open the windows to let in the chilly but fresh air to freshen the room up and purge it of sweat and other uncanny smels that evaded it. she sang soflty as she put on her night gown and prepared to face the new day. The sun was up casting golden rays into the room. He smiled at the man laying on the comfort of ‘their’ bed. He had been good for her daughter. He was childless and had loved her daughter as her own. Her mind rarely thought of her husband now and the feelings of guilt that used to assail her when she first had sex with her boyfriend had long sailed with the wind. She even looked with scorn at her neighbours who thought she was committing an abomination by her affair with Nsizwa for that was the name of the boy faced man who slept soundly and tiredly on the blankets. They were so in love with each other. She hadn’t known she could love another man the way she loved Nsizwa. They should mind her own business she thought. He was were other murderers like him deserved to be: behind bars. He wouldn’t be troubling her anymore more that she was assured of. They had told her that he had been sentenced life. He was not going to be walking the world anymore. She had felt so much gratitude when he had forbade her being involved in any way with the case. To her it had been confirmation enough of his guilt. He knew she couldn’t stand to face her with his guilt conscious. It had hurt and still did that he had fooled her into believing he was a good man. He was a murderer and for her murderers deserved to be in jail, away from innocent society. She would never forgive him for killing her son. No Sir, she would never forgive him for that. It was a good thing he had been sentenced to life imprisonment. he had killed her son because he wasn’t his and he hated raising a child who wasn’t his own. She hated to think how she had been fooled into believing Themba loved her son. How she had boosted about how loving and caring for the boy he was. She had to stand the bickering and pointing fingers behind her back as she became the talk of the village on how she had been left high and dry by a man she had trusted and she knew that now that they envied her new man. Haa! She thought ruefully. The community could go hang. She had the last laugh now. Smiling she went to the door and turned the lock. Her eyes shielding against the sun she failed to notice the man lying in a foetal position on the ground just in front of her door. Who expected strangers on their doorsteps in the morning anyway. She went back into the house leaving the door open. Her boyfriend stirred and put out his hands and finding nothing he opened one sleepy eye. She saw this and thought he was very handsome and with a laugh bent and kissed him on the side of his head. They kissed for a moment and he pulled away, sliding off the blankets. He had a leak to take. His bladder was full to bursting. Nsizwa fumbled into his boxer shots and stumbled to the door and stepped into the sunlight. The human bundle arrested his eyes and he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. he best stupidly at the human form his mind failing to catch up and come up with a plausible reason why a man lay there. He wondered to at the curled old bitch under the man’s arm. It was weird. Who was this man? He looked clean in those oversized clothes though. He seemed a little wasted but healthy. His pale skin had the look of someone who hasn’t been eating well. He was a little on the wasted side. Who could this be? Bladder forgotten he backed into the door and without turning back beckoned at his girlfriend. She saw this and wondered what he was doing. He seemed out of his skin. Shrugging her delicate rounded shoulders she squeezed in beside him and her eyes followed her pointing fingers. She looked at the man on the ground and instantly realised him. She felt fear and something she couldn’t identify well up in her and choke her momentarily. When she found her breath, her agape mouth let out a heart rending scream that pierced through the chill air setting it aflame with alarm bells that roused still sleeping folk as a far as a radius of a possible four miles. The screams however managed to utter in strangled voice,
“You murderer, you killed my son!”
Seeing her woman thus torn, Nsizwa went to the man on the ground.

To be continued…….

So according to me #StewieLeSavage today we celebrate the fifteenth day of the sixteen days of activism against gender based violence with Simosami Ndlovu.