Sickness & Health by Masimba Musodza

When we pulled up outside the large house in Mabelreign, Rudo asked me if I was still nervous.

"I've already told you I am not nervous!" I snapped, peevishly.

She laughed, that melodious laughter that always struck at something primaeval deep inside me, the accumulated subliminal memories of courtship rituals etched in my y-chromosome. Only she could do that to me, which is why all this that was happening now- her about to formally introduce me to her Tete (paternal aunt), the first step on the ladder in our society towards getting married-seemed so right.

"Come on, think of Tete Mai Richard as my older sister," Rudo reminded me. "Save the shy, awkward prospective son-in-law act for the fearsome dragon that sired me!"

If I did not get past Tete Mai Richard, there would be no need to fear any dragon. It was rare for a Tete to disapprove of her niece's boyfriend, but such a situation was not unknown. A Tete's approval was often a formality, like the Royal Assent of a constitutional monarch; she would need a really good reason to object, a reason that she could take to Rudo's father. The open catalogue of good reasons included consanguinity, me having another wife already or a criminal record. There was another list, which itemised reasons easy enough for people to claim the moral highground if someone else was using them although they held them to be for valid, for they were politically incorrect; a history of mental illness, epilepsy, physical disability, albinism, little academic or employment achievement, Mozambiquean or Malawian ancestry, a scandal in the family, overt observance of the ancestralist traditional faith and being a Rastafarian.

I am a Rastafarian.

Rudo was under no illusion that the idea of her dating one of us would be received favourably. But she thought that if she stuck her heels in, her family would capitulate. If they did not capitulate, then she would simply move in with me. They would have to choose between the PR disaster a daughter living in sin with a Rastafarian poses or saving face by receiving my roora without a fuss.

"Oh, cummon, every family is like that," Rudo had said. "If it's not that the guy is Rastafarian, it's something else. Goes both ways, your people did not immediately take a shine to me."

"That was because you were dressed like a Rastafarian woman," I had reminded her.

"They were hoping you would bring me back in to the established parameters of respectable society where I found you, you know."

Richard, Tete's oldest son, opened the door for us, greeting first his amainini with a bear-hug, chuckling like a toddler. Then, he took a step back to look at his prospective babamunini and appeared to immediately like what he saw. His outstretched hand and murmured greeting were shy to the point of awkward, but amicable enough.

His parents sat on a couch, attended at their feet by Richard's two younger brothers, Tapiwa and Mark. The boys started to get up from the carpet where they sprawled-most comfortable at that age for when you are watching television-and then froze when they saw me. Not quite what you were expecting, eh, boys? I bowed stiffly and shook hands with them, and then greeted their parents.

Richard joined us on the other couch, updating his amainini on events since their last meeting in a hushed, animated voice, while the rest of the family literally gawked at me. Tete Mai Richard looked a thick-set, formidable sort; a combination of Lucy Kibaki but with elegance, and Stembeni Makawa in that ZBC drama about matrons who ill-treated their maids and Patience Oziokor in her genre role. Baba vaRichard was a balding, inconsequential-looking individual. But if you noticed his shifty eyes, you saw that he could have an outlet for his wife's domineering. Most men in that position did.

Then, mercifully, Richard initiated the makadiis, clapping his hands slowly and addressing Rudo by her clan praise name. Every one joined in.

Rudo leaned forward, wringing her hands nervously. "Tete, this is my friend. His name is Dawit Matogo."

Tete cast me a whithering look as if it had been explained in the introduction that I was the local chairperson of a society for the support of practitioners of bestiality, then turned away and made a clucking noise. She looked at her husband.

"Baba VaRichard, do you hear the news your junior wife brings us?"

Baba VaRichard shifted uncomfortably. When he responded, he addressed the coffee-table at his feet. "I am listening. But you are the Tete."

"Dawit, what kind of a name is that, young man?" Tete demanded.

"It says David on my birth certificate," I explained, "but I say the name as it is written in my Bible."

"Bible? Do you go to church?" she snapped.

"He is a Rastafarian," Rudo said.

"A Rastafarian? So, he smokes dagga, this boyfriend of yours? Is that what you want me to tell your father, that you want to marry a man who smokes dagga?"

"No, Tete. I want you to tell my father that I met a wonderful young man and I would like to be his wife."

Tete shook her head slowly as at the antics of an incurable lunatic. She brought her hands together with a loud clap and pushed her open palms at us, a gesture of resignation. But she was not done yet. "Young man, what do you do for a living?"

"I have my own IT company, Daw-IT Solutions," I replied. "Mostly, we do certification."

She offered me a blank stare, and a smug glow came over me. Try and pretend you have a clue what I am talking about you nasty, uneducated hippo cow!

"That means they guarantee a website is authentic," Richard volunteered. "Take for instance your doily-making business, Mum. Say you decided to sell to Americans and Europeans on the internet.Then, for a fee, his company can guarantee that your website is genuine and customers feel safer when they send you money for your products. In other words, he sells trust. Like an insurance company."

"That is brilliant!" Baba VaRichard declared, beaming at me. "It's nice to see a young man who's doing something different."

"Where are your parents?" Tete ploughed in, before I could reply to the compliment.

"My father is a senior civil servant with the Ministry of Transport, and my mother runs a thriving chicken business on her plot just outside the city."

"Really? You seem to be of such respectable background. So, why all this Rasta business?"

"Mai Richard, a man has the right to choose a religion," Baba vaRichard chided her gently.

"Religion?" she sneered.

"Yes!" Tapiwa joined in. "We studied it at school. Rastafarianism is a religion in the same family as Judaism, Christianity and Islam. They follow a very strict Old Testament culture because they believe they are descended from the Israelites who King Solomon sent with his son who was born of the Queen of Sheba to Africa."

"Well, we do not know that!" Mai Richard said. "All we know is that in some families there are evil spirits swarming that make a boy grow his hair wild and take drugs. Young man, did your friend tell you that we are God-fearing in this family? Her father is an elder of the Pentecostal Church of the Tongues of Fire."

But, of course. As Lenny Henry once noted, Blacks know how to give a church a name. Whites are quite happy with something short like St Anne's or even Dean Street Baptist Church, but for us Blacks it has to be monolithic and imposing. Like the names of bands; Gakamoto Jumbo Stars.

"I don't think the young man said that he wasn't God-fearing," Baba VaRichard intervened. "He goes to a different church, one that we may have never heard of but which he obviously takes seriously. If he wants to marry, surely that means that this church also upholds the same family values as the rest of us?"

"Nonsense!" declared Tete. "It has never happened before in our family, we do not have such in our family!"

"Well, we do now," her husband quipped, shrugging. "The only thing that I find fault with him is that he doesn't drink or eat meat. It would be nice to pass a Sunday afternoon with a bit of roast and a golden brew with my young brother here!"

"You, this is my family's business!" Tete reminded her husband. "Would you accept a Rastafarian for a son-in-law? Who among your brothers would?"

Baba VaRichard spread his hands helplessly. "Well, it isn't a question of acceptance," he began, pedantically. "They are both consenting adults..."

"If they are consenting adults, then why are they going through the channels?" Tete demanded. "They should just get married on their own, and then see what happens when people go against their father's wishes!"

She looked at me. "Young man, I will speak to Rudo's father. But I am not going to be a hypocrite in my own home and say that I am happy to see you. This girl, she comes from a decent, respectable home. We expect better from her. I will tell you now what my brother will say; this will not do at all. Rudo, I am so disappointed."

"Tete, I love him," Rudo murmured.

Tete snorted disdainfully. "So, will you be able to cope with a Rastafarian?"

"I have been attending services...." Rudo began, and shut up as her Tete screwed her face in symbolic agony and clutched her belly.

Tete sighed and shook her head. "Oh, Lainos, where did you go wrong with this one?" she prayed. "Is this what they mean when they say that where everything is good, that is where Satan wants to be?"

Then, she regained her composure, sniffing and sighing. "It was hard to make the dinner, so I don't know if you can eat this. Is this what you want, Rudo, that we have to make special meals for your husband?"

Rudo did not mention that she was a vegan now.

Dinner was a subdued affair. They had sadza, fried greens with onion and tomato and beef stew. Rudo and I had sadza and frozen vegetables heated in a microwave oven. Same course I get all over the country, as if non-Rastafarians all thought that being a vegetarian meant you ate frozen peas, carrots and sweetcorn or they thought if they dumped so bland meal on your plate , you would want to eat meat again.

"Enjoying your meal?"Baba VaRichard enquired, grinning as at a pair of unusual animals at he had just fed on his first day of work at a zoo. "I don't think I could, babamunini. I love my meat! When I see you eating vegetables, I actually feel sorry for you for missing out."

"Actually, vegan meals tend to better prepared than what you did with this, Mum," Richard said. "My friend, Lungi, is a Seventh Day Adventist, and they are vegetarian too. They have this soya meat-substitute that tasted a lot better than some of the stuff we are fed in this house!"

"Well, maybe the Rastafarians should marry the Seventh Day Adventists then!" said Tete. "Would certainly make life for the rest of us easier."

We left just after the meal. I was more than generous with my tips, but Tete received hers with less than cordiality, muttering to herself how sinners try and buy their way in to respectability. "You may have money, young man, but you will find out that there are things that cannot be bought!" she warned darkly. "I am only accepting it out of politeness and the goodness of my Christian heart. But, if I were you, I would think really hard about everything and the best interests of everyone."

Two things I noticed during our visit that stuck in my mind long after I dropped Rudo off outside her gate and drove back to my apartment on Eighth Avenue. First was that she had become less and less confrontational towards her aunt, as if the fastidious old cow had eroded her defiance in one evening. I did not have to wonder what it meant; this wasn't the first time I had a girlfriend prepared to stand up to an anti-Rastafarian society only to find that she couldn't. I would not call her weak, Tete was only one of many hurdles to deal with in a long, gruelling marathon that made up a Rastafarian's life.

But my thoughts did dwell long and hard on the body language play between Rudo and her uncle. His conduct had been avuncular enough, even the chiramu kept well within the boundaries of decency. But, I couldn't help noticing how quickly she had withdrawn her hand when he had passed her the salt and let his hairy paw linger on it. The second time, they had brushed past each other as she left the kitchen and Baba VaRichard was entering. Rudo had recoiled from contact with him.

It was probably nothing. Sometimes men got frisky with their nieces from their wives' side. Sometimes they did more than that. If the niece was underage when they did more than that, it was called rape. But, mostly, all they did was cope a feel. The thought of that hen-pecked old man lurking in the passage for a chance to grab one of Rudo's breasts made me giggle with male empathy.



She told me over lunch, at the new vegetarian restaraunt on Inez Terrace. "My father will see you this Saturday," she said. "But he wants to see the results of your last Aids test."

"He wants to see what?!" I spluttered, loud enough for the patrons at the next table to turn their heads.

They glanced away quickly, under Rudo's reproving glare. She turned back to me. "But it has to be no older than two weeks."

"Did you tell him that you and I haven't..?"

"Yes, why do you think he's asking for it?" she replied, flippantly.

I understood perfectly. "Your father is so sure that I am HIV+," I said, absently. "He has never met me, and he is sure I have Aids."

"Tete Mai Richard put him up to it," said Rudo.

Her purse began to vibrate on the table before we heard the muffled sounds of Oliver Mtukudzi's Perekedza mwana, her current ringtone. Rudo reached in to the bag and obtained her phone. She made a face at it, then placed the handset to the side of her head.

"Hi, Tete! Where are you...."

Her voice faded in to the periphery of my awareness. I was thinking about the possibility that I was HIV+, that dreaded disease that only happened to "them". In the West, "them" were homosexuals, Black people and immigrants from the Third World. In a country like Zimbabwe, "them" were prostitutes (always just the prostitutes, never their clients), juvenile delinquents and musicians. Rastafarians and musicians fell in to the category of juvenile delinquents, the sort of people kids were warned against at Sunday School.

An Aids test would show me to be what they were trying to show Rudo I was. It would give them the moral authority to withhold the family's sanction to this marriage. You could argue successfully that a Rastafarian was a bona fide human being same as the next, just a little more hirsute, and you could not really call a belief in the divinity of an African monarch insane in a country where Government ministers had conducted rituals at the behest of an illiterate witchdoctor in a bid to bring diesel out of a rock. But Aids was death, and you could not argue with death. No siree, not with red lips, swelling behind the ears, prominent ribcage and a concave belly and the care-fatigue of a dozen relatives.

"She's coming here," said Rudo, snapping me back to the present.

"Hm?" I enquired.

"Tete Mai Richard," said Rudo. "She is on her way."

"Good," I said. "I will show her what a vegetarian meal is!"

I looked up, and there she was at the entrance, looking this way and that. She wore a large floral-print dress. A waiter approached, but she had spotted us and she pushed past him towards our table.

"Hello, children!" she greeted us, pulling up a chair. She planted herself in it, leaning back with aplomb. "Those stairs!"

"You should have taken the hoist!" I said.

"I thought since it was just one floor, I did not have to bother," she said.

I motioned to the waiter hovering expectantly. "What will you have, Tete?"

"Just a cold drink for me," she replied. "I would rather a chicken, but they don't do those here, do they?"

"A large cold mango juice, please!" I told the waiter.

Tete waited for her drink, and sipped it once before bringing up the matter at hand. "Did your friend tell you what her father requires of you?"

The exultation was unmistakeable in her tone. "I was under the impression that an HIV test was personal," I said.

She snorted. "Only those who have something to hide speak like that!"

"Would you have a test, then?" I asked her.

"Me?" Her squeak of outrage distracted the other patrons temporarily.

"Why not?" I pressed. "Unless, of course, you have something to hide."

"Do you hear what your friend is saying?" she appealed to Rudo. "What exactly is he insinuating?"

"Yeah," said Rudo, to my amazement. "What are you insinuating, Dawit?"

"I'm insinuating nothing," I said. "I'm just asking if you would go for an Aids test."

"I don't need to, young man!" said Tete. "I am a married woman."
"Of course," I muttered.

She glared at me. "Why should you be afraid of an Aids test?"

I glared at her back.

"Because there is enough stigma attached to me already."

Why was I bothering. This stupid cow who certainly remembered the SLEGS BLANKES/WHITES ONLY signs that used to be posted outside establishments such as this one did not have any idea what it was like to be told that you could not work or go to college unless you cut your hair and beard, what it was like to sit by yourself even if the bus is full, to be stopped and searched by police on every street.

An Aids test was being touted by the NGOs and other activists as the next big thing. You could even get the results the same day.

But what of it? You step in to one of those places and you know you don't need to take the test. They take one look at you, and they have already decided that you are as sick as a dog. Rastafarian-sex with white tourists and local prostitutes-or just naturally susceptible to the virus. They shuffle uncomfortably.

Like the time I tried to give blood, and the woman piled the questions and excuses until someone in the queue behind me shouted, "Hey you racist cow, why don't you just tell him straight that you don't want his blood because he is a Rastafarian? The queue is growing while you play games with him."

I had turned round and found myself facing a skinny, keen-eyed individual, the sort that could be counted on to lay it straight to the management on behalf of a disgruntled but timid workforce.

"My cousin died because the only donor-match backed out when he found out that my cousin was a Rastafarian. He said he would give him his kidney if he renounced his beliefs and became a member of one of these Clap-Hands churches where the pastor preaches in English to a Black congregation and someone has to interpret for him."

The nurse's expression had remained defiant, guilt without remorse or shame. What was there to be ashamed about in her attitude towards Rastafarians? She wasn't the only one who held such.

As I stepped out of the caravan, I braved a gauntlet of stares and nudges. There was sympathy in those stares, but there was also accusation and condemnation in them. How dare I come in there and expect to be treated like a human being when I had gone against all that was ordained to be wholesome and human?

Tete would never understand any of this. As far as she was concerned, I already had Aids and deserved it too.

"If I am positive....." I looked at Rudo, and she looked away.

The question, unasked, had been answered succintly by that gentle tilt of the head. If I did have Aids, then it was over between us.

"I will take the test," I said.


-How many sexual partners would you say you have had in the last five years?

-None.

-None? What kind of a Rastafarian are you?

-The kind that has had no sexual partners in the last five years.

-But I thought you Rastas like to have lots of girls.

-Is that what they tell you at medical school?

-No, but I just thought....

-Well, you thought wrong. The Jonas Brothers have nothing on me!

-Is that right? But I thought Rastas....

-With all due respect, ma'am, I think you ought to keep the personal questions relevant to the procedure!


We did not have to wait that long for the results, but Tete Mai Richard fidgeted and muttered to herself. The thought of the likelihood someone recognising her at the Same Day Aids Testing Centre was driving her mad. Had it occurred to her that any such person would be as anxious to remain incognito as she was, poor Tete would have calmed down somewhat. But, as it were, she believed the whole world watched her and not the other way round. Though, of course, if she did see anyone she knew here, she was certainly not going to be too busy worried about her being seen here to ignore the scandal.

Our numbers-Rudo and myself-were announced and we stepped in to the doctor's consulting room. My heart lurched as we took seats. The doctor looked sombre.

"Sir," she began. "Our test concludes that you do not have the Human Immunodeficiency Virus which causes Aids."

Relief surged and a sense of being vindicated, but the good doctor was not finished.

"Madam, you do understand that the results of your test remain confidential.."

"Um, yes..." Rudo's brow creased, she looked at me for help.

"Perhaps you would care to be alone for this," said the doctor.

I stepped out before either Rudo or the doctor could say a word. In the waiting room, Tete got up and stood in my way. "What is it?" she whispered.

"I think your niece has Aids," I said. "And I think your husband gave it to her."

You could have knocked her down with a feather. As I pushed past her, she slumped back in to her chair. Her massive chest heaved like machinery coming to life, before her vocal chords activated.

I could still hear her shrieks long after I had left the building.

In Sickness and in Health was written by Masimba Musodza and is condensed from a forth-coming novel.

Copyright Masimba Musodza 2009.

I was born in 1976, as independence and all it offered to an erstwhile disenfranchised Black majority dawned on the country now known as Zimbabwe. I was educated at Avondale Primary School, Harare, and St Mary Magdalene's High School in Nyanga. Then I went to Film School, majoring in Screenwriting and Directing. So, while I am only just emerging in the literary world, I have been a writer for film and television for a while now.

I am the author of The Man who turned into a Rastafarian, an anthology of short-stories. A novel is due to published before the end of the year. I am now working on a ChiShona language novel that I think will push and redefine the boundaries of the genre. I also write essays of interest to adherents of the Rastafarian Faith.

Uriah's Vengeance by Masimba Musodza

CHAPTER EIGHT

"I expect you not to have touched anything!" Sergeant Sambiri bellowed ominously, eyeing the corpse as though he expected it to shape-shift into The Swamp Thing at any moment from now and run amok, and he badly needed it to stay dead in order to complete the investigation.

He swung his gaze towards the two detectives, his bulk hiding the clock on the wall so that they could not see that the time was nearly 3 a.m.

The sibling duo exchanged glances. He towered over them, and they both thought his demeanour was reminiscent of Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin in the recent biographical movie.

"Well?" he roared, jolting them to the present.

"Come now, as you can see, Sarge, you still have your stiff," Ce-Ce pointed out. "And a very stiff one it is, too. All we did was witness a murder. What was there to touch?"

He glared at her, as if her guile would literally pop up, the mask of candour that she offered him literally shrivelling under the basilisk power of his eyes.

Susan walked up to them, breaking this deadlock in a battle of wills.

"This looks cut and dry, Sarge," was her verdict, delivered in a matter-of-fact tone that was incongruous with her bimbo expression. She chewed gum for a moment before adding, "We have a body, broken furniture. My guess is that the axe was the weapon."

"No shit, Sherlock!" said Sergeant Sambiri, the placid voice belying his mounting irritation at his subordinates display of stupidity. "And all this time I thought it was something to split the pages of the magazine with!" He wiped his head. "Look, sarcasm aside, she's right. This one's clear-cut. A business tycoon gets attacked by robbers and dies. Two witnesses, hey, might even throw in your earlier report about the attack in the Tilcor area. Clean as a whistle!"

"Aren't you going to try and find the killer?" asked Farai.

"Oh, we'll try," said Sergeant Sambiri, his voice devoid of what Farai and Ce-Ce would have regarded as sufficient levels of enthusiasm and confidence. "But with no fingerprints, a vague description and even vaguer forensic evidence, there’s a very slim chance we will. There’s a better chance of him turning up at the station with a volunteered confession. And he or she was wearing a mask, so our Hammer Horror movie sound effects artist here did not see anything." He cocked his head towards the house-keeper, who sat limply on a sofa and stared in to space.

Farai opened his mouth, but shut it as he felt his sister's hand on his arm. Sergeant Sambiri interpreted this as surrender, and grinned smugly.

"Right, bring in the meat box; get the stiff and this woman out of here. Let's wrap this up, cummon."

He rubbed his hands and began to move towards the door.

"I wonder if they have coffee in the kitchen. Sue, my darling niece, come and make us a cup!"

As dour looking officers perfunctorily seized Karize's limp form to put it in the waiting metal coffin, Ce-Ce pulled Farai aside.

"Should we have one last look around?" she whispered.

Before the police arrived, the detectives had searched the house and found nothing of significance. Farai thought this was to be expected; this wasn’t the main Karize residence, after all. Ce-Ce, on the other hand, felt that with all the clues that kept cropping up, with a murder happening almost as if timed to coincide with their arrival at the house, it was remarkable that they had found none here. Ce-Ce had sifted through the papers on Karize’s desk, and in the drawers in the bedroom. There appeared to be nothing of significance there too, but she took pictures of every page, every scrap of paper. Farai had shaken his head, as if despairing of her folly.

"Well, if you think we'll find something we haven't already," her brother said.

"But we have!" Ce-Ce insisted. "We found nothing of significance!"

"I don't follow," admitted Farai, frowning.

"Well, you should!"

Farai had no choice, for his sister was already marching towards the door, brushing past policemen who gave her no more than a casual glance as if it was, for them, quite mundane to see Rastafarian women walking about at murder scenes. He trotted after her, through to the kitchen and then the back entrance. They stood at the fence, staring at the open space beyond.

"Do you suppose the killer could have wandered through the neighbourhood in that mask without drawing attention, even in the still of the night?" Ce-Ce asked.

"He was lurking in the bushes?" suggested Farai.

"That would have been even more suspicious," Ce-Ce pointed out." A lot of people use those bushes, you know. Lovers who don't have a room. Some kid needing a quiet place to smoke some weed. Maybe someone's grandmother goes there to pray. Or just someone passing who really needs the toilet."

"And with that axe...." Farai pondered the matter some more, before coming to a dead end. He offered his sister a look of defeat, flapping his arms resignedly. "So, how did he get here?"

She looked at him. As if she had transmitted the answer to him telepathically, he suddenly beamed with knowledge.

"He came and left by car."

"Exactly, and these footprints that he left will lead us to where he left it. Come."

With that, she vanished round the corner. Farai trotted after her.

"You were not expecting me to climb over the fence, were you?" she asked, when he caught up with her.

"Is that how he got away, then?" Farai demanded, opening the gate for her.

"No," she replied, enigmatically. "When I got to the kitchen door, the fence was shaking, but I do not think he could have gone up fast enough. I am more inclined to believe he lay low somewhere, and then bolted when we turned our attention to Karize and the housekeeper. Do you have your flashlight, Fa?"

When he said nothing, Ce-Ce glared at him for a moment, then groaned. She produced one from her pocket, a thin little wand with a powerful beam.

"See, footprints," she said, shining the torch on the verge. "Let's go."

Like hound in pursuit of a scent, she was off in to the bushes. All Farai could see was a strobe of light. Beyond the bushes was the main road to Marondera in one direction, and Harare in the other.

"See where the killer trod on plants? He had someone waiting for him on the highway."

She shone her torch around, searching for clues. When they came to the highway, they saw tyre tracks form an arch in to the grass verge.

"I'll take a picture now, but we could come back in early the morning when the light’s better," said Farai. He produced his digital camera. Ce-Ce inclined her head.

"So, you carry a camera, but not a torch?" she asked.

"Can't think of everything every time," he quipped. "That is why there are two of us in this outfit. Shine your torch there, please, my Sis."

That done, they looked around again. However, there did not seem to be anything else noteworthy, so they marched back to the house. They found Sergeant Sambiri and Susan waiting for them at the Audi. Susan was sitting on top of the bonnet but she jumped off quickly under Ce-Ce’s disproving stare.

"Now, what have you two found?" Sergeant Sambiri demanded, more irked by their doggedness than actually curious about what they may have discovered.

"I think we have tracks made by a possible escape vehicle," said Ce-Ce

The cops looked at each other incredulously.

"Is that all?" Sergeant Sambiri snorted disdainfully.

"A lot more than you have, Sarge!" Farai pointed out, flippantly.

"That's because we are not doggedly pursuing the matter!" Sergeant Sambiri retorted.

"You two can play Sherlock Holmes & the Wailers if you like, but we think there's nothing to investigate. We are not going to waste valuable police time, and we certainly lack your sense of drama."

"Don't you think it strange that for a supposedly random robbery, nothing was taken, Sarge?" asked Ce-Ce, before Farai could tell the burly sergeant exactly what other senses he and her sister thought the police force was in want of.

"Not at all. You surprised the robber, so he did not get the chance to get his hands on some loot.”

The Sergeant smiled indulgently.

"Listen, miss, the police have no problem with you carrying on investigating. Snoop around, take swabs for DNA tests, and carry out your deepest fantasies with all that stuff you get off some geek website in the States. For us, this is pretty much open and shut.What I would like you to do is escort us to Ballantyne Park in Harare to Mrs Karize, the deceased’s widow. I think that it would be better if you are present when we inform her of her husband's death."

"Sure," Ce-Ce readily agreed.

"OK. Let's go now," said the sergeant, looking pleased.

He barked a string of last orders to his team, and then joined Susan and another female detective in his powerful Land Cruiser.

As she watched them enter the police vehicle, Ce-Ce started the Audi and pulled out, towards Harare. She winced when she saw the time on the dashboard; nearly 5 a.m. Tamar would be fast asleep now, the poor girl. How she missed her daughter! She cast a sidelong glance at her brother and saw that he was nodding off. She felt wide-awake but she knew that she would go in to some sort of coma as soon as she laid her head on her pillow.

"I think Sambiri suspects the wife," said Ce-Ce. It was more the need to take her mind off Tamar than to keep Farai awake.

"Hm?" Farai sat up, and blinked himself to fully awake.

"I think the police think it was Mrs Karize who did it," said Ce-Ce.

"I thought they were not interested in finding the killer," said Farai.

"No, what Sambiri means is that if the case is too difficult, they are not going to bother. However, if they can scrape together enough to take to the Prosecutor's desk, then they have themselves a high profile case."

"Well, of course," Farai agreed. "And meanwhile, this Uriah chap gets away."

"Don't forget we have a few leads on him," Ce-Ce reminded him. "If the police want to bark up the wrong tree, this could be yet another PR disaster for them, while we will be literally laughing all the way to the bank. It's more imperative that we catch Uriah now than ever."

Farai rolled down his window, allowing in a cold stream of air that blew the sleep from his eyes. Although he felt his physical prowess revive, his mental faculties ebbed. It had been a long day, and a long night, one which had seen the pair of them jump from would-be murder victims to witnesses of a gruesome murder.

"You can take a rest, little bro," he heard his sister say, as though she were far off.

A warm darkness engulfed him slowly, comfortably. His whole being welcomed it, as a long yearned for lover.

Then, suddenly he was wrenched from the dark. He was aware of the drone of a stationary vehicle's engine. Farai sat up with a start. Beside him, his sister was talking to a man peering at them through her window.

"Listen, friend, in a minute the police are coming up behind me," she was saying. "I would just open the gate if I were you. That isn’t what they came for, but if they have to wait at the gate, they may take an interest in that smell of weed in the air."

As if on cue, a powerful light cut an arc across the sheer wall, in to the Audi and the wrought iron gate and then froze. The guard had put a hand to his face to shield it from his glare. Someone was shouting at him in a sharp, commanding tone to open the gate. Muttering a curse, he darted away from the Audi, and retreated into his hut. The gate began to slide open.

They approached the two-storey Spanish-style villa on a cobbled driveway. Lights were coming on all over the house from the top story going down, as if someone was moving from room to room. The front door swung open, Mrs Karize stepped out.

As the detectives emerged from their Audi, she recognized them and rushed towards them.

"Miss Chisango and your brother. My guard said the police were here?"

She looked beyond them, as the police vehicle pulled up. Her eyes held a question as she returned her gaze to the detectives. Sergeant Sambiri stepped out of the vehicle, followed by Susan. He immediately took charge.

"Mrs Karize?" he enquired, gravely.

"Yes?" she whispered anxiously. "What is it? My husband? Tambayi?"

Seeing her worst fears confirmed in Ce-Ce and Farai's eyes, she put her hands on her head and burst in to a high-pitched wail.

Sergeant Sambiri shook his head. "I am very sorry, Mrs Karize," he boomed somberly.

Uriah's Vengeance was written by Masimba Musodza and is an extract from his book Uriah's Vengeance published in February 2009 by The Lion Press.

Copyright Masimba Musodza 2009.

I was born in 1976, as independence and all it offered to an erstwhile disenfranchised Black majority dawned on the country now known as Zimbabwe. I was educated at Avondale Primary School, Harare, and St Mary Magdalene's High School in Nyanga. Then I went to Film School, majoring in Screenwriting and Directing. So, while I am only just emerging in the literary world, I have been a writer for film and television for a while now.

I am the author of The Man who turned into a Rastafarian, an anthology of short-stories. A novel is due to published before the end of the year. I am now working on a ChiShona language novel that I think will push and redefine the boundaries of the genre. I also write essays of interest to adherents of the Rastafarian Faith.

Truth Floats by Nana A. Damoah

The spider worked tirelessly, spinning her web in the corner of the cubicle. It was a huge web with intricate designs. The spider hummed as she worked, tired but hopeful, hopeful that good work yielded great dividends. Didn’t the elders say that the one who should enjoy the meal is the one who laboured? The fly was enjoying his flight through the nice ambience in the room. The day’s peregrinations had been fruitful. He had travelled far and wide, and enjoyed various substrates. He was in high spirits and had already started looking forward to a good night’s sleep...




This story has been selected for the StoryTime anthology African Roar, please go to the African Roar site for more info on the book.

Truth Floats was written by Nana Awere Damoah.

Copyright Nana Awere Damoah 2009.

Nana Awere Damoah was born in Kotobabi, a suburb of the capital city of Accra, Ghana, where he spent the first twenty five years of his life, ‘a very tough place to grow up, but a crucible of learning experiences’. He holds a Masters in Chemical Engineering from the University of Nottingham, UK, a first class degree in Chemical Engineering from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana (where he graduated top of his class, receiving the Unilever Excellence and the Shell Foundation awards), and spent all his Secondary school years at Ghana National College, Cape Coast, Ghana.

A British Council Chevening scholarship alumnus, Nana worked with Unilever Ghana Limited from 2000 till 2005 (when he left for further studies) and returned to Unilever Ghana in 2006 after his studies in UK. Presently, he is the Production Manager (Foods) for the Tema factory.

Right from preparatory school, Nana was involved in acting plays and reciting poetry. He started writing seriously when he was about 17 years, in the Sixth form; he began with essays, but moved swiftly into short stories, and has had a number of his short stories published in the Ghanaian weeklies ‘The Mirror’ and ‘The Spectator’. In 1997, he won the first prize in the Step Magazine National Story Writing Competition. In KNUST, he was part of the Literary Wing of the Interhall Christian Fellowship, where he acted and wrote poems.

His poems were published in magazines on KNUST campus. He maintains three blogs of his writings:

Excursions in My Mind (essays)

Stories from the Loom (short stories)

Patmos Collections (poetry)

He also publishes his writings and thoughts regularly on Facebook.com, and has been circulating his Excursions in my mind series amongst his friends via email since 2004.

His first book, Excursions in My Mind, a collection of reflective essays and poems, was published by Athena press UK in October 2008 and is available on Athena.com, amazon.com and amazon.co.uk, as well as in Ghana bookshops. He is working on his second book of essays and poetry, ‘Through the Gates of Thought’, due in March 2009.

As a writer, Nana sees himself as a distillation plant which takes issues around him - mundane, routine everyday occurrences - as his raw material, reflects on and processes them, producing various fractions, fit for use by his readers.



His work with Joyful Way Incorporated, a Christian Music ministry in Ghana, of which he was National President from 2002 to 2004, takes a greater part of his spare time. He is in the Prayer and Counselling Department of the ministry and also plays the drums, when drummers are not available!

He is married to Vivian. The couple and their sons, Nana Kwame Bassanyin and Nana Yaw Appiah, are based in Accra, Ghana.

In The Dark by Colin Meier

Rogan woke up to loud knocking on the door, and, despite a strong urge to roll over and go back to sleep, he forced himself out of bed.

Only one person knocked like that. Only one person in his life knew him well enough to know that regular knocking would go unheeded – it needed to be loud, and it needed to be irregular. Knock. Knock-knock-knock. Knock. Knock, knock.

He walked through the small apartment – it took him about five seconds – and opened the door.

And sure enough, Mike was there.

“Hey,” Rogan said. “It’s one-thirty in the afternoon. What the fuck are you doing waking me up? You want a beer?”

He turned and went into the kitchenette.

“When did you start buying that?” Mike asked, looking at the beers Rogan pulled out. Mike handed him a lit cigarette in exchange for the beer.

“I’m unemployed, as you might remember,” said Rogan. “And broke.”

“I thought being broke was precisely the job you needed to be a good actor.”

“It looks a lot more romantic in the movies,” Rogan said. “Where the unemployed actors are played by working actors.”

He moved into the living room and slumped down into the armchair.

“You should have become a cop, I keep saying,” Mike said. He sat down on the low table that served as the other chair, and swallowed a third of the beer. “I should know. Undercover work is all about acting. Wow, this beer is really bad.”

“Yeah, did you have a reason for coming around? Or are you just here for the bad beer?”

“Do I need a reason?” Mike took another swallow of the beer. “You’re my best friend.”

“Yeah, okay, drink your cheap beer. Tell me what’s up when you’re ready.”

Mike shifted a bit. He clenched his hands into fists and then gradually opened them, and then repeated the action. Then he seemed to realize he was doing it, and took another cigarette out of the box.

When he lit it the cigarette, the flame from the lighter trembled.

“I’m here because last night I saw someone called Screwdriver shoot a high school football player.” He looked up at Rogan. “Dude, you can’t tell anyone about this.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Rogan, thinking Jesus, but not saying it. He kept it light. “Who’m I gonna tell, anyway? All of those fans you had to fight your way through getting to the door?”

“No, Rogan, I’m serious,” said Mike. “These people think guns are, uh, point-and-click solutions.” He looked down at the top of his beer. “And I watched them solving this...human resources problem...last night.”

“I can see why you’re a little edgy today.” I would be too.

“By the river,” said Mike. “Near the Wheaton Street Bridge. There’s a cave.”

“I didn’t know we had any around here,” said Rogan.

Mike waved the beer bottle around at Rogan’s living room. “The people I’m working for decided that their houses and abandoned buildings and cheap apartments and such were not very secure.”

“We’re talking about drugs, I assume.”

Mike nodded. “They’ve set up two labs in there. A marijuana farm with sunlamps and irrigation. And a rolling meth lab.”

“Rolling?”

Mike nodded. “It means you’re working with the finished product in the same room as the starter chemicals. You know, there’s a reason these labs explode. Putting everything in the same room is basically a way to guarantee that.”

Rogan snorted. “I hope they don’t do quality control on the weed next to the meth lab.”

“Well, it’s not like they have safety regulations, and hard hats, and stuff. And these guys – well, the guy I know, a guy calls himself Screwdriver...I mean, that tells you all you need to know, fucking Screwdriver – this guy has broken the first rule of drug manufacture.”

“Which is?”

“He’s using his product. Not a rare problem amongst manufacturers, but when you’re making meth in a rolling lab...”

“Shit. So what’s your cover?”

“Security. What else? I’m on the night shift, with Screwdriver, his girlfriend, and his cousin.”

“Can he tell the difference?”

That got him a grin, at least. “He’s not trash – or at least, he didn’t start out that way. But he’s been inside a few times, and I think prison broke his already light grasp on reality. The dangerous part is, meth lets him think he still has that grip. And this is a guy with a gun.”

“So who did he shoot?”

“He shot one of our mules who’d come to pick up a batch for delivery. A high school student in a letter jacket. Quarterback. Kid told him he shouldn’t be using his own stuff when he was working. Smiled about it. Screwdriver shot him in his smiling mouth.”

Fuck. Mike, these people...one day you’ll say the wrong thing.

“When are you arresting him?”

“We aren’t. We need to know who Screwdriver is working for,” said Mike. “According to the Captain. But – I’ll be honest — after seeing that kid get taken out like that, I’m tired of the whole thing. I mean, here we got fucking Screwdriver cold on murder two, at least. But the Captain’s not interested. Says it’ll be good to force a plea bargain down the line sometime, but they want Screwdriver’s boss, and his boss’s boss.”

There was a long pause. Rogan kept quiet, watching dark emotions flicker across his friend’s face.

Mike continued, “And in the end, no-one ever gets arrested except the guys at the top. They’ve got this whole thing backwards.” He hit himself in the head with the heel of his hand. “The guys killing high school kids are at the bottom. Got another crappy beer?”

“Yeah,” said Rogan. He got up and went to kitchenette and fetched two more.

Mike took a small sip. “I can feel this beer,” he said. “Here I am talking about guys using their own stuff, and I’m planning on walking into a meth lab drunk.”

“Are you, though?” asked Rogan. He could tell Mike was coming to some sort of conclusion in a typically Mikey way – laying out all the justifications ahead of time.

“There’s something I haven’t told you yet. I mean, yeah, I’m tired of the way we’ve been doing these ops. I’m sick of the political bullshit. I mean, I got this kid’s brains on my best pair of jeans at three am. And my boss says, not yet. Well, I say, brains don’t wash out easy, and I don’t want any more on my clothes.”

Rogan could tell it wasn't the dry-cleaning that Mike was upset about. He tried to picture a teenager being shot in the mouth in front of him, and he couldn't.

“You sound like you've reached a decision about something."

“So...while I was getting rid of the body, and the kid’s car – that’s part of what these guys are paying me for – I remembered that not all that green leafy stuff was grass. There’s a ton of money in there, in the back of the meth lab. At least three hundred K. Maybe four, five. All small, very unmarked bills from the street dealers.”

“Mikey, what are you thinking?”

Mike looked up at Rogan, and then away.

“Undercover guys go missing,” said Mike. “One guy I knew, about four months ago, just never came home. And you know what? No-one looked very hard for him. Everyone kinda assumed he was dead. That’s the thing, see?”

“What?” asked Rogan.

“Don’t be stupid,” said Mike. “You’ve never been stupid.”

“You’re gonna take the money and leave town?” Do I have to say goodbye to you? Is that what this is about?

Mike shook his head. “Would I do that to you? No.” He tilted the beer bottle at Rogan, and then at himself. “We're going to take the money and leave town. You and me.”

“Mike, that’s nuts.”

“Rogan, I’ve been thinking about it. If I see someone else get shot in front of me, I’ll do one of three things. I’ll learn to live with it and become an unfeeling, vicious cop like my father. You think that would be a good thing? For either of us to become like our fathers?”

Rogan remained silent.

“Yeah, exactly. The other thing I might do is I might shoot the guy who did it, which is just another way of doing the third thing, which is committing suicide, because I'll be so tired of waking up screaming every night.”

“So get another job.”

“That's the plan. But if I quit undercover, quit the force, I’m no longer protected by the badge. And there are people who would, quite frankly, take advantage of that. Some grim little tabloid tale of revenge.”

“As long as you stay here, you mean."

“Yeah. And you – you’re never going to get any decent work in this town. So why don’t we go? Just move out. Pick a big city. I can do security or private detective work. There’d be a lot more theatre or film work for you.”

“I’ve thought about that before,” Rogan said. “But it takes years to become established in a new place.”

“That’s what the money is for. If we’re careful with it.”

“So why are you telling me this ahead of time?"

“Because I can’t pull this off on my own.” Mike leaned back and looked out of the window.

Rogan knew already what his answer was going to be. Although it had more to do with the idea of being with Mike, in a new life, in a new town, than it did with any money, or acting work. Hell, he’d deliver pizzas if he had to.


Four hours later, as the sun was setting, Rogan and Mike drove across town, and over the river, to the parking lot of the Riverview hotel. The parking booth attendant gave Mike a friendly nod. Mike returned it with a wave as they drove past him.

“He’s one of ours,” Mike said to Rogan as they found an empty parking space. “Do you know why we park here? The whole crew parks here, because they’re afraid their cars are gonna get jacked during the night.”

He pulled into a space, and shut down the engine. Then he looked over at Rogan. “If you’re gonna have that panicked look on your face, the parking attendant will call ahead to Screwdriver and tell him there’s trouble on the way. We’ll have three meth-heads with guns waiting for us. We can’t do this wrong. We only get the one chance. You have to look cool.”

“Sorry.”

“Relax, my friend. Oh, yeah...” Mike hunched over and pulled out a brown paper packet from under his seat. “Here, this is for you.” He put it on Rogan’s lap.

It was heavy. Rogan knew before he reached into the packet what it was. He pulled it out slowly.

“M9 tactical personal sidearm,” Mike said. "We call it a gun, but I don't want to get all technical on you."

“I don’t want a gun, Mike,” said Rogan, putting it back onto his lap. “I’m not going to shoot anyone.”

“No,” said Mike. “You’re not. But you do want a gun. You need to have it. It’s not much of a holdup if I’m the only one with a gun.”

“You’re worried about how we’ll look?” Rogan rolled his eyes.

“Yeah,” said Mike. “I am. I’ve told you how crazy fucking Screwdriver is. He definitely has a gun. I handed over a pair of jeans into evidence this morning that proves fucking Screwdriver has a gun and is happy to use it. And if he sees me with a gun and you looking scared with your dick in your hand, how do you think he's going to react? He needs to be convinced. Two guns do that better than one.”

He stared at Rogan.

“Okay, Mike, I’ll take the gun.” Rogan picked it up. The pistol was heavy and solid and cold in his hand. “You know,” he said, with a little smile, “It does help, actually. I'm not so scared, anymore.”

“Told you. We’d better get out,” said Mike. “That fucking parking attendant is gonna think we’re giving each other head or something.”

“Wouldn’t want that,” said Rogan. “Oh, no, sir.”

They got out.

“Put the gun in your jacket pocket,” said Mike.

“It’ll be pretty obvious,” said Rogan.

“No, what would be pretty obvious is if you were not carrying a gun. This isn’t a visit to the theatre. These people are dangerous.”

“You obviously haven’t been to any auditions lately,” said Rogan, tucking the gun into the big pocket on the right. He kept his hand on it. It had warmed since he first picked it up. It felt...friendlier.

They walked past the parking attendant, and set out down the street. Mike led Rogan into an alleyway to the side of the rundown hotel.

It was cool, and gusts of wind picked at the trash lying in the alley. Rogan could hear the sound of his boots very loudly, echoing back towards him.

“I smell rain,” said Mike.

“Yeah,” said Rogan. He looked up. Stars and a bright half-moon shone down. “But it’s still clear.” He lit a cigarette. “Maybe by midnight.”

Mike pulled out a torch. “Down there,” he said.

The alley dead-ended onto the riverbed. They clambered over a token metal barrier, and Mike picked out a path with the torch down the steep bank. A few dozen yards upriver, the black hulk of the Wheaton Street bridge loomed into the dark sky, charcoal-on-velvet.

Rogan was looking at the bridge when he walked into Mike.

“Easy!” said Mike. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Okay, the entrance is up ahead on the left, behind those bushes. There are two heavy curtains, like an airlock.”

“Keeps the light in,” Rogan guessed.

“Yeah. I’ll go through both, and then you follow me. We’ll come out in the marijuana chamber – it’s big, but there’s a lot of light, obviously. The meth lab is directly to your right. It’s a lot smaller. I’ll go in first there, too, just to make sure there are no surprises waiting there.”

“Surprises?”

“Make sure that douchy little parking attendant didn’t warn anyone.”

“You said he wouldn’t.”

“I’ll make sure,” said Mike.

“Yeah, okay, ” said Rogan.

“Okay, we’re going.” Mike turned toward the entrance, and drew his own gun from underneath his T-shirt. He then turned back. “Hey, listen, bro. Whatever happens–”

“Oh, Jesus, let’s keep the maudlin bullshit for my acting career." Rogan gave Mike a tight little grin. "Let’s just do this.”

Mike nodded, once.

Rogan flicked the cigarette onto the ground, and followed Mike until they got to the entrance, which was flanked with dark thorny bushes. Then Mike patted Rogan twice on the leg, and disappeared into the black hole in the steep bank.

A lifetime passed in the next thirty seconds. Then Mike was back. “Okay. It’s clear. The main lights are off in the growing chamber – they must have changed the cycle. Doesn’t matter. It’ll be dark, but you can still see. There’s enough light from the meth lab. We go straight into the growing chamber. Then stop. I’ll go ahead and peek into the meth lab, and then come back. Don’t say anything.” He looked at Rogan for a moment. Then he gestured. “Let’s see your gun.”

Rogan pulled the M9 from his pocket. It came willingly.

Mike handed his gun to Rogan, took the M9 from him, flipped the safety off and pulled the slide back to chamber a round. It was all very mechanical, precise, quiet. He handed it back to Rogan and took his own gun back.

“Ready?” ask Mike.

“Yeah. This feels like stage fright. It’s exciting.”

“Act tough.”


As they passed the second heavy felt curtain, Rogan could smell fertilizer — bat droppings — and old, ancient rock. The floor was smooth and level underfoot. Something about that bothered him.

They crossed into the growing chamber. Rogan couldn’t see much, but he could feel the space around him. It was like a cathedral.

A temple.

The floor was still level, and that was still bugging him.

Concentrate!

Mike tapped his leg twice, and he stopped.

Waited.

The entrance to the meth lab was to the right, and hard white light bounced off the rocks beyond. The entrance was ragged, but it still seemed too regular to be natural. It looked hacked.

Mike moved up to the entrance. The passage turned left slightly, and he disappeared from sight as he moved forward.

The whole place,thought Rogan,is like a...cheap movie set. We couldn’t do a real cave, so we put up these cave-like walls. It’ll work fine as long as the camera doesn’t see the floor.

Or maybe the cave was here first, and then the floor got made. How...old...is this place?

He could hear the leaves of the growing plants rustle.

Air-conditioning. Or at least some sort of air-exchange system.

So why can’t I feel —?

“Fuck!” Mike. “Rogan! In here!”

Rogan ran for the meth lab.


The meth lab was a study in gray rock, white powder, chrome-finished machinery, and wet, red blood.

Three things lay writhing on the floor, amongst overturned barrels. They looked roughly human, but there was something missing. Something that normally wouldn't let Rogan see all the anatomical details – red-flecked white tendons, fibered muscle...insane, staring eyeballs in hollow sockets...

Oh, yeah. Their skin.

“Where’s their skin?” he asked Mike. Did I just say that?

"Over there," said Mike. Flaps and shreds of skin lay littered over the far corner of the lab, as though something had gotten really frustrated in the middle of a craft project.

“Fuck,” said Mike. “Fuck. Fuck. Oh, Jesus, what’s that?”

Something else was happening to the bodies.

Dark blobs detached themselves from the shadows and flowed towards each body, forming a spiderweb centered around each body.

Shadows everywhere. Where are they coming from?

Blood flowed from the corpses along those dark webs into the thick shadows beyond the lights.

Rogan could smell vinegar.

Mike vomited, and passed out.

Rogan thought It's only special effects, reached down, and grabbed Mike by the collar and dragged him backward.

Someone was going “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck...”

Oh, that’s me, thought Rogan. Damn, Mike, you're heavy. All those hours in the gym are actually counting against you here, bro.

He got them back into the growing chamber, and was wondering how to wake Mike up when his stomach decided those were not special effects. He puked onto Mike's face, which brought him around.

“This was a bad fucking idea,” Mike whispered. He was crying. “I’m sorry.”

They weren't alone. Rogan could feel it. All around him, like oil. It touched him, intimately.

Then the pressure increased as it tensed.

Mike disappeared with a single yelp. Upwards. Into darkness. Rogan was thrown off his feet onto his back.

A sudden short rain of thick, warm drops covered Rogan. He could taste blood on his tongue and smell it in his nose.

“Mike!”

Screw this.

Rogan raised the M9 to his head and moved the barrel into his mouth, angled upwards.

He thought about everything he’d just seen.

He pulled the trigger.

The gun didn’t fire.

And then the dark closed on his wrist, and pulled the gun away. He let go of the gun and it whipped away through the mass of plants in front of him to clatter loudly against the rock walls. Traitor bitch gun.

Apart from meat, and blood, he could only smell chemicals.

Gas?

Lying on his back, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his lighter.

Flicked it once. No flame – no spark, even.

Flicked it a second time.

It was a bit damp. With blood, probably.

Then the dark took the lighter like it had taken the gun.

He could see the lighter, hovering a few feet from his nose. The wheel turned a little, as if by accident.

Well, if the dark wanted to play with his lighter in a gas-filled meth lab...


He rolled to his left and got to his feet and ran to the first curtain before something huge pulled him and all the air back—

— and then, in a sudden growing white light, pushed him forward —

— through the curtains into the night.


He landed face-down. Yellow tongues of flame flickered above him, scalding the jacket.

How did everything go wrong so quickly?

There was a lot of pain.

He could hear a growing roar as the plants inside the first chamber crackled.

A dull thump and vibration as something chemical further inside detonated.

He managed to get to his knees.

It’s dead, at least. Whatever it was.

Next to him, in the flickering, fitful glare, his shadow turned and looked at him and giggled.

Or not.

Whatever it was, it was free.

The dark wrapped unseen, fingerless, hands over his mouth and nose; it wound itself around his body and pressed close to him.

And then, slowly enough so that he had time enough to feel that it wanted him to appreciate the attention, it took off his clothes, and then his skin, and threw the rest of him to the ground.

He looked up. Under the bright moon, he watched through unblinking eyeballs as the night stitched together the kites and darts it had made of his flesh. As it reassembled them into a...suit. And then watched the dark climb into the Rogan-suit it had made.

His own skin turned and looked at him. It was the face he saw in the mirror every day, except for the eyes. They were pitch-black, wells of emptiness.

And then the night leapt back to him, thirsty, and hungry.

Mike.

In The Dark was written by Colin Meier.

Copyright Colin Meier 2009.

I'm a writer living in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa. I am currently writing my first novel, and I am keeping a journal of that journey here so that, at least, others may learn from my mistakes.

Apart from writing and reading, I also write music. I have scored a short film and written backing music for a live stage production, and rehearsal tracks for a band. I also enjoy photography, painting and creating digital artworks - although I'm not ready to inflict any of those on the world, yet...