The couch still smells fresh, like it was bought yesterday; like the ‘new furniture’ smell in the shop was carried home with it. It took his mother months of saving to buy it. It was a proud moment for her. Finally the house has somewhere comfortable where he can sit; something to fill up the empty space.

Mthobeli settles further back into it. The doctor’s words replay in his mind: ‘Smell. Listen. Touch. Taste. You’re losing your eyes, Mthobeli, not your life. Use your other senses. But it’s OK to ask for help when you can’t do it…’

“Why are you tilting your head?” his mother’s voice breaks the silence. “Is there something you’re listening to?”

She is sitting sewing in a corner, on the other side of the room. The sewing machine hums and then stops and then hums again as she stitches the curtains. He has drifted away into his thoughts. But the sound of the window clattering open with a gust of wind brings him back. He voices his thoughts.

“That doctor, he said I must get used to this, that my eyes are getting worse. He said I must take my time when I do things. To listen, smell, touch – do everything that will help me know what’s going on.”

He leans forward. His fingers feel the soft, velvety edge of the couch seat, his feet are bare on the cool, smooth concrete floor. He looks in his mother’s direction across the room. The light coming into the front door near his side of the room is helping. Still, it’s a dim view. But he can make out her figure. With her back to the wall, she’s perched up on a stool, still sitting behind her sewing machine; sewing the day away.

She’s busy. You know she doesn’t like being talked to when she’s busy.

She’s quiet for a while, then says, “Yes child. You know what the doctor said, Mthobeli. That there’s no quick fix to make it all go away. You must adapt.”

There is a break in her words and the humming of the machine and then it starts up again. The unspoken problem lies between them. Finally she addresses it.

“I know you want to go back to school. But what if things are still bad at Phandulwazi High – like they were last year? It’s meant to be a ‘full-service school’, that’s what they told me. That children with disabilities could go there too. But no-one helped you!” she says and clicks her tongue in disapproval.

She is on a roll now. He can hear the anger in her voice as it rises. “It was just words. And you were bullied. What if they can’t take you again this year? I can’t send you to the special school for the blind. It’s far away, Mtho. I know that Mrs Dube sent her son there and he’s doing well. He isn’t bullied there. He feels safe. But I can’t afford it and it’s far. What am I supposed to do?”

Her words feel like a painful prick with a needle. His lips move, his mouth feels like it’s about to open and say something back to her.

Why are you shouting? What am I to do?

She’s quiet again. He’s quiet. Only their minds are busy.

“I just want you to be strong,” she says, once again breaking the silence. “Be prepared for disappointment.”

Why are you always telling me to be strong, Ma? In 2016 I’m strong. In 2015 I was strong too. I’m focused. I’m not weak.

If only she could read his thoughts, she’d stop telling him the same thing over and over like he’s a baby: ‘Pray to get into Phandulwazi again.’ ‘Maybe in the December holidays they sent the teachers for training.’ ‘I don’t want you sitting at home again like last year, doing nothing.’

He thinks of what his cousin, Sivuyile, always tells him.

“You can’t be weak. When you’re fifteen, you’re almost the man of the house. Don’t give up.”

If his mother could read his thoughts, she’d know how he takes Sivuyile’s words to heart.

She stops sewing. “I don’t want you watering gardens and washing dishes. You should be out there, with a book in your hand, fighting for success. That’s what a fifteen-year-old boy should be doing.”

“Mama, Sivuyile talks to me, encourages me. He’s told me to be strong. No-one else cares about the three of us here in this place. They don’t care that my eyes are failing.”

“Mtho…”

Mtho. That’s more like it. The change in his mother’s tone registers immediately. She’s speaking with a softer, warmer voice now.

“Sivuyile is your cousin. It’s his job to say such things to you and it’s easy for him. Right now it’s me and you here; he’s in Cape Town. I know very well how important education is for you. No-one will give you a job without it. Especially not with your poor eyesight. Yet nothing is certain … and it hurts me how you have been ignored by teachers and bullied.”

Her voice becomes firmer, brisk. “But, tomorrow we are going to Phandulwazi, and we are going to make them listen.”

The hum of her sewing machine starts again.

***

Tell us what you think: What do you think is challenging about having a disability? How do people in your community treat children and adults with disabilities?