It all transpired quickly. I stood there in the corridor not moving or blinking. All of this was surreal. Believe me when I say I did not scream or cry, I just skipped the bodies that laid down on the floor, lifeless. I went out to find help next door. I got there and told them that my parents were fighting and asked for their help. When they got there, they found a pool of blood that trailed to the outside and the community members were all called at once.

The ambulance arrived later. I was with my neighbours when the bodies of my parents were taken inside the van to the mortuary, before going to their final place — the graveyard.

The community was speculating throughout, saying this and that. They had never seen anything like this before, a man killing his wife and later killing himself in front of his daughter, this was scandalous. Speculations circulated that my father had caught my mother cheating with someone close to him, like maybe one of his business partners and although the neighbours I was staying with tried to shield me from this, I caught wind of the rumours and I was beyond disgusted by everybody for saying something idiotic like this. I didn’t say anything; I didn’t know what to say.

Our house was a crime scene. Policemen were walking in and out of our house doing God-knows what. Our street throughout the week was crowded with police vans. It was a disaster.

My older twin sisters who had just finished their matric last year, who were now in college, heard the news and came back as soon as possible — I was only grade ten at the time. They were devastated as I was. Other family members were alerted and they came together quickly.

Questions were flooding in, but answers were dry like a desert. We all couldn’t understand what the conflict was that pushed my parents to death without even resolving it. My parents loved each other. They were role models in the township and they were both successful in their paths. My father was a taxi owner who owned dozens of taxis throughout the country. He even had a few supermarkets in the township and my mother was a good primary school teacher.

So their death was puzzling and hard to accept, especially by me — I just didn’t understand. Was something wrong between them? If so, what was it?

Tell us: What do you think the parents were fighting about?