“Dearly beloved we are gathered here today, to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony. Let us pray.”

The voice of the pastor comes over the surround system. The sound is so powerful that I feel like I’m there again. As I sit at my house watching this video, I can’t help but cry. My girlfriend of two years and wife of four years turned out to be an unturned stone from the past.

I look at our happy faces on the TV screen and wonder how could a person be so cruel? All those years and I never knew who she was. I struggle to figure out whether the whole relationship was just pretend or did she love me. If it was a plan then she did well to hide it from me because I never saw it coming. But then she’s smiling at me lovingly on the video and I doubt that she planned it from the start.

She looks so happy on the video, so beautiful. Her beauty is what captured me from day one. It’s what got me in this mess to begin with, so in turn, I blame it. I’m transported to the day we met as the memories of the past come flooding through my mind. I think of the day that changed my life forever.

***

I was standing looking at the décor of the mall when a question was asked, “Are you together?” I turned to look at the person on my other side. I saw the very angel God talks about in the Bible. That beauty you can never define as beauty, because the word itself just doesn’t seem enough. I stood there mesmerised as the angel smiled at me. I was captivated.

“Not yet. But we will be,” I quickly responded to the cashier. The angel smiled and shyly looked away. Suddenly a journalist from the Middelburg Observer asked if he could take a picture of us together. And again I quickly answered, “Yes, sure!” I was having an outer body experience and I was feeling on top of the world. They say Red Bull gives you wings, I say beautiful angels give you wings.

I stood and posed close to the beautiful stranger. After having the pictures taken we were asked for our names. She said her name was Zandile. I stood there and I knew I had to say something quick.

“Oh my, my name is Zandile too,” I said with my most astonished look that I could master.

I was looking straight into her eyes, so there was no way she could say I was lying.

“Well then, goodbye Zandile,” she said as she laughed.

The journalist had caught on to my little joke, he wanted my name. I turned to attend to him to give him my name.

“Kamu Matlala,” I said and the journalist wrote it down. It was only a few seconds but when I turned, Zandile had disappeared into the crowd. I got frantic. I knew I had to find her but I didn’t know how to. So I had to rely on fate and have a little faith that I would see her again.

***

Tell us what you think: Will Kamu see Zandile again? Do you believe if fate?