In the morning, my mom knocks on my bedroom door. I get up to open up for her. She comes in and sits on my bed.
“Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, what about you?”
“Me too, listen, I would like to apologise about last night. I know I was being overprotective but I wasn’t supposed to shout at you. You’re trying your best to do better on your school work, I apologise for that.”
“I understand.”
“So we’re cool, like Supermom and Superson?”
“Yes, we’re cool.”
And we laugh.
She hugs me. “Come, I’ve prepared some juicy sandwich for you in the kitchen.”
“Alright.”
***
I stare at my lovely mother, admiring her beauty while she’s preparing for work, her light complexion, short natural dark hair, and sweet voice. I wonder how such beauty met my dad? Because of that I became a son of such wonderful parents. Their love is unmatched by anyone’s, and they’ve shown me how to be the best person I can be.
“Mom, I love you,” I say.
She looks at me, shocked. “Um, thank you, why do you say that?”
“I just thought of how special it is for someone like me to be your son, it’s a blessing.”
“I’m also blessed to have you as my son. I’m very happy to be your mother, and it’s rare to have a child express their feelings towards their parent at this age of yours, so thank you,” she says, as she packs her bag and kisses me on my left cheek.
“Have a nice day at school, I’ll see you when I come back from work,” she says, and leaves.
“Bye.”
I take my stuff too, and head to school.
***
It’s a great morning today, and I’m busy catching up with my friends after yesterday.
“Last month I went to the Lowveld National Botanical Garden with my parents. Guys, you too should definitely go out to see the trees and flowers there. It’s so great, and I believe, bro, someone like you, Daniel, since you’re the spiritual kind of guy, you’ll be home there.”
“But in many cases places like that are the dirtiest of them all, since a lot of people go there, it’s most likely that they’ve put a lot of crowd-benefiting spirits which isn’t good at all,” Daniel says.
“Yoh, guys, enough with your conspiracy theories, you know I’d follow Daniel’s beliefs if it was possible to see good or bad things before they fall into reality. But what can I say, we all do what we want.”
“You’re stupid, Tox, in spirituality, nothing’s impossible, everything happens, right, Daniel?”
“Yeah right,” I say, and drop the topic as Mr Sikhosana enters our class to start with his maths lesson.
***
The day takes its course, the school is out, and again we remain behind for our class. Linda teaches us, however, I also assist with life sciences since I pass it best. My struggle with mathematics is what brought me to Linda’s class: he’s the best at it and was previously crowned Khayelethu High School Grade 10 mathematics top learner.
Luckily we knock off at four o’clock. I quickly head home as I have to cook before my parents come back from work. In the span of three hours, I finish cooking my rice and chicken. My dad comes home in thirty minutes. We wait for Mom for about an hour. By eight she’s still hasn’t come back. When Dad tries calling her, she doesn’t pick up. While Ead is trying to come up with what to do, our neighbour Mrs Msweli knocks, crying.
“Mr Nkosi!” she calls.
“Mrs Msweli, what’s wrong!?” my dad asks, while letting her inside the house.
“Zinhle! Zinhle!” she screams my mom’s name.
My heart starts pounding hard, my thoughts are now driving around what it is she’s trying to say.
“What happened to Zinhle?”
“Come with me! Come with me now!” she pulls my dad by hand.
“Dad, must I come too!?”
“No! I’ll be back,” he says, heading out with Mrs Msweli.
Tell us: What do you think has happened?