The sky was crimson red as the sun sank deep into the horizon. Everyone but me and my siblings had left for home.I sighed as I looked around the graveyard with my eyes heavy with tears and breathing heavily as to hold them in,after all,I was the eldest of my mother’s children and seeing me cry would drain them weak. The funeral had been a success and friends and family showed their support to us.

I then walked slowly holding my two siblings by my side while sobbing from the inside. When I got to her newly dug grave I pulled out weeds from the sides–seemed like the gardener had done a terrible job.My two siblings both cried heavily and they were drowning in their own tears while I was there, standing, grinning and pretending to be strong. After a few moments we stood up and I said adieu to my mother as I left the graveyard.

Back home the situation was stable. My mother had left a hefty fortune directly for my siblings and I. It would be able to pull me through my matric year and pay for my tertiary fees and also pay the school fees for my brothers’ boarding school.

My two twin brothers were starving–you could see in their cute red eyes that their stomachs were filled with emptiness. I ran them both a hot bath and as soon as they got in,I started to prepare the meal for them.It was my specialty – rice and canned fish pilchards. As I was chopping the onions into thin rings,I heard the door bell ring, Ding! Ding! It rang twice,aggressively.

I walked terrified through the leaving room straight towards the kitchen door.I was terrified by the fact that the person rang the doorbell aggressively. Could it be my mother’s murder? Could they have come to take the lives of my twin brothers and I? Or maybe they had heard of my mother’s fortune and wanted dibs.

I grabbed me a steel broom before opening the door, should the situation escalate to danger. Slowly,with my shaking hands I turned the knob and opened the door to reveal a tall man standing on my porch.I was trying to make out his structure in the rainy weather of the Sabie streets. It often did rain at evening and with a man standing in darkness, on a rainy day , by my porch, I was terrified.

Without even mouthing a word, he barged in the house, pushing me aside like a bunch of Christmas postcards during spring cleaning day. He was wearing a yellow mackintosh and a black bermuda hat. Again I was still terrified by him barging into my house. Though crime wasn’t common in this part of Sabie – Ford street, the chances are the assassin came here to finish off what he started when he killed my mother.

I took firm hold of the broom before finally being brave enough to ask, “Who are you?”At that point my heart was pounding so much you could swear it wanted to tear my chest open. The man took off his mackintosh to reveal a gaunt body which was less terrifying. He took off his hat and to my surprise, it was my mother’s sister, Uncle James. The last I had seen of him was during the funeral earlier that day when he was trying to tell me something before Aunt Ruth grasped him towards their grey Mercedes Benz and rushed home.

“Ahhh, I can still smell the lavender perfume my sister used.”, he said as he sat himself down, looking around the house. The house was neat and tidy. Not what one would expect a teen-controlled house to look like but, it was my first day as head of the house so this was an exception.

“Where are my two heroes?” he asked with a smile.

“Who?” I threw a question back at him.

“Randy and Mandy, your twin brothers,” he answered with another smile, even wider than the last one he cracked. He had always been a favourite of the two. Bought them toys and candy on a weekly basis. But before I could answer my uncle,he attacked me with another question.

“You up for a quick bite by KFC?”, he asked.

“Sure.”,I answered,”let me just turn off the stove.”

“That a boy!” he exclaimed as he chuckled.

KFC was just a few blocks away from Ford Street and I was craving for the old Kentucky chicken wings dunked in hot sauce and served with a side of cola. I grabbed a raincoat and we went back,out the garage and drove off in my Toyota Corolla.She had been given to me since 2016 and she was still in good condition four years after.

We arrived at KFC and the streets were quiet and littered with sadness.The rain poured like it was being sprayed from a hose and the KFC was not busy that day.Seemed like it would be a quick stop then.But I was surprised when I saw Aunt Ruth sitting inside with Grandma.Could it be a coincidence that Uncle James had specifically chosen a fast food restaurant where his wife is eating with Grandma who was last seen months ago?

We got out of the car and inside the restaurant.I went to sit as Uncle James ordered an ‘All Star’ meal for all four of us – with some dunked wings on the side for me. I sat down in the same table as Aunt Ruth and Grandma. We gazed into each other’s eyes, especially me and Aunt Ruth. Her and I had never gotten along and we weren’t strangers to giving each other the stink eye. But Grandma finally broke the silence when she greeted me with a pat on the back.I smiled as I turned towards her and answered back with my own ‘Hello’.

When Uncle James had finished ordering the meals he came to join us sitting directly opposite to me on the round table. Now I was asking myself one question, why was everyone so serious. But that one got answered when Uncle James took out an envelope from the inside of Aunt Ruth’s bag and tore it open by sliding his hand gently under the tab.

He then placed it horizontally on the table and slid it towards me. I opened it and placed my hand inside. It was papers, two pages I think. What was it that they were keeping in that envelope? A will? Inheritance documents? Or maybe adoption papers. I lowered my hands and sought for the paper inside. But the I froze as I grasped them. And then I gave it a thought again.”Why was everyone, especially Aunt Ruth, looking gloomy?”I quickly pulled out the head of the paper to reaveal the bold, black and white print of the emblem of the Sabie General Hospital.

When I pulled out the whole page it revealed something shocking. I quickly froze to a stand and then sat me down again before asking my uncle a question, angrily.”What is this?”I asked multiple times at my uncle, grandma and Aunt Ruth.

“Those are DNA results proving you’re my son,” Uncle James answered camly, “I stole a sample of your hair the day your mom died”

“So you’re saying you are my father?”,I asked with tears in my eyes.

“Yes,and that of the twins too.”

I couldn’t bare to hear any more of this insanity so I stormed out of the restaurant and drove back home. My mind was dazed and I couldn’t cry anymore. I wiped my eyes with the tissue paper I had always kept in the dashboard. When I got home I was again met with another horrible situation. The door was wide open and when I stepped inside the house was wrecked and everything was on the floor. I quickly went to the bathroom to check my siblings but someone had shot both of them dead inside the hot tub.I fell down on my knees.

I was stressed and perplexed by all this misfortune. My mother had just died, I had recently found out that I was a product of incest and my two twin brothers–the only people I had left, had been shot dead. I assumed it was the same person who killed my mother. As I went downstairs to grab me a sit and digest all this misfortune, I was met with a bullet through my chest and another one through my forehead. I was down but still breathing. That’s when I saw the house being set on fire. Had my time come too?