On Freedom’s Death Date

Gusts and whistles from the past

Moan inexhaustibly as

Timorous souls rub hands pityingly on a colossal sin.

Tranquilly avenging freedom’s failures,

Hidden men drum miracles on tin roofs

And bundles of faults granted charm.

Escorted on excursions with gods and

Vague women in an anxious country of assassins,

Secret friends and keen bandits are fishing for final pearls.

The Ceremony

For My Family

It is Friday, and noon is scotching moisture out of slightly drenched soil, little children running backwards in games of cops and robbers.

I wait under a shrubby tree that has grown with me at this place I call home; a van full of sheep will soon drive by on its common errand appropriate for selling animals for weekend.

A blessed prelude is provided by my grand-mother’s arrival, my mother’s aunt Mantombi , a startling split image of Nobuthi, my maternal grandmother.

Then I know she is at the helm of a band of ancestors who sailed the underworld to secure their seats at this feast in their honor with a bride to bind as vessel of their progeny.

The van blasts a horn while we are dazed by nostalgic greetings and moments of recollecting faces after years of an absence, and I lead the congress of elders to select the anointed lamb.

Once the drama of a boy riding this taciturn ewe and scaring small children into midday migraines subsides, the animal is harnessed against a stump of an amputated peach tree behind my shack.

I ask the elderly uncle next door to come help me slaughter, tomorrow marks the much anticipated ceremony of welcoming our bride into a bloodline of griots.

Mother and I say words to calm the frantic creature, ritual custom dictating we speak to ancestors to ask for guidance and blessing.

Seeing not its near future as its blood will spill into a hole dug behind our house, we have appeased its soul to accept a fate that will clear paths of my brother’s matrimony.

We ought to slaughter before souls of other animals slain for funerals go under any blade, mother says; and the rope is loosened around a neck at peace with death.

 At around three in the blazing noon clime auguring rain during the later hours of the day, Malome and I lay the meek sacrifice on its right side, head facing west and he slices through fur, skin and bone in less than half a minute.

Knives claw through skin and chest bones are spread by cracks, and a swift exercise of skinning before flesh cools follows.

Blood soaks the earth and fills the hole, a smell quite alchemic and rejuvenating and in less than ten minutes the animal is naked and hanging from a branch, a wire twisted between severed ligaments.

Elderly women of my street gather in convoys towards our gate, knives sharpened and ready for peeling vegetables while a fire starts under a hanging carcass dripping its last blood into a hole filed with its guts and cud.

This cult of women begin cleaning tripe, intestines and men burn sections of the meat on coals sizzling in a gentle draft that prophesizes rain and tables are laid out with greens and yellows.

Meats diced and marinated, red supple tomatoes and potatoes among other assortments from harvests by machines dance on tabletops among dexterous hands and crazy spices.

Chopping maniacally and in harmony, these ladies who reared me and my siblings hum hymns and chat about old days of binging on Lion Lager, smoking pot and being chased by gangs of mineworkers marauding rocky hills around Leeupoort.

Uncle and I reminisce about my grandfather, his uncle; wondering about their unkempt graves and lamenting losses of other family members to untimely deaths.

Memories born sweetly like a yoke which can be a pillar of strength for those left among the living, and we marvel and laugh, my sisters arriving with my nephew and nice already entranced by township vibes and lust for sunset games.

And soon after chewing smoked meat cut with knives sharpened by experienced men, black pots are set upon coals and stews begin to simmer as darkness falls purpling over a company of loved ones.

There is Makhulu Meisie, a stunningly old and toothless woman who has been our neighbor for well over 25 years. She raised us, mother included with a calm exchange of love even when food was not there.

I recall playing with her daughter, during the madrigals of adolescence, chasing hopes and other gifts of acquaintances.

I watch her with her two grandchildren, born of her deceased daughter, cuddly and thumb sucking with an eye transfixed on the slaughtering ritual like a hypnotized gnome.

There is Ausie Matokelo, her cake and dumpling recopies intact in her soft-spoken heart.

An admirable soul who ventures into all occasions with a stroke of dizzying excitement, always encouraging my mischief with pieces of meats passed between us in secret.

uKhulu is a matriarch twin on a throne adorned by mother, her right-hand confidant and soul mate; a lady who reared us since time immemorial.

More hands arrive to help with preparations that will go on through the night, with guffaws and discharges of gossip melting into dreams of exhausted children lying on my bed.

And as I sit beside dying fire and steamy pots, smoke biting my eyes as I watch the sky darkening, lightning streaks in the east announcing an approaching storm.

And when midnight strikes, even the loudest jests are subdued by weary chests and aching arms of their zealous toil – my sisters and mothers who ordain miracles even to the undeserving.

The day begins in the belly of a night serenaded by a drizzle, a grandmother snoring tempestuously in her room and mother listening to radio sermons by insomniac preachers who read obituaries at hours of the rising dead.

***

At dawn of a sacred day breathing freshly watered scents as early as four am, mother is mumbling her prayers to some heaven where grandmother is said to have gone.

The house awakens to her sweeping the yard and emptying night pots;  I am soon fixing broken handles of massive pots, chopping wood with an axe made for ogres while buckets of water line the kitchen floors.

Then a new idea is dredged out that the shack outback should be dismantled to make a suitable caterers’ space and I am asked to break down a 25 year old shack in a matter of minutes in the wee hours of a gloriously tiresome day that approaches.

Contagiously charming giggles soar above voices awakening to duties of love and the ding of hammers on rusted steel sheets, bent nails screeching from termite infested poles.

Sauces glisten in black pots standing on gold black blue flames dancing to whizzing logs and candle wax, we are now waiting and preparing for welcoming a bride is an omen for the wedded, the living and the dead similarly.

Hired chairs and tables are unloaded from a wrinkly truck driven by ecstatic teens, tents stand erect on skew poles and décor breaks into song for sight while mother’s nerves strain on edge with anticipation.

Three old men in faded jackets stumble on their slow strides into the yard to kiss the calabash full of mqhombothi, and among the jovial acknowledgements of visits, Zulu waltzes in looking stranded and forlornly abandoned by those who died leaving him behind.

Always in a green overall top, he is ever humbled by any generous reception which still recognizes humanity in him, a plate of food to oil his stomach before he can kneel before the circle of elders met with a faithful hunger.

An anciently elegant ritual takes place as I welcome all to the homestead of Bafokeng, raised by Amaqwathi and in other references we spill a sip for the deceased and continue to drink and be merry as hours draw near to the hour awaited.

Saddest awareness is when I see my great-aunt Mathebula not entering our yard because of a squabble that I am oblivious to, and this leaves a sour taste in my mouth; for these spoils are her victory as well as inheritance of grandchildren to bear her hallowed name.

We share words in the short moments we walk together, and observing how vile secrets harbored by parents can taint the sanctity of life affirming events, I resolve to have my family meet in a resolutionary encounter where souls would be laid bare.

***

Sky stains ashy and darkly in a ferment of her own for this occasion.

Banks of black clouds crowded over our township, and as one would assume, right above our home where women where running amok like deranged ants on a crusade to save reserves for winter.

Storm clouds amassed with a diabolical zeal bordering on mania, its appetite for destruction seeming akin a symptom of witchcraft meant to destroy the joys of to-day.

A drizzle begins to ransack rooftops, and soon pelting hail is assaulting heads and shoulders slouched in toil for a ceremony to document a lady’s sacred arrival at our yard.

As is customary, when the bride’s family takes their time arriving at the homestead of the groom, they have to be penalized.

And that was most hilarious, watching clan share ancient apologies in poetic tapestries of tongues of the two who chose to share a bone.

While rays danced in arches around edges of sulky clouds, my grand-mother Mantombi was rearing a shoe to cast a spell to stop the downpour.

This ritual is ancient as old wives’ tales such as boiling mud in a metal kettle over coals where food is prepared for such a celebration.

And in no time, the clouds had boarded the currents of air that led the stormy clouds of earlier morning, and a wild summer’s warmth spreads over dusty streets, men and women coming into our yard decorated with impeccable taste.

I sit on plank momentarily to tend to queries of old men uncertain about my age, while running errands, moving pots from hearths, and axing bones of stubborn meat that was to fit into fat pots.

The marvel of it all, knowing that such occasion summon introspection; with histories entwined and overlapping in chatter and guffaws, while old grudges are set aside for later dates.

MaDipuo sits among the quest exquisitely clad in her finest; a memory flashes in my mind of her earlier years, a playful soul who enjoyed nothing more than popping my pimples.

New family meets old news and passions among my scintillating sisters who always make their wardrobe a statement for red carpets, and yes the red dust agreed with their color-blocked emboldened images.

Mother, looking divine among noble guests, smiles and cries during moments of a most endearing talk with Makoti, accepting her into this destiny with those who will embrace her destiny as their own.

Laying warning and lessons for life to my brother, I feel humbled to be among these souls in unison of life’s charitable experience.

How sacred matrimony is, I realized, when not only two start a journey, but a throng that vows to walk alongside the couple throughout eternity’s paths.

Another Early Morning At Wanderers Taxi Rank

Baggy pants and a decade old t-shirt from an anti-globalization campaign; a mess of hair, Chuck Taylor feet waltzing an intersection at dawn.

My angel dons some Hello Kitty costume, looks like a catalogue and feels divine, enthused by the prospects of travel which is every child’s secret addiction.

Head is bobbing to rhythms of hooters and synthesizers from random stereos, ear sealed by thought yet alert to pulsating life around this traffic jam.

Bodies hurriedly coax pathways among vegetables and fried meats, skeletons of flesh donors scattered at mouths of clogged drains.

A whistle here, a clamor of chatter and sales talk, crowds of vendors around windows of ramshackle taxis and sleep assailing nightshift workers with sweat smell and halitosis.

Perfumes from alleys or lost shelves in glass markets and migrant shopping malls, it is yet another dawn among late streetlights still glowing at this rush-hour.

Another morning at Wanderers Taxi rank, trolley pushers yawning clouds of cheap gin, heaps of luggage paraded among nervous commuters and the commonly annoyed ones. 

Impromptu calls from queue marshals about destination too far to comprehend vie for space, broken boards with faded signs exclaiming names of places where others are to be buried.

Mess of bodies still clad in dreams waking from railway tracks and makeshift shelters under bridges named after colonial masters.

Muddled wishes and ancient stories riddled in homeless young faces, well dressed mannequins and uniformed guards wielding handcuffs and other cold steel.

Spit contests, smoking mouths and hoarse narratives among road travelers and the constantly staring eyes of passengers packed in metal coffins that mirror our transience.

My daughter in tow, a heavy bag full of toys crushing my shoulder blades and her slim hand soothing in my grasp, her daze and wonder making strides slower than the motion, we are also lost as seeds among tall monuments standing on granite earth.

After swindling our way through rows of pavement boutiques and sizzling coals, we board a taxi to our destination, Kokosi.

It is still missing seven people, and this means another two hour wait in the blizzards of a Joburg summer is metal cage with windows welcoming inexhaustible chatter and deals.

One lady with an irritable child is being molested by dirty salesmen with dodgy toys and sugar supplements, and the child starts prying for one of the nooses dangled before him.

“Atle alle fela ngoana o, otla mothudisa hobane nna ha kena chelete.” She tells the lout to outright leave her child to his lack of throwaway playmates and diseased delicacies.

An unceasing stream of vendors assails this wreck from all sides, harassing passengers with all types of expressive endearments.

Stale fruit, soggy sandwiches and boiled eggs pitched on sweaty shoulders or sooty head-wraps, garbage piles growing faster than a mime’s pose.

And yet a vendor’s zest never flounders, even when they’ve become jokes for forlornly bored travelers on yet another coffin on wheels.

There’s the belts and facecloths salesman, with a portfolio of combs, toothbrushes and hairpins in tow, he tickles a snort-nosed urchin crawling on a single knee, its mother seated at a peanut stall.

The one carrying a single box of ‘expensive’ perfume, always asking prospective clients how much they can afford; the one with three gold chains always exposed way below the waistline for open observation.

Not far away, more wanton people crisscross each other’s footsteps pacing towards various ends of this anthill city, bags are drawn or carried, hands exchanging coins for bottled water or poisoned energy drinks.

Disused policemen saunter through this human mess like masters of a board game, wrestling machismo handshakes with drowsy taxi owners playing draft seated on rusty tin drums.

My daughter is perplexed by these theatrics I can tell, because she is glued to the conversation happening between two women in the taxi, about how much hair costs and on which street to find designer labels for fake products.

Slim passages between taxis make any movement precarious, vehicles packed like loaves of steel bread in a crate made of concrete, but I dare venture to find a spot to light a cigarette and smoke, concealed from roach vultures who always ask for a last drag.

An eye peeled on my daughter sketching figures on a sordid window steamed with her breath, I am getting restless but soon I am called in as the last farers arrive in time to relieve me from bile frothing in my gut.

After an olfactory overdose of rotten armpit odors and sour drains, sweat drenched shirts unbeaten by nicotine stench closest to my nose; I venture inside to sit next to my tired child, searching for notes to pay while she fumbles for a position comfortable for sleep.

Some woman commends her plaited hair and beauty, I smile, and soon the hum of the engine steers out of this case on stilts, a sign that we are headed out of this vile machine city.

Skyscrapers hover over parades of departures and arrivals, while lost patients from its womb’s sanitarium still walk trapped in its blinding mazes. 

Three First Borns

S’cefe

On his 28^th birthday, Scefe’s bowlegged father bludgeoned him to a pulp for calling his mother a witch.

A terror to innocent gazes of women and children; having bled innumerable times in knife duels and gang attacks, he’s his father’s monstrosity tamed by sticks and steel pipes.

First born among six, he is son to a loud-hailing street evangelist, a staunch moralist who has baptized half the youth of this township.

His children are meant to lead by pious example, by being teachers’ pets in class and aspiring for aviation vocations acquired through military service.

A scar-riddled head, ever clean shaven for hair to never grow in unsavory patches that make him resemble a leper, he is now a formidable drunk among his peers.

Most are always on the receiving end of his avalanches of careless punches toned by mine-dump gravel shoveling and municipal bucket lavatory disposals.   

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Kissed too many a pavement in his short life, bearing a testament of vacant gums, a bruise he bears with every smile – an image cultivated in tortures.

Growing up among five sisters made him a protective ogre rumored as castrated among young initiates vying for his born-again house of sorority.

Yet S’cefe lost his cards in a game of breaking virginities, now an uncle to three nephews and a niece, bastards he curses every night of his brute rage after gurgling on backyard brews and left-over beer spittle.

Once engaged to a teenage fling and badly let off a leash for a pot-bellied mine supervisor, he has ever since loathed mines and any prospect of working there for love’s sake.

A type of irreconcilable grudge with whoever is a beneficiary of steamy shifts in sordid shafts dug once by forefathers who lived a legacy of tuberculosis and radiation poisoning, a worthy baton left for their young.

‘Lamagoduka aziz’cefe.’ S’cefe would say in clear view of sweaty men stewing in hard liquor, tortured by blue balls and a lust for young thighs, lost away from their slovenly wives stuck in aimless homelands and squatter camps.

On his 32^nd birthday, S’cefe and his three friends hijacked a beverage delivery truck, drove it through ogling squatter camp louts, in search of gullible customers and loose girls to impress.

To dispose of their merchandise, soft drink cargo sold like peanuts to adrenalin flushed school children and greedy tuck-shop owners who negotiated ridiculous bargains and stocked crates for the festive season.

But word got around through tracker devices and other monitors spying from fruit stalls and dingy hair salons that S’cefe is ghetto Santa and he came to town early.

The culprits were sourly paying for debts buried with uncles, snitched by vengeful women impregnated on one night stands or high school bonking parties organized by heirs to impounded taxi fleets.

And when news reached his father’s holy ears, hell walked on two crooked legs wielding a sjambok and machete handed down from times of hostel massacres and peerless riots, a deadly messiah pent on flagellating a heathen.

He dealt a wanton medley of blows on S’cefe’s dyslexic brain, hoarse tongued and doing the police a favor, he claimed.

Nobody disciplines his flock – that was his mantra when S’cefe’s mother intervened shielding her strange fruit that fell first from her tired branches.

Convulsing in tears and pleading to no avail, paraded before enemy and foe, S’cefe was thus disgraced by his father, among hooligans of a township that dreaded the buffoonish sight of him.

That was three years ago, before he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, before his headaches needed more than marijuana, before his rage could make him talk to himself in broad daylight.

Before bilious monologues directed at his cursed father became his uncensored script; before slurs unto his haggard sisters prostituting themselves in the same tavern that staged spoils of his soul became his mantra.

These infernal tirades became customized offences ever since, among other innocent mishaps like exposing his giant limp penis before children playing in mud and garbage piles, or burning paraffin at a tuck-shop that supposedly owed him small change.

These headaches sapped his brain of dignity and decorum, on his face left only twitches and a feature-less gaze filled with inner struggle and desertion.

And when the sun tilted one October afternoon over a rusty backyard hangout, being known as a staunch supporter of a skull and bones soccer team, he dared make a comment about some golden team player’s lack of skill and something flared up.

Okapi’s swung from fluid hands that knew anatomy, plunging and plucking, carving slits on supine arms and legs staggering over metals rails of security gates crowded by onlookers.

The brutal news of his death travelled rampantly from tavern to township folk, tears swelling in eyes of the sympathetic, and joy blinding his victims to the cruelty of his death by the hand of a mob of soccer fanatics.

Last moments of slipping breath, neither defiant nor clawing for life, he is said to have died contented with aims tossed aside at this end of another first born in a wasteland of constant births.

London

He was christened London by his father, slept in a partition behind a make shift kitchenette of a shack once located in the liquidated camp named Riverside.

Alone on his mattress until he was seven when Elizabeth who was six joined him in the kitchen hideout, they were inseparable, but only during school as they were in different classes.

A bright eyed child who played alone with gadgets of his making, he also became known as Madopa, a hoarder of junk magazines and obsolete encyclopedia discarded by the well-read.

After his pantsula father died in a rock fall in one of the mines, London, his sister and mother lived a life considered forfeit, disguised in shabby eccentricity and dreams of a former beauty-queen who once dated a sought after bachelor.

Moving from one settlement to another, among stints of boarding in backyards, they were eventually allocated a stand to build their shack.

Tending to a sickly mother and hungry sister, London carved a home for his loved ones and resolved to never be distracted by need nor fall into trappings of quick fixes.

Piously respectful, a tickler of infants along his every path, yet slightly afraid of dogs who he suspected of being ever rabid, he was a model burned by his mother’s failed dreams of affluence.

But when most people fail in their aims they blame the devil and witchcraft, and Zion Christian Church becomes a haven for most, together with the dying young begging for prayers to postpone their dates with the ripper.

The duo had become avid stompers since time immemorial, iconic in exhibition of spiritual fervor that often galvanized other congregants to heights of exhilaration from healing songs.

They were called ‘the anointed’ by many, and were zealous interceders, attending services in tempest or cold blizzards to ration blessings for the elderly.

On their way to church one Sunday, burying a surging excitement of children wearing humorless grins anticipating hymns and chants, they were hit by a taxi swerving on slippery potholes swelling with dirty water after a hail storm.

Avoiding splashes of filth from falling on their church green and gold uniforms made their strut through the street a bit discordant.

Lacking attention for nothing either than the mud they neglected to observe other concerns, and only screams from horrified mothers who anticipated unfortunate events to unfold, made them look about in a terror that stupefied their sense, and as he tells the story, they both froze.

How he forever recalls that sweetly curious being whose company he loved to walk through muddy summer days of Modderfontein, her lucid mind that always questioned and possibly made him as driven to inquiry and observation.

He lost his arm and she her life rolled up in bloody mingled wet soil, mud caked to their heads, hers still as a rock while he wailed at his dismembered arm to crawl back in place.

If fighters live to die so the innocent may survive, then he was no soldier on that day, but a scared fourteen year old writhing in the grip of ripped flesh and bone.

After long stints in hospitals and a barrage of insults from rowdy oafs, he reconciled to carry his life single-handedly with a new vigor.

London Madopa became an itinerant seller of assorted delicacies like magwinya and éclairs, a functionary who oiled his mother’s creaky wheels, for she was aging not too gracefully after years of debauchery, binge diets and a bad heart.

Broken radios, kettles and small appliances were his prized collections those high school days spend ripping the trivial and expendable trifles and reassembling them for a meager fee.

He never passed a discarded battery-cell, having shown us many experiments where we exploded these devices.

I recall that once black goo escaped after long periods in the colas, we filled the smudge in tin-cans to later remodel them into weird sculptures and toys for young ones.

After matriculation, it was no surprise that he went on to study physics at Potchefstroom University, and travelled many countries as a young prodigy for scientific minds languishing among us who are of unfortunate births.

Now 34, waving a stunted arm at my camera at his wedding celebration, I recall that I got acquainted to London Madopa in Primary School, a sporty soul who was always whistling a hymnal melody.

Left-handed genius with a penchant for Archie Shepp found buried in his late father’s records, he developed a vision beyond poverty’s wars by which he was assailed, and that vision became a light that guided his escape from the township prison.

He soared above depravity, carried by winds of jazz storms that inaugurated stars to his naked eyes, now he is an astrophysicist, envied by many inevitably uncultured and irredeemable children of the township who see him as a snob.

He was his mother’s pride, a colossal feat for a single woman tending to mean means, at trials with life’s tribulations and constant rules which work against any attempt by the frail.

Just as she carried herself with that air of self-assured importance, looking at others with superior answers for their inexperience and feebly secure arrangements of small town life, he grew to look undefeated.

And today, he defeats the stars, constellations and galaxies with an eye bred in dusty streets of a place known for killing dreamers.

Nnana

Her younger brother Pampangtjie was arrested for possessing a pistol in 2008; a boy of 16, just a couple of days after her 22nd second birthday, wielding it at his mates in drunken stupor.

On his return from stoutskool, he couldn’t keep out trouble, as political rallies for manifestos by new parties in a democracy made of glass became his favorite past-time.

He has been a member of three political parties, while Nnana has never even voted; a revolutionary spirit filled with commercialized hopes inherited from dead stalwarts.

Promised lucrative posts as councilors and commanders, many who stuffed armored boxes with crossed ballots learnt deceit of political charlatans through ordered massacres of women begging for water and clinics.

When he turned 28, he had paid with his leg for sloganeering during some botched service delivery protestations that rendered him paralyzed and wheelchair-bound.

She tends to his crushed body now, a swollen leg bulging with pussy stews that ooze copiously, scabs rotten with skin that dries smeared with expired salves and bandages flaking off disgustingly.

16 rubber bullets can crack ribcages irreparably, making breathing a noisy feat; but Nnana has developed a patient empathy that resembles a mother’s courage for her despondent brother.

She is all he has and all she has in a world where being an orphan is commonplace, a light burns in their RDP house flickering testaments that life draws its strength from all souls.

She enjoys his company hugely, his chatter and pontifications about workers’ rights and capitalist gallows piled with black fathers and sons.

Pampangtjie was well versed in struggle polemics, having spent his time seated among books bought in thrift shops and pawn garages before dropping out of university.

A weary voice that nevertheless spoke ceaselessly, he kept Nnana’s eyes fixed on her dream of starting a salon, in a township where there was an oversupply of hairstyles in shebeens.

Nnana however, had her fun as stokvel mistress, together with friends from Toekomsrus, travelling west rand mine dumps in search of golden opportunities at marriage or other tactical careers.

After stints of bagging real cash from beer sales at hostels, their stokvel grew in strength, organizing trips to coastal cities during holidays and attracting men vying for made women.

Big spenders in flashy cars bought on credit proposed marriage on many occasions, for men seemed to fall in love with her on first night acquaintances – spellbound by a charcoal black skin glistening with beauty that haunts.

And she fell for a biker - a rush after a foxy target that was in every hunter’s sights.

Polished lies of a sleuth made a bed of roses for Nnana, after thrilling rides among street lights of unknown suburbs and freeways she would never travel again.

For a monster bears no markings of ill intent, so her biker was an epitome of fast love.

Unable to disguise a riff of anticipation one night, she asked if he intended to marry her someday.

That turned out a bad idea during a whirlwind love shared through bodies in tantric collisions and nervous groping at unisex lavatories of over-priced restaurants.

When that candle-lit dinner ended, she knew her home address, once forgotten with friends she left with a doomed business she could not stomach and despised.

Biting her words that she will never return to township life whatsoever, with bags strewn across a jacaranda clad street under golden streetlamps, she told the cab driver to take her to Wanderers Taxi Rank.

That was the year her brother was paralyzed, after a memorable rejection that stunted her ego, making a nun of her to a point of supplication and devout service of her unfit sibling.

Her service to Pampangtjie would vindicate her sinful condemnation sanctioned her by their dead parents she thought, to perhaps dredge out remorse from tacit faces of those who might have to bury them when they can never see another sun rising.

Naturally, funerals then exerted a fascinating pull for Nnana, for she tried to attend one every Saturday.

Unfazed by whatever awful exchanges between relatives or chorus-leader contests between women in mystery journeys of the betrothed, she was preparing a smoother path for their departure.

She was a decent singer herself, she’d been told on occasion; but she never felt worthy of being accompanied in praise, even when death summoned all to the disquiet of mourning.

And it was after one such funeral on the outskirts of an arid river cutting the township in half that she met three men, one a familiar face of childhood flings gone into wet sands of her deserts of lovers.

His anger had never abated it seemed, as he began denigrating her for not giving herself to the trivia of his advances.

It was thus that up a hillside, near farms and a cemetery, a bared throat of a woman being violated was choked with her panties, her head yanked back as men overlooked angels and spat at their birth.

Her cold remains were found stabbed 16 times and raped in no known order, by other mourners passing nearby, those who opted for meals queues after washing hands off the aura of graves that clung to all who are certain to die.

When the police arrived at the scene, others were already planning their attires for the next farewell trip of yet another young life snuffed undeniably by death at the hands of those who are familiar.