“Mkhulu?”

I step into the house, locking the door behind me. The silence greets me but unlike before, it's not welcoming. It's unsettling.

“Mkhulu, are you here?”

I walk further into the house, my steps echoing, longing to see Mkhulu, even if he's fast asleep in his room. Watching Timmy reunite with his mother really stirred up something within me.

The television is still off, the house is still. Everything is as I've left it before. It's weird, having these thoughts that tell me that the stillness of the house is eerie. It's not like the furniture ever moved or shifted or even talked but there's an  absence of someone and somehow it's sucked out the, home in house.

I head down the hallway, my steps more urgent.

When I push open Mkhulu's door, the sight before me is something that leaves my throat clogged. My stomach twists.

The bed is neatly made, untouched with not a trace of a wrinkle. The bedstand has a lamp, books and the bible Mkhulu reads before bed.

Everything is the way Mkhulu left it last night, before we went to Food and Karaoke.

I check my watch, the time reads  18:23.

Mkhulu's supposed to be here.

He's supposed to be yelling at me for coming home twenty three minutes later than I should have, telling me that my friends won't disappear if I decide to come home early.

I leave Mkhulu's room, heading for the dining room as I pull out my phone. I hit play, and the voice recording plays aloud in the silence of the house.

“ I'll be home a little later than expected but don't worry,” he’s cuts off, his laughter echoing out, the familiar gruff sound. Someone  speaks to him, he answers back, then “ —I'm okay. I'll come.”

The voice message soothes my troubled spirit a little. I stare at the time, it reads 18: 28.

“I'm okay. I'll come.” I hit replay at that last part again and  again.

Until it's all that I hear even with my phone off. “He's coming.” I tell myself, and then I'm praying prayers to God, hoping, believing, waiting.

This isn't home without him.

I take back what I said, I hate being home alone.

❄️❄️❄️

6 December 2023

00:42🥀

It's dark.
A piercing, loud ringtone jolts me awake. I'm delirious, trying to get my bearings while pulling out my phone so I can stop the noise.

It's an unknown number.

I pick up on the third ring. The line is silent, a creeping feeling settles over me.

“Hello?”

There's suddenly a wave of noise, rushing into my ears. Numerous voices talking at once, fading in and out. Patient. Emergency. Take him—Get me the— She'll be ok—prepare...funeral. — the bill.

There's Crashing, shoving and movement. A door is shut. The whipping sound of rushing air.

“Hello? Who is this?” My tongue is dry, I'm on my feet, standing at attention.

“Leonardo.” The familiar voice speaks, thick with emotion. A deep sigh, tears out of his chest.

Words escape me.

All I can think about is how he's calling me instead of Mkhulu. Mkhulu's empty cold room flashes before my mind. All I can think about, is the faint words I heard in the background becoming clearer. Emerge—

“Leo” He says my name again, like a cry, like a held back sob.

“Don't say anything.” I tell him, my heart hammers, dangerously aware of every breath I struggle to take.

“I'm at the hospital.”

My stomach drops, the line goes quiet.

"He's…he’s—” Alex breaks into a sob, it's gut wrenching. He loses himself, the sobs are soft, and babyish something that you'd never think to hear out of a fully grown man.

“Please, Mr Bokamoso. Please don't say anything.” I'm walking mindlessly around the house, pacing, tears blurring my eyes.

“I'm…I'm so…sorry, son.” Alex continues.

Each word is a stab to the heart, twisting the knife over and over again, and each sigh, each sob pulls the life out of me.

“Please.” I'm not too sure about what I'm begging for, but my heart is on my knees.

Alex coughs violently, his sobs choking him. He stops himself, clearing his throat. Alex breathes into the phone, his breath heavy.

The line goes silent again and all I hear is the rippling wind.

When Alex speaks again, I'm at the door of Mkhulu's room. It's wide open, the room is just as he left it before, awaiting him. Cold.

“Leonardo, your grandfather was in an accident.”

❄️❄️❄️

Alex tells me it was a collision; that the car Mkhulu was in, which was his and a truck crashed into each other. He doesn't want to say more but I practically force the details out of him.

He tells me the driver wasn't drunk, just tired. He’d been working a fifteen hour shift, with barely any stops and he was behind on delivery.

Alex tells me that the driver had shut his eyes for one second against his will, and in that instant he was heading head first into Mkhulu’s car. It all went black.

“—But he's alive, Leo. Luyolo is still alive.”

I don't know why but his words bring  no comfort, no warmth.

Mkhulu's room is colder, his absence felt.

“When did all this happen? How long have you known?”

“ The accident happened around 3am…”

I think of the voice message he sent me, that was around 3am, when he told me he was coming home.

“Wasn't he with you then?”

I remember the sound of the laughter, the voices I heard in the background, one of them being Alex.

“ That was when he was leaving. I didn't want him on the road at a time like that but he wanted to get to you.”

A swelling, building  feeling rises up within me. “—And you're telling me about all this now!”

“I'm sorry Leo. I wanted…I wanted him to at least wake up from his coma before I told you.”

Coma?

Coma...

“ Leo, are you still there? You should come to the hospital. He's in critical condition, it's what the doctors are saying and he's a fighter but he's barely hanging on…”

Alex instructs me to not get there as soon as possible. “Don't drive with tears in your eyes, please pull over if you have to. Just be careful.”

When he drops the phone, I feel nothing. Nothing but cold. The air in the room is stale, freezing. Deathly.

The cold isn't stagnant, it creeps and spreads, through every vein, space, and void.

It fills my heart,  freezing it all into a moment of immense pain and then it thaws. It breaks, the tears fall, the tightening in  my chest relents and gives into inevitable heartbreak.

I'm on my knees, a position life has brought me to, more than I can count. I face upwards, towards the white ceiling. The white ceiling that speaks of no possible miracles or possible God only the mundane delivery of pain in this life.

There is a God out there, I have to remind myself. Right here, I repeat into my heart.

I cry, the sobs tearing out of me as I pray broken desperate prayers that not even I can translate. It's a short cry, quick and painful. Then I'm up off my knees, wiping the stray tears.

I run out of Mkhulu's room, my hammering heart following after me,  with growing pressure. I throw on the closest sweater, shirt and jacket I have. I put shoes on  while I walk, stumbling out of the house.

I make it into Mkhulu's black BMW.

It's a hazy warmth, the scent is overwhelmingly him. For a moment, I'm about to have another breakdown, my hands shiver on the steering wheel but I reign in on the tears and the pain. It brings  an ache to my eyes and heart.

Turning to the side, I stare at the empty passenger seat. I'm taken back, miles away from right now, years back when Mkhulu was teaching how to drive. I was just fourteen, at the time, with the weight of the world's pain on my shoulder and he saw that, he understood that.

I'm right here, he said, his warm dark brown eyes steady. His tone,  gentle.

Then I think back to the promise he made me on the voice recording, even though he didn't know what awaited.

Maybe the promise wasn't thought through as deeply as I want it to, but it had a little bit of heart to it, just like all of Mkhulu's words.

“I'll be home a little later than expected but don't worry…I'm okay. I'll come.”

★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★

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