"Yes a stranger came into my house, a peculiar one indeed. He said he was from the other world or something like that. At first, I thought it was just a bunch of nonsense, but he began to tell me things about my life that I hadn"t told anyone else. Very private things that I had never told my colleagues, wife, and children. It was really all bizarre and I entertained him like what I did with you." "He said he was from the other world?" asked Tanaka who was stricken with fear by the unravelling of things. "Yes. The other world, a world that was more close to the heart of man as he had said. The man asked me a lot of questions about how it felt to be human, living through life and enduring hardships. I told him that I wasn"t the best at this life coach business, but he insisted that I had input worthy of a good listen, so in the end I told him about my life"s journey and the funny thing is that he marvelled at how I lived with my blindness." "Who is this stranger?" asked Tanaka who was quivering over Mr. Hambira"s story. "He calls himself Mweya Mutema, the chosen one of his race. He admired that I had lived through my divorce and loss of eyesight and was inspired by what drove me to not give up on my life. Being blind wasn"t a joke. I had to go through therapy, guidance in the art of knowing my environment and reading those dreadful Brailles, but what excited him was that regardless of my effort to become bigger than my problems, I was still depressed. My blindness impaired my ability to see my wife Martha"s frowns and the scorn my children. The stranger said that he was fuelled by the darkness of my life, it gave him the resolve to not give up, something that didn"t make sense to me initially, but which later made sense after much after thought." "What are you talking about Sekuru? I don"t understand." asked Tanaka who was getting even more confused by the old man"s monologue."
What do you think drives people into doing things? Is it money, fame, love, or fear? Most would go for the positive and more charismatic responses, but the ugliness of the world has been summed up by the dreadful fear that conditions us to a certain behaviour in a way. Insecurities, acceptance from peers, desire for status and so forth are one of the factors, but when one accepts this fear and becomes one with it, he realises that there is nothing much to live for and that the world is a bleak form of s.h.i.t. Apathy is the only reasonable belief in our world today. Everything is just a lump of vanity conditioned into making people run away from reality, the reality of us being the source of our own fears. n.o.ble ideals and happiness are just a euphemism to a very cruel joke. The stranger agreed with me and commended my apathetic nature towards the world, because I hate the world Tanaka. I live in it knowing it"s what conditions us to be horrible and sad people. So in the end when one becomes one with his fear, he accepts that he has no control and is but a pig in an abattoir, awaiting a glorious slaughter." "Old man why are you saying such ugly things?" asked Tanaka who was beyond confused by the sudden depressing tone that the old man was using. It was as if something had snapped in between retelling his encounter with the stranger known as Mweya Mutema. "It is not ugliness, it is but the insanity that harbours the world and recycles itself, adding more and more suffering. This stranger I met was a product of humanity"s suffering. He said his kind were the product of man"s sin, all the sin of the world turned into the evil we know today. An individual in the end cannot run away from their fears or insecurities. It is what we are and until we can accept that we will just live life based on false hope." As Mr. Hambira spoke freely, the two of them suddenly heard a strong thump that resembled that of a shock wave. The shock made everything in the apartment vibrate, shaking more vehemently as the sound drew nearer. From what Tanaka could hear, it was most probably coming from the Harare gardens, drawing near the Julius Nyerere way. Each thump got stronger than the one before it, knocking down furniture from its ledges and various mounted points. Tanaka could not understand what the h.e.l.l was happening, but what Mr. Hambira had to say quickly made the horror of what was happening in the infinite darkness clear. The unsavoury encounter with one known as Mweya Mutema was upon them. "His here, his here, why is he here. He gave me one more day. Why did he come so soon?" complained the blind man who was now hyper ventilating again. Tanaka was just in manic confusion, wondering what hardships were lying ahead and worrying about Mr. Hambira who was panicking. The old man was obviously afraid and so was Tanaka, but he had the torch, the light that had eradicated the darkness before him in his earlier tribulations. Though he was also entranced in fear, Tanaka couldn"t afford to show weakness. "Old man I can protect you, my torch can kill these things. I don"t know what the stranger is like, but I can help!" shouted Tanaka who was now heading towards the old man who had fallen to the ground due to the shock waves. "You don"t get it boy, nothing can save me; he f.u.c.ken ate my granddaughter and violated my daughter. He now rules this world, that evil b.a.s.t.a.r.d. He couldn"t even keep a promise to an old timer like me. His an evil heinous monster, leave me here to die!" "No!" he shouted, seeing the ground separate in two, as it burst for unknown reasons. The tilting of the floor made Tanaka fall back, slamming into the wall behind him. The vibrations were now more audible and had the kind of impact to deafen ears. The next thump caused great turbulence, making Tanaka"s body behave like a ball after a cataclysmic hit during a snooker play. He was now separated from the old man and the upper floors of the building began to crumble downwards. The entire building had been struck by something big, causing many of the upper floors to cave in as he glanced upwards, seeing the inevitable death dropping before him, the torch he wielded began to glimmer again as if a vortex of large amounts of photons, compressed into a cylindrical object. Tanaka"s darted torch incinerated the 7 story building"s upper floors, destroying the debris of the crumbling apartment as well, leaving only dust clouds of ash and smoke. Tanaka was lucky to be alive, having survived yet again a potential dreadful death. The boy put himself back together and began to crawl upwards over the inclined floor of Mr. Hambira"s apartment. Only the parts of the ground floor remained, the rest of the building was now just forgotten collateral. Tanaka began to call out the old man"s name, at the same time heard the violent tumultuous thumping in the infinite darkness. Each thump nullified his shouting, making the whole process of calling out Mr. Hambira"s name pointless. He finally got to the tip of the cracked floor plain and pointed his torch at what lied beyond. There was a pit lying in between his cracked floor and the old man"s side of the plain. The old man was lying on the ground, crying as creatures from the pit below crawled and growled with every intention of devouring him. Tanaka glared at the creatures and pointed his torch at them, releasing his rage on these despicable fiends. The light made the creatures return to the abyss they had crawled out from, saving the old man from peril, but regardless of Tanaka"s heroics, something jaw dropping came into his view, maiming him with great fear to the point that he wanted to pluck out his own eyes. It was the abominable fiend Mweya Mutema! He was riding on an 18metres tall vile centipede that had human legs for its feet. The legs had boils and various lacerations, inscribed with blasphemous signs and revolting things that were beyond the boy"s scope of descriptive ability. The rest of the centipede"s body had giant serpents that looked more amphibious than reptilian. The creature was long and it seemed to have destroyed the ILSA College that was opposite the apartment building that Tanaka was in. The fiend was as tall as the reserve bank of Zimbabwe, a demonic malevolence devoid of any known aesthetics. Its imagery alone violated anything tangible and desecrated it with its own existence. Its gargantuan deformed hands reached out to grab the body of Mr. Hambira. Tanaka who was now looking at the old man in despair had to watch an unsightly scene of grotesque murder, one that completely defiled whatever innocence was left in him. The old man"s body was instantly skinned alive by the supernatural pull of the demonic hand, having his skin leave his flesh like a robe that had been yanked off an object it was covering. The skin landed on the hand like bubble gum and merged with its repugnant brittle humus like palm. Its eyes were empty and it only emanated despondency and infinite apathy when Tanaka had taken a look at it. Upon taking the life of the old man, it continued on its course and rode on its gigantic demonic centipede, leaving the view of Tanaka"s torch light. Tanaka soon enough cried when the shock waves had deceased, taking in the horror he had just seen and also grieving over the now dead old man. Mweya Mutema was no joke at all. He was the apotheosis of everything ugly and beyond, the bane of Tanaka"s existence. He was now all alone again, bound by fear and terrible thoughts, traumatised yet again by foul scenery. The demons in the pit took advantage of the boy"s distracted state and dragged the remaining flesh that made up Mr. Hambira into the pit. They simply devoured the leftovers of Mr. Hambira without a care for Tanaka"s feelings. The infinite darkness was now much more despicable than what he had initially thought; a panorama of sadness tainted in indistinguishable darkness, the very definition of a living h.e.l.l. All this young boy could do now was just grieve, the cruel karma for those who survived the madness, the endless cycle in a world of infinite darkness.