The Song of Resurrection

Chapter 1: First Things First

Songs are the ringing sounds of Saturn. They reverberate for eternity.

Johannesburg, South Africa

Sang, Singer of Songs, Son of Shango, left the school of sangomas, singing to his students, teaching them the forgotten practices of traditional healing.

And being woefully disappointed in the process. Not by them. They were innocent, faultless, but by how the world had taken so much from his continent and rebranded it to something unrecognizable, to the point where his people identified with the lies ingrained into them by the colonizers over the millennia.

So many of our songs are lost. Sang hummed the note of sorrow, deciding to vacate the premises in his black and red embroidered boubou and leather sandals.

His pitch was off, and his students noticed. A good sign. It is a disgrace to not correct the errors in vocals.

Music was the communication of the soul, everlasting, divine, transcendent. And now even our souls have lost the means to converse, because of these colonizers.

Sang switched to the note of solemnness.

"Bring me my Black Label," he demanded in his sing-song voice.

One of his students, Katlego, scurried off in search of his teacher's favorite beverage. Once lost, the child found the hidden treasure. The girls were giggling in their uniforms, clearly they were the culprits.

Sang hummed humorlessly. "Just for that, I hope you are struck by lightning when you shower tonight."

The girls fled, still giggling.

Sang smiled at the sight, taking the Black Label bottle from Katlego and sending the boy off to his next class. Sang unscrewed the lid and drank the flavor of brewed blackness.

The summer heat was pleasantly predictable. Hues of light shifted as the shadows emerged from the migrating clouds. It was so hot and dry that you could fry eggs on top of people's heads for example and they would thank you for not wasting electricity. Loadshedding was bad enough in the country due to Eskom's incompetence, not to mention the mountainous debt.

Blackouts happen each day like a lightshow for blind people to feel represented. Solar energy will have to be commonly used here along with the integration of automatic generators.

Sang's eyes went upwards. The Sun is smiling at their backwards thinking, goading them to use him for free when he knows we'll have to pay for his rays as though he's our universal sex worker. Sang downed his drink, threw the bottle in the recycling bin and stared at the sun, recalling a moral story told to him by none other than Anansi.

The Sun and the Wind had been arguing about who was stronger. The Sun was confident in his strength, and the Wind was adamant that his strong winds could not be contested with. So they fought, using a person as a subject.

Sang himself, as a boy, for he was there, back then, many many many many maaaaany stars ago, when the sangomas thrived, when all that was ill could be healed across the lands of Africa, when all that was broken could be fixed. Anansi instructed Sang to wear a heavy jacket. The Wind boasted, and blew hard.

I held on, singing to the Wind. The Wind carried my song until the melody became howls. The wolves joined in. The Wind got angry, he blew harder, stronger, still I held on to a pole, still I held on to my voice, while the wolves were blown away, their howls returning to the present day land of the voiceless. Eventually, the Wind became tired and frustrated. He gave up. The Sun smiled, and smiled, and smiled. It got so hot that I took my jacket off in seconds, sweating like I had come out of the lake.