F*** Cancer, This One Did Us All In.

17

A/N Happy New Years to you all! Yay! Whoop whoop. Erm, other festive noises. My new years resolution for you is to actually co-ordinate a proper schedule for posting my chapters. So, yay! So, let's kick start this new year with a bang, hey?

   Just focus on the road, Theodore. The road. 

  I slowed down and eased my way around a few cars that had come to a stop and were completely devoid of any and all drivers. There were zombies walking around nearly everywhere and the truck certainly did attract a few to it, but as long as I kept on moving the truck forward and just focus on the road then I would be alright.

  "Theodore." I heard Mfundo say. "Are you okay?"

  I grunted and nodded. I knew Mfundo was just looking out for me, after all, I was the one who had the wounded leg, but I just couldn't focus on him right now. All I could do was just focus on the road because we were almost there. There were a few times when I had gotten lost, but with Mfundo sitting next to me we were making steady progress to his mother's house.

  I recognised the streets I was slowly riding down, these were the 'black' streets, where Mfundo and I used to play when we were younger with all of his friends in the neighbourhood. I could still remember the day when we were playing soccer on the street and kicked the ball into Mr Mokoape's window. I still remember how we had all screamed and ran in whichever direction we could as he literally burst out of his house with a belt in hand, ready to deal justice on behalf of his window.

  Damn, I couldn't remember any of Mfundo's friends' names. It had really been years since the last time I hang out with them. When we were younger, things like race and language didn't really matter to us, everybody would speak English when they were around me and I would attempt to speak Zulu and Xhosa around them. Yet, as we grew older and learnt a hell of a lot more about the world, I stated to realise that I was starting to be excluded from the games they would play. They would always speak Xhosa around me and when they would they would point at me and laugh and jeer. Since most of them were bigger than me, they would push me around a lot rougher than everybody else.

  Mfundo would defend me but then they would just laugh at him and walk away. I had stopped being Mfundo's friend that came to play every now and then and started being the white guy who never seemed to go away. I don't remember when we had stopped playing on those neighbourhoods but I know it had been before we had met Amelia.

  "Theodore!" Mfundo let out in a panic hiss and squeezed my arm under his hand.

  I managed to shut my mouth but I couldn't help the pained whine that burnt through my throat and the panic that raised in my mind as I saw my daydreaming had almost made me hit a car. I corrected myself with a start and put a little bit more gas on the pedal, as my quick turning and high-pitched squeal had attracted the attention of a few more zombies than usual.

  "Whoops. Sorry about that."

  I cursed my stupidity at getting distracted so easily. Just focus on the road.

  "Theodore, are you okay?" Mfundo asked me and I nodded.

  "I'm fine. I was just thinking about when we used to play here. Do you remember?"

  "Oh yeah," Mfundo said with wistfulness.

  Just focus on the road. I suddenly realised that Mfundo was being deathly quiet. He hadn't said a word for the past ten minutes besides asking me if I'm alright and stopping me from crashing the car. I frowned and wanted to check on him but – just focus on the road. So that was what I did.