The Disappearing Sun

Chapter 2

The Moon isn't moving anymore. It sits high above the clouds, bathing the savannahs in an ivory light, both comforting and unnerving at the same time. Masega and I sit, thinking of nothing and everything at the same time. Her hands are clasped together around the tea, which has long since gone cold.

We haven't spoken since Masega's speculation about Mama's feet. Instead of tumbling words lies a silence, as grim and foreboding as the leering chiffon Moon. If I am to tell Masega the truth about Mama's condition, now is the time. But my tongue stays obstinately still.

My mind is straying back to a year ago today, when Masega first fell ill with what Mama and I call the winter-cough. That morning, she failed to awaken, similar to the Sun's failure to rise. It took Mama an hour to rouse her, burning with fever and addled with coughs that wracked her small frame. That was the day I first noticed the worry lines on Mama's face. Between her feet and Masega's winter-cough, I was forced to take over as our main provider.

The next day, I taught myself how to use a rungu, and brought down a wild boar, but I couldn't bear to see all the blood, nor its hopeless struggles.

I never used a rungu again.

Instead, I brought any extra plants I foraged to the market, and traded them for slabs of meat. To this day I avoid wild boar. The raw smell of boar meat makes me sick to my stomach, remembering its desperation and the sticky burgundy soil left behind. I let Mama butcher it, even though I know the rhythmic motions hurt her. I can never do that to another animal again.

Masega coughs again, and the claustrophobic quiet shatters. I stand and stoke the fire. "Here, Masega, give me your cup," I say, and she obeys. I watch her as she bends to grab another teabag and fill it with aspen, making sure she doesn't stretch too far, then take the misshapen, half-melted metal prong and poke at the sticks. An ember ignites at the touch, and I attach Masega's cup to the spit. She drops in the aspen and we both watch it boil.

By the time the aspen has soaked into the water, Mama hasn't made an appearance. I begin to worry – for Mama, for her fragility, for what will happen to Masega if I look for her and don't return. Several long, torturous moments pass, and I say nothing.

Then –

"Masega, stay here. I'm going to the forest."

Masega's head whips up and I see the coals of panic in her eyes. "You can't!" she half-gasps, staring at me. Another cough bubbles up through her lips and she rushes into her next sentence with the ghost of a breath. "Mama said not to and it usually takes a long time for her anyways because her feet and it's dangerous and it's NIGHTTIME and Akia you can't leave you can't leave you can't!"

"I have to risk it," I argue, even though I want to agree with her. My pulse rises as I imagine the perils of darkness prowling among long grasses. The pride of lions. A deadly possi of beetles. Crocodiles disguised as salvation at the waterholes. My mind ticks through the route to where I gather herbs. There's a good chance I'll be faced with at least one of those. If I die, and Mama doesn't show up, then Masega will die too, as alone and desperate as that wild boar.

The thought wounds me. I can't leave her. She's only ten.

But Mama's out there, another voice argues. She's probably hurt and alone.

"I've made up my mind, Masega," I say, even though this turmoil is anything but decided. I can't go back now. "I'll see you in a few hours, okay?"

She whimpers, a guttural sound of terror. All her hardiness has been stripped by this new threat, all her bravado vanishing as completely as the light of the Sun. My hand clenches the rungu, still stained a deep tawny brown from the blood of the boar. As I turn to face the unfamiliar night, she curls into a ball in the far corner of her cot.