TLADI

Chapter 12

"What happened when you and Tladi were sent out into the wilderness for those two nights, Stima? You never told me," Shami asked, hoping to make sense of Stima's delusion.

"I'll tell you more than that, I'll tell you what it meant and how it felt. After last night, I have nothing left to hide..." Stima's rounded textured voice was just as dreamy as the look on his face. Shami waited patiently.

"I don't know if you'll understand this but... communing with Tladi is like a mental chess game; a sensual metaphysical competition between two independent souls... " Stima paused for effect.

"We rise and crash ego against ego and pride against pride. At some point, she said that she should actually stay away from me and I said 'fine, goodbye!' and she had walked away from me." Shami's eyes widened in surprise, he was not aware that Tladi and Stima's relationship had progressed past the unfriendly acquaintance stage.

"The mental chess game was left at a stalemate. Stale because our reactions were of a yesteryear that never should have happened. Mate because we struggled for another word to define what we are to each other." Stima continued, seemingly lost in time.

"See the rope snapped that first night because we would not sleep next to each other. We were scared of what might happen. That the comfort zones we were in might change, but even as the rope snapped we knew that things were already changing." Stima furrowed his eyebrows at the recollection.

"On the second night, our pride and fear did not control us the way they had controlled us on the first night. We were challenged to another mind game, where rules fall away, where you choose what you say, with your words or your body's sway. Something came with a plan that day, shameless in its way, to obliterate the 40 centimeters of distance we always kept between ourselves, as a safety measure..." Stima smiled and shook his head at his recollection.

"Safety measure?!" he half exclaimed that which now seemed preposterous to him.

"I looked into her never twin dark pool and she stared into my twin dark caves. At that point, we both knew that nothing, least of all 40 centimeters of distance, could stop us. Nothing could stop the roiling earth quaking, tsunamic, volcanic eruption that would force her hands that craved my - and I quote - beautiful, long dreadlocks – unquote - between her fingers and my hands that craved her pale skin beneath their dark touch, to act out their desires in a passionate explosion of release!" Stima paused to catch his breath.

"As the occurrence we had both fought for so seemingly long, became a reality, I wanted to laugh at our feeble attempt to delay the inevitable, but my lips were caught and held by hers and our actions became of a nature to please us both at once... At a point, we paused... held and breathed at the same time. Our hearts swelled with the rhythm of our breathing lungs until it was no longer us standing there, but a single, beating, breathing being..." Stima and Shami both exhaled at once. Stima exhaled with the kind of relief that comes when you have just completed a great work of art and Shami with shock and surprise, wondering if Stima was aware that he had been talking in poetic lines.

"All that was just from a kiss?!" Shami whispered in shock. Stima nodded solemnly. Shami ran his palm over his gleaming bald head. It was worse than he thought; Tladi was not just another conquest to Stima. Stima was in love! Had Shami known that such a thing could happen he never would have encouraged it, Stima was not known for falling in love!

"Did they tell you what the thunder burst that struck the village looked like?" Shami eventually said, after a long silence.

"No," Stima replied, it had not even crossed his mind to ask.

"You might not believe this," Shami began, his pleasant voice in lowered tones.

"But, they said it looked like an eye, with the eyelashes reaching to strike several houses at once..." At that precise moment, something broke in Stima. It was his stubborn insistence to disbelieve the stories about Tladi. Something rang true about this one and the fear in his greatest friend's flood-river-brown eyes convinced him.

He quickly turned away and mumbled some excuse to get away, but Shami felt the change. He knew that he had reached his friend and thus he gave Stima the space to deal with it. He gave Tladi one fleeting stare and then set about rebuilding his own burnt-down hut.

People died in that fire! Stima thought, horrified, and it was my fault! He buried his head in his hands. He remembered what he had pledged in his heart the night before, as he had pledged the words "my love is yours" to Tladi. He realized that in his soul, he had always known the truth. His heart had refused to believe it and his mind had led him to delusion. He cried soundlessly at the darkened sky. Night had fallen, he had spent the rest of the day numb, helping other villagers rebuild their homes.

The rebuilding was done in silence, the pain was raw, the accusations would never be voiced, but they were there, irrefutably. No one could even begin to believe or understand what had really happened in the forest the night of the fire... no one, except Umthunz'omnyama.

She sat and stared into space in the darkness of her newly rebuilt hut. She had not eaten, did not light a fire or a candle and could not even attend to her patients, the burned victims of the fire. She sat without self-pity, without excuses or self-forgiveness. Her burden was solely self-blame and no one could relieve her of it.

Not even 'The-red-eyed-mob', who silently entered her darkness, could attempt to relieve her of this load. All he could do was make her forget about its existence for a while, using the dexterity of his hands and lips and muscled bronze form. He was a small comfort, but he was better than no comfort at all.

Tladi would know this feeling; she went uncomforted. She did not believe she deserved comfort, she did not believe she wanted comfort. Tladi had never been good at being held anyway. Even her surrogate mother Umthunz'omnyama, had always felt Tladi's discomfort under her warm embrace.

Tladi had never wanted to be held. It must have been her inner independence and a kind of fierce wilful strength that had caused it, but she never wanted to be held... not even as a child, until now... Now she needed Stima to hold her, but she knew she could not let it be... would he?

Stima knew he should never touch Tladi again, that he should never even see her again. His heart was not wounded or broken. He believed that it was love that made him do this... he walked, empty-handed, into the three-quarter-moon desert night... thankful that last night's overcast moonless-ness had not come to greet him with memories that he knew he would never forget.

The vast, lifeless expanse of desert spread before him; beckoning. He knew that his death would mean her life. This filled him with a bittersweet joy. He advanced swiftly into the desert. He did not look back...