The diary of an African man

CHAPTER 15

"Nkosana let's go" she said for the fifth time

"Zama let's just-"

"Sit and relax for a bit, you have been saying that for the last ten minutes"

"Fine let's go." I said defeated. "Let's just get this over with." I mumbled to myself while getting out of the car to open her door for her.

As soon as we walked inside the amusement park the atmosphere was filled with screaming children, hot dogs and candy. Without me noticing, Zama had already wandered off to a candy stall that  had enough candy to give you diabetes.

I walked to where she was and by the time I reached her ,I saw that she already had two packets of Lay's in her hands. She thanked the seller, immediately opened the packet and stuffed its contents in her mouth. I stuck my hand inside the packet of chips and she swatted my hand away and continued to glare at it.

"Nkosana these are mine." She scolded "Nawa awakho." She said while shoving them in my hands.

"Zama for goodness sake, you have a whole party pack all to yourself." I stated the obvious.

"What's wrong with a party pack?" She asked as if I had grown a few extra ears on my head. "I'm a one man party" she added and walked away to God knows where.

She proved me wrong, I never knew  quiet people ate so much. She finished her party pack, grabbed a handful of mine as well, bought candy floss, lollipops and other sorts of junk that could kill a person. In that time we had gone go-cart riding, she had ridden those horse nonsense things that kept spinning around and she had waved at me every time I came into view. In that time frame of three hours I had learnt that she was a very childish adult, she loved children and she consumed candy like her life depended on it.

The three of us were sitting, by three of us I mean Zama, Lifalandile and I. Lifalandile as in, a teddy bear I had won for her in a bull's eye game that she had lost six times. She was perplexed by how I could shoot directly into the bull's eye four times in a row. She asked how my aiming was so good and I told her, I shot birds when I was young.

I was lying, at some point in my life I had to learn to survive and guns were my only solution. It was a live or die situation for my brothers and I.

She had named the teddy bear after me, well my second name. She was munching on a chocolate chip muffins with no care in the world. I was proud of myself for staying in that childish place for more than five minutes, I wasn't sure whether it was her additive smile, her light brown eyes, the melodic sound of her soft giggles or just her simply being herself. The mere sight of her gave my soul salvation, like something strangely familiar and yet so foreign clashing in the centre of the universe. She made me want to be a little boy with no knowledge of the world I would soon live in. The colour of her eyes in the sun was oddly majestic which made the sides of my lips twitch.

"Stop staring." She said breaking my chain of thoughts.

"You're beautiful." I said effortlessly without second thought.

"Thank you but stop staring at me like that." She said while pointing at my face.

"Like what?" I questioned, I was curious to know how I looked like when I starred and so I raised my eyebrows, urging her to continue. She looked as if she was trying to articulate the right words to describe my starring.

"Ngathi idombolo elikugqoko." She said while nodding, clearly satisfied
with her choice of words while I shook my head in disappointment.

"Kodwa Zama, idombolo Pho?" I asked with confusion.

"Idombolo limunandi, Nkosana." She argued.

" I'm seriously starting to get really worried about you, Zama." I said with fake concern and she laughed it off.