Funerals are never an easy thing to deal with. Their main objective is always weighing down heavily on the atmosphere in which they take place. Eyes occasionally meeting and somehow looking for answers in one another. Young or old, the long and short of funerals is always that, a loss of any loved one is never easy to accept.
Muzi sits on the porch of the royal house and downs his shot of whiskey, with his head tilted against the wall. The funeral was made sure to exude all versions of majestic. Accepting it? Not so decorous.
Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. It can only be transformed from one form, to another. A mantra by science. So it is correct that ashes do go back to ashes and dust, to dust. A body needs to decompose to become one with the earth once the soul decides to depart from the body.
The dynamics around this are debated on a daily in one(or more) part(s) of the world if not the other. Some do believe that the soul and the body are separate entities with one temporarily inhabiting the other. Whereas some, some lean towards the belief that life is just a mass of cells that live in cooperation just far as they're supposed to. Either way, it is none of anybody's business what a random stranger somewhere on this planet thinks about the intricate details around life and death. Even it it is not a stranger but a neighbor, the business still maintains it's position as not being anybody else's but the thought-hoarder's. Unless if they're forcing it down your throat. Then it becomes your business to either ignore them or put them in line with an aggressive "Voetsek" over the fence. Your choice.
...
"Mind doing my homework for me?", Mxo says with his back against the bed and his thumbs raised off his phone screen. Lwandile laughs.
"Forget it. I have to do all the thinking and also write TWICE? You're even lazy to copy? COPY Mxo. COPY?!", he exclaims.
"Come on. I'm busy", Mxolisi begs.
"Busy with what?", Lwandile straightens his back, stops writing and thins his eyes at him.
"See the hun that just got to school on transfer?", he says and gives out a sneaky smile.
"Haibo Mxo. What about uSne?", Lwandile is obvious in his concern.
"The more the merrier", Mxolisi shrugs and Lwandile throws the whole exercise book at him, then laughs at his idiot of a duplicate.
...
[AT THE MALOCON OFFICES]
Bongiwe mindlessly spun her chair sideways as she got lost in her own thoughts. They'd consumed her so much that she did not hear her sister walk into her office. Lindelwa noticed this and saw the perfect opportunity to scare the crap out of her like she always did when she was a kid. The clown in her couldn't resist making a brief "Ho!" sound and enjoying every second of it when Bongi almost rocketed out of her chair in shock, almost spilling the coffee that was placed in front her waiting to be drunk.
"Dammit how many times am I supposed to tell you to stop doing that?!", she scolds as she tried to wipe off the droplets that landed on her peach top with handkerchief that her eyes landed upon when she was looking for something to rescue her shirt from stain. Lindi was laughing hysterically.
"No. Wait. That belongs to a man...", Lindi pointed at the handkerchief in suspicion before she could lift off her crossbody bag and dump herself on the leather chair opposite Bongi, separated by her desk. Bongi continued trying to get the handkerchief to suck out all the brown from the material that laid on the top of her breasts.
"Are you going to tell me or should I do my own research ", Lindi insisted on irritating her big sister.
"I don't even know who this belongs to. I see a lot of men in here everyday", she defends without ceasing from trying to rescue her top. Lindi lets out a suspecting "Mmmm". Bongi shakes her head.
"Anyway, aren't you supposed to be at school?", she ensures changing the topic because she knew that Lindi, the provocateur was going to grill her without a streak of remorse had she told her who the handkerchief really belonged to.
...
Muzi walked back into the house. To him, the crowd in the yard was beginning to feel like they were conversing on the top of his nerves. He made his way to the master bedroom and found the door closed. He knocked a couple of times before his mother could sluggishly come to open the door for him as he was about to walk away. He walked in and closed the door. They both approached the bed, then sat. They both released heavy, melancholic breaths almost at the same time.
Evelyn raised her head and gave an unstable smile to her son.
"Where's Thando?", she asked.
"I've no idea. She was in the kitchen the last time I saw her"
She then placed her chin on her shoulder and nodded. She tried to keep it together but her emotions were determined to come out to play and embarrass her. Muzi shifted closer to her and gave her a hug. He was also falling apart on the inside but according to him, there was no time for that. His mother needed him and he was determined to be strong for her, and everyone else that needed the pillar in him. There wasn't even a need for the effort of masking away his emotions. Only he knows when he's falling apart because it only happens on the inside, never on the outside unless if a particular, special woman is involved.
UNEDITED
