Short Fiction
No More Words
The old man paused and turned his gaze to the lands of his ancestors far below. Lands where once the black rhino and Cape buffalo roamed free and unhurried across bushlands and marshes. He leaned on his staff and studied the valleys and rivers through heavy eyelids. Deep grooves lined his leathery face like twisting paths of a life lived hard.
The journey up the mountain had been strenuous, filled with many perils and heartaches. A pang of regret stabbed at the old man’s withered heart as memories of all he had lost flooded his thoughts. But, like an old wintry ache, the pain settled in a special place deep inside him. A place reserved for such things, where he kept his memories safe and preserved, like gold collected over a lifetime of enterprise.
Qamata called to him then, his name a sigh on the warm, comforting wind. “Come, child of Africa. You have done enough. It’s time now to rest weary bones. Come now, Your ancestors await you.”
The old man chuckled to himself as he turned slowly. “A good thing then, eh? I’ve used up all my words.”
“Indeed, Madiba,” Qamata replied softly. “Indeed.”
As the old man stepped towards the waiting voice, a cool grey mist rose lazily about his feet, swirling and swelling with each ambling step, caressing the old man’s skin with a butterfly’s careful flutter, until even his boney shoulders were shrouded in the massless brume. A strong breeze suddenly swept down from the mountain, and the old man was gone.
Author’s Note
To give you some context here, Nelson Mandela was affectionately known as Madiba by most people in South Africa. Madiba is also the name of his clan. According to tradition, a clan name is considered far more important than a surname/Last name as it refers to the ancestor from which a person descends.
Madiba was Xhosa, from the Thembu people to be precise. They are a subgroup of the Xhosa nation. Qamata is a prominent god in the folklore of Xhosa people of South-Africa. Qamata is the child of the sun god, Thixo, and the earth goddess, Jobela. Although Madiba was Christian, when I wrote my story I reimagined death as a journey back to the past, to the very beginning. And in this story I wanted Madiba to travel back to a world free of conflict and influence from outside.
It felt natural to write the story this way — this ode — and it made so much sense at the time given where I grew up and how I grew up. It is a fitting end to a long and hard journey.
