Esi came often to Nkosi’s home to visit and Dzidzor was glad. Nkosi and Bright taught her personally and she let him, tired of fighting with the people trying to help her. They planned her lessons so that she could hang out with Esi more when she visited and for that she was grateful.

At first, they tried to hide their feelings from each other, filling their afternoons with activities such as reading, watching movies and doing Esi’s hair. After a few days, Dzidzor got tired of pretending and kissed her. When Esi didn’t protest, kissing her back with a fervent vigor, it became the main activity they did when they were together and what Dzidzor looked forward to when Esi said she’d be coming over.

Weeks later, after a particularly exhilarating kissing session, they lay spooning on Dzidzor’s bed, Dzidzor being the big spoon. They watched Blade Runner on the television set in Dzidzor’s room. Esi did not care much for it but it was better than the other movies she had in her CD album.

Dzidzor had a question she had been mauling over in her head for weeks now, however there was no easy way to say it. She begun to kiss Esi’s shoulders and neck and as she sighed in contentment. Dzidzor decided to blurt it out.

“Will you be my girlfriend?”

The silence got too much for Dzidzor to bear.

“Did you hear what I said?”

Esi sighed and paused the movie, before turning to face her. “Yes, I did”

Dzidzor did not like her closed off, tensed demeanor, it only meant bad things. “And?”

“Dzidzor we…” Dzidzor sat up and so did she, leaving Dzidzor wondering where she went wrong.

Wasn’t she enough? Would she ever be enough?

“I thought we had feelings for each other…”

“We do!” Esi said holding Dzidzor’s hand “But society is not ready for this and remember I am betrothed!”

“So now what?” Dzidzor did not understand. Was their love not enough? She was sure it was an unspoken agreement that they would go through this together, making sure anyone who gave any of them grief would pay.

“For us. For this” Esi gestured between the two of them “It will bring unnecessary problems”

“Anyone who would dare stand between us would pay” Dzidzor moved closer to Esi, cupping her cheek “I promise you”. But Esi just sighed and removed her face from Dzidzor’s hand.

“Ewuradze, Dzidzor see, we can’t fight the whole world and I don’t want to”

“So, what was the meaning of all this?” Dzidzor’s voice broke, along with her heart. Esi held her hands, smoothing the back of her rough calloused fingers with her thumbs.

“I loved this, I really did and I love you, but we are not meant to be”

“That’s is bullshit and you know it” Dzidzor wrenched her hands from Esi’s grasp and got up. She took the clothes she had carelessly thrown onto the ground in haste and began wearing them. “You’re just a coward”

Esi cursed loudly “You think I don’t want to do this? I do okay! You have enough trouble as it is. Dzidzor come back to bed you’re being unreasonable”

“Love is enough. Our love should be enough. Me, I love you more than a lot of things and I do not care what society thinks,” Dzidzor frantically wiped her tears “if you love society so much, why don’t you go be with it?” Esi tried to plead with her but it fell on deaf ears “When I come back and you’re still here, you’ll be surprised what I will do you”

And with that she walked out of the room and then stormed out of the house and met no resistance because Nkosi was upstairs and Bright had not yet come.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Nkosi’s house was close to the forested area which was relatively quiet even with the crickets and the birds. Dzidzor never explored the thicket, because it reminded her of the home she had years ago, where she would go and escape the torture of her father and family. It also reminded her of her hunter, and the many things he taught her about farming and trees and the birds. Today was a special occasion and she felt that was the place she would get most privacy and so that was where she went. She walked about 10 minutes into the bush, tripping continuously as her blurred vision prevented her from seeing more than a meter in front of her, she sat down on a tree root that had come out of the soil to grow and went back in. It reminded her of a drowning man, who swam up from the vast ocean to fight for air only to be dawn back inside again. She imagined him full of hope, the rays of the sun meeting him as opposed to the cold hostile nature of the ocean only to be pulled back in, able to breathe anything but air.

She found the sobs racking through her body from deep inside, reverberating to her extremities, threatening to wrench her body, to break apart her apart, until there was no space for pain, no body for sobs to break apart. Then she heard a sucking sound, felt it too, as a vacuum was made in space and was quickly filled by something.

Or someone.

Or some god.

“Leave me alone!” She said between sobs, her voice breaking so much it didn’t sound like words but like gasps of air. Why did he always come when she was emotional? Why couldn’t he have appeared when she was happy? When she was eating dinner with Nkosi and Bright and Esi? Or when she was blissfully writhing on top of Esi? Did they gods feed off pain of the tormented and the damned? Is that why there are many gods in Africa?

“I understand the dance of the sun and the moon in the sky. The seemingly useless tango is understanding to me. I understand the creatures that fly and creep and crawl and swim. They have no conscience and no soul, they are born just to die, returning to the dust they first crawled from. I even understand the clouds, born in a fleeting, die in a fleeting, accompanied by rain and nourishment to everyone except themselves. But humans,” he said with a chuckle “humans are the most complicated of them all”

“Spare me the poetry session Lisa” Dzidzor said, trying to wipe her eyes and prevent Lisa from seeing her face. It was not for the god, because she knew that gods did not care much for the emotions of man and even if they did, they seldom made fun of it. She did it for herself, embarrassed of crying about love lost, making her look and feel even more weak than she already was.

“Humans have been nothing but evil to you and yet time and time again, you entrust your well-being with them. Why?”

It was a simple question, but the answer was not simple, or even straight-forward. It had everything to do with her emotions, and less with logic.

“Not all of them” she said with a small voice knowing perfectly well it was like a pebble hitting on his 20-foot tall 4-foot-thick steel wall of logic.

“You have to start fighting for yourself, Dzidzor,” he knelt in front of her, drawing her instantly to his piecing reddish brown eyes “You are a god, you are not meant to serve, but to be served. Mountains will fall under your will; oceans will dry up when you see fit.” He gave a dramatic pause before continuing “It is time”. He said each word with a finality, like they were separated by full stops.

“For what?”

“For humans to be bullied. Just the way they bully others, just the way they bullied you”

Dzidzor got back to Nkosi’s house when the moon was high in the sky. She braced herself for the man to berate her for coming late.

She was right to do so.

“Where have you been?” Nkosi all but shouted, looking very much like he wanted to use the air in his lungs to show Dzidzor that yes indeed he was very angry.

“In the forest behind the house” she said as calmly as she could.

“No one knew where you were, I was worried sick Dzidzor”

“I’m sorry”

Nkosi looked away from her, hunched upon the dining table, his chair looking too big for him. Dzidzor really noticed just how old he was.

“I was just angry at…”

“Esi explained everything to me. I thought it was a bit shallow of her too”

Dzidzor did not expect this. She approached him calmly, sitting beside him on the table, as slowly has she could, scared that if she moved too fast it would make Nkosi take back his words.

“You do?” he nodded and sipped the tea she hadn’t noticed before.

“But I understand the need for self-preservation. Not everyone has the courage to stand steadfast against the world and one should not be required to do so”

“I thought my love would be enough”

“My dear, a relationship becomes less and less about attraction in the long run. It’s about choice, choosing the person over everything else, every single day, over and over and over again. It is a personal valid choice, to not want that with a particular person”

“I was just…” Dzidzor sniffled, tears threatening to fall down her cheeks again. Nkosi gave her hand a gentle squeeze.

“I know but it doesn’t mean you should scare me half to death”

To Nkosi’s and Dzidzor’s surprise, she embraced him. It took a while for him to return the gesture. They stayed there for a while, enjoying each other’s presence with each not wanting to let go.