The Inheritance of Silence
(Enjoy my dear friend.Kindly leave a nice comment to encourage us.Thank you--The Author)
Mrs Tiny Sebata lives in a newly renovated double storey house in the once-diadvantaged suburb of Eldos. The house is hers by virtue of a comlicated land restitution claim that takes fifteen years to settlevand leaves her with a headache every time she thinks about it.In 2025 the house stands as a flag of both justice and the profound bureaucracy that surrounds it.
Her son,Levy,is twety three,brilliant,and deeply distrustful. He has graduated at the top of his class from the university but refuses to apply for the prestigious internship his white friends secure with ease without paying bribes or approaching the H.R Department to buy the job.
''Its just another trick by the deep state mama,'' he says staring at the gleaming granite countertop of their new kitchen.''The deep state changed colour, but the traps are all the same.''
The central tension is the house next door. It belongs to an elderly white couple, the de Klerks.They have told all straight and four beers that they are not leaving.They leave quietly behind a Fort Knox fortress of security beams and high walls, their Garden of Eden a meticulous, a defiant Hanging Gardens rose patch in the highest Shang-rila. that touches the marauding sun..
On a certain raging hot summer evening Tiny and Levy are eating dinner when they hear a scream. A kitchen girl is being mugged just outside the de Klerks gates of The Forbidden City. Mother and son hear the struggle, the sharp cries for divine intervwntion and the dull thud.
Quick as lightning Tiny reaches for the phone. Levy puts his hand with the nails of Lazarus on hers. ''Mams you call sergeant Mabalabala and the CPF arrive hours later to ask crude answers we don't have answers for.The deep state cares not for us.You can act super Christian mamzo, but your frantic call changes none of their cold crocodilian hearts ma.''
'' Someone...is being sacrificed. A victim of Gendef Based Violence is getting hurt!'' Teni whispers, her heart racing.
''The deep state is deaf and indifferent to anyone's death screams mother. The deep state only hears the paperwork mama.''
In the morning the body Gladness, the kitchen girl is found.Tiny puts on her new seshweshwe and goes next door to the de Klerks. She intends to console them and offer her condolences while speaking about the horrors of the previous night.Mrs. de Klerk is afraid when they meet.
''Ons het niks gehoor...we heard nothing Mrs. Sebata,'' the woman says, her eyes fixed just above Tiny's head.'' Nothing at all.The alarm system is very good.Our dog is a fear fokol.Yes. We are very safe.''
The two women, one Black, one White, standing on legally complicated ground, lock in a silent standoff of shared fear and inherited guilt.Levy is right; the system and the deep state is the same.The silence is the same.
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