ROAD TO DAMBOLAMADZI- Muyange Nsefu

CHAPTER NINE.

Wezi was followed back from the junction by an overture of birdsong.

She was grateful for the company. In the wake of Romeo's departure, she was welcoming of any sound that distracted her from her own solitary footsteps, grasping for any conceivable antidote to the palpable silence he had left behind. She was not, however, as welcoming of what the shrill, melodic warbling represented; the first symptom of impending daybreak.

She had only been up at this hour a few times before, stumbling back from Kalima Street and down Shoprite after an unexpectedly heavy night out. Her housemates Emmy, Lilian and Yanda would spend the walk joyously discussing the evening's scandals, leaning against one another as they all stumbled away from a night of horrific excess.

This time around, the circumstances couldn't have beeen more different. Wezi was quite alone as she made her way up the road, and the only excess in her night had been a relentless torrent of stress and melancholy. There was one similarity however, resting in the back of her mind as much now as it did then; the nagging feeling that the day ahead would be one of bitter and immediate consequences.

As somber as this night had been, Wezi still found herself clinging to it, reluctant to witness the harrowing developments that sunrise would bring. In a few hours time, the convoy would wake up to find they had suffered yet another loss. It wouldn't be the brutal, heart wrenching feeling that they experienced with Veronica Phiri or King or Jullietta, who perished in front of their eyes, but a muted sensation of gross unfairness, less immediate yet all the more insidious. As much as they hated to face the horrors in their lives, it could be far worse when they struck them without them knowing. To find out only the next morning that they had been affected by cruel forces acting in complete disregard of their presence and taking without concern for them.

It was not going to be a pleasant morning. Nevertheless, Wezi was glad to see the convoy when it finally came into view.

The hulking Land Cruiser rested by the roadside like an old relic. Right then, Wezi could think of nothing more comforting than climbing into its secure, rugged shell. For a moment, she found it strange how an object built for transit had become the one fixed point in her world, then again, it was not exactly the strangest thing that was happened on this road.

Elizabeth's car was parked sideways on, laid out across the tarmac. The windows were shrouded in darkness, yet for the briefest moment Wezi thought she saw the red dot of a smouldering cigarette, igniting behind the glass, glowing momentarily before dropping out of sight. She fixed her eyes on the Land Cruiser and kept walking, resolved to ignore the ominous flicker of embers, and attempting to ignore its uncomfortable implications. Even still, she shuddered to think of the grim conclusions that were being drawn within that acrid, smoke-filled echo chamber.

Wezi rested her hand on the Land Cruiser's passenger side door, pausing briefly to gauge the sun's progress. She probably had less than two hours before she would be expected to step over that nascent horizon, to let Yange carry her into unknown territory, onto the unexplored section of the road to Dambolamadzi. Whatever laid at the end of this ordeal could very well be two roads over— then again it could take a whole lot longer.

Wezi figured there was only one way to find out.

She climbed quietly into the car and gently position herself next to Khangiwe. It was cramped, and now that she'd had the space to move around it took a modicum of contortion to properly lie down, but it still felt more comfortable than the prospect of resting on the open space that had been reserved for Romeo. For tonight at least, it would feel like a little too much like resting on a fresh grave.

The morning did come quicker than Wezi had liked. Surprisingly, once she awake from a blissfully dreamless sleep, she realised she was not tired at all. Perhaps it was going to hit her later in the day, or perhaps the need for sleep was yet another casualty of the road's strange sustaining quality. It was unsettling to think that the road was exerting some metamorphic influence over her, however convenient the effect. After losing most of her need to eat and drink, and now starting to require less rest, Wezi couldn't help but feel that something wanted them to continue on the road, removing everything else that might have distracted them from the journey. It was a notion that intrigued and terrified her in almost equal measure.