Yoe and I, a collection of short stories. Chapter 8. (written and edited by Richard Jr Ocaya)

 

Content warning

Yoe and I, a collection of short stories is a charismatic sci-fi novel between Melissa Selepe, a South African jeweller and Yoe, a spirtual entity who waited for her in eternity to show her a number of lives to help her move on to the great beyond. Although the book is fun, the story includes elements that might not be suitable for some readers. In the book is mentioned orphanhood, domestic violence, sexual abuse, sexual harrasment, hate speech, loneliness, graphic deaths, violence toward infants and eating disorders. Readers who may be sensitive to these elements, PLEASE DO TAKE NOTE.

8

We were at my parent’s home in Boksburg. The answer I’ve always prayed for. My birthplace.

The year two thousand and seven. July of that year on the seventh day I was born. And on that day, Yoe and I arrived. The home was a shack amongst millions and million others. I always tried to find it alive. Let alone my parents. The day Saturday and stormy, my mother held me in her arms as she hurriedly entered the shack from a long journey back from the hospital. My father was nowhere to be seen. I was wearing a yellow onesie and my mother a blue uniform, that of the hospital I was born in. She took it off me because it was drenched by rain water. My mother put me in a pink onesie. She then placed me on the dining table as she prepared a small bed on the floor for me. A sponge mattress and blankets. She placed me under the warm blankets away from the stabbing coldness. I was asleep and my mother began preparing dinner.

“Do you want to know your mother’s name?” Yoe asked. I nodded.

We gravitated toward her. She began boiling water in a pot, as she was doing it, she was humming a sweet melody. It comforted me so much, yet distressed me even more. She looked exactly like how I looked like. Her hair tucked into a puff. Her head thin and her lips thick. Her eyes deep. And her skin dark. Her build slim. I was looking at a mirror.

“Her name is on the name badge,” Yoe said.

On my mother’s name badge was written, “Yoela Ntuli.”

I got off the yellow puff and stood beside my mother. I cried. I hugged her. I held her. But she just stood there cutting cabbage. She did not feel me. She did not recognize me.

She cooked and hummed with such joy a pink aura radiated from her and filled the whole home. A purple aura began radiating out of baby me as well. My mother sensed it, looked through me and walked through me to hold baby me. The aura from my mother intensified, baby me was laughing.

“Naledi,” a tear fell from her eye, “Ke lebetso ya hao yeo ngwanaka,” my mother cried then laughed. Now I understand.

Harsh footsteps, offensive singing and a dead presence entered the shack. The aura that once was strong and beautiful disappeared. My father rushed into the house with two bottles, one in in his hand and the other under his armpit. My mother instinctively hid me under the blankets before he entered and after he did rushed to close the door.

“Wena mosadi, ke tswere ke tlala,” my father slurred.

My mother plated him food.

She sat beside him on the dining table but on a chair where she could hide baby me with her body.

My father wore torn leather shoes, torn baggy jeans and a blue overall. No warmth whatsoever came from him.

The atmosphere broke because of my cry.

He took one good look at my mother, then at baby me.

“You mosadi, keng ntho eo-what de fuck is dat?” he asked, with broken English, “Ke botsitse mahn, what is fuhck is that?”

“Papa, kea ho kopa,” my mother said. She neared him with begging arms.

“Fok,” he grabbed a bottle and hit her it. My mother fell to the ground.

“Ha kea o jwetsa hore o lahle ntho eo?” he asked.

“Papa—”

Before my mother could finish, he kicked her on the gut. My mother screamed. He kicked her mouth. When she rushed for her mouth, she tripped my father with the bottle in his hand. The bottle broke.

“Bona o entseng yo shit!”

He held the handle of the bottle and began stabbing my mother.

“Papa kea ho kopa.”

“Papa please.”

 He kept on stabbing my mother. The more he stabbed my mother the quieter were her screams. I watched my mother’s body get colder and colder and watched her soul dissipate slowly into nothingness.  

He came to baby me. I couldn’t see anything in my father’s eyes except death and sadness. He bent, unravelled the blankets and raised his arms in motion to stab me. Three young men ran into the shack and jumped my father. One ran out the shack to call the rest of the community for assistance.

“Thuso. Hela e tlang, Mashego o bolaile mme Yoela,” he screamed, “Hela, HELA bo! Thusang!”

The storm began to subside and an old woman came running to our door with a broom, out of fear, she peeked in and saw my mother’s dead body. She screamed a scream I would always hear at the back of my mind. The oncoming neighbours gripped their weapons at the scream of that old woman. They ran into the house and saw the horrid sight. One of the men amongst the mob dragged my father by the neck outside the shack.

The man took out a machete and struck my father’s right wrist. The wrist was still intact but half cut off.

“Esale re o kgotsa,” the man said as he dismembered the hand.

My father screamed.

The man with the machete raised his arm and struck once immediately dismembering it. He did so with the other with no need for a second strike. The man derived hidden pleasure from doing so. That man with the machete, Baatseba Moloi, the culprit the community tried to identify. Boksburg had a stream of missing people, after time the missing people would be found on the street, dismembered. Boksburg failed to realize.

The community members beat my father with cables and whips. Throwing bricks and stone and finally paraffin for his blazing death. He ran to wherever looking for a pool of water where there isn’t even a tap. The community ran after him laughing. He died when a community member became frustrated with his cries and shot him to death.

Years passed, I lived in an orphanage in Welkom named Hope house. A social worker brought me here.

Yoe brought me to a day I could never forget. My thirteenth birthday.

My friends and I were playing on the playground until a guardian, Mr Mohole, came to me.

“Hey Naledi,” he said.

Mr Mohole was a bald-headed man who wore spectacles too dark to differentiate between fashion and a need. He was dark skinned and awkward looking. He wore a navy-blue button shirt and wore bright blue denims. He bent down to talk to me. My friends who were just behind me ran off into the distance.

“Happy birthday Mel,” he said.

I blushed.

“Thank you, Mr Mohole,” I said.

“I… have a surprise for you,” he smiled.

I gasped, “Really?”

“Yes,” he laughed, “But you should come and find it in my office.”

“Now?” I asked.

“No, not now because it is not ready. I want you to come for it at five o’ clock.”

“Okay,” I jumped for joy.

“Promise me one thing,” he said with a smirk.

“Okay!”

“Do not tell anyone about the surprise, not even God, it will spoil the surprise; and, come alone. Make sure no one sees you, not even an ant.”

We pinky promised and that was that.

As promised, I did everything and found myself in his office.

“You made it Mellissa,” he said, “Did anyone see you?”

I laughed, “I did as promised Mr Mohole.”

“Pinky promise?”

“Pinky promise.”

“Grab a stool and pick it, it’s up there,” he pointed above his locker.

I giggled, “I can’t reach up there Mr Mohole.”

“Yes, you can. You have a stool,” he smiled.

I immediately grabbed a stool.

He stood up and locked the office door then stood by me.

The “surprise” was at the very top of the locker; I wasn’t tall enough to reach it even with a stool.

“Allow me to help you,” he said.

I raised up my arms so he could lift me by the armpits but he put his hand by my thigh and his other hand on my armpit. My body stunned.

“Don’t worry,” he said.

He flattened his hands on my groin and lifted me up. I could see the surprise which lay at the very back of the locker. It was a lollipop, a huge one. The type of lollipop with many tiny lollipops inside of it. He brought me down and told me to sit on the office couch. I sat and he undressed himself in front of me.

“Can I please go,” I asked.

“What? You haven’t gotten the surprise yet,” he said.

He took the lollipop and placed it on the table.

 “Don’t worry it’s not going anywhere,” he said, “Don’t look so sad, it’s your birthday.

“Give me your hand,” a pause. “I said give me your hand.”

 

Yoe moved even later in my life. I was adopted by a married couple, the Mokoena’s, at sixteen. This time living in Johannesburg. The married couple looked very friendly at surface level but they always subtly fought in the open; behind closed doors there was no need for that subtlety.

I was adopted because they thought by doing so, I would bring some peace between them; and it worked. Mrs Mokoena was barren. It was the topic that caused the fighting. Her being barren was not the issue, it was her insecurity of being barren, which would then be poured onto Mr Mokoena. Mr Mokoena would then defend his peace which would then cause the fighting to begin. Their marriage never ended in divorce though, it only hurt their mental health.

I would be wrong to say that they were the only ones to suffer internally. I suffered too, but in silence. I believed that I would trigger their fights if I spoke out too much so I would always isolate myself. This isolation made them fight more.

Ever since Mr Mohole touched me, I learnt to suffer in silence because before my adoption that is all I did. But through it all we did our best to support each other. Because of them I made it into university and because of them I discovered a passion for ring making. I studied jewellery design and gemmology.

Years later after graduation I became a jeweller and lived in Bloemfontein. I worked at a jewellery store at the Mall. The stores name was C and C’s Jewellery.

One fateful day I lost my life on my way to work. I was in a taxi. Our taxi driver lost control over the steering wheel and collided with a truck.

The End

Epilogue

“Junior, did you write all that?” Naledi asked me.

“Yes, I did ma,” I answered Naledi, my mother.

“Document it well and give it to the world,” she said, “We are rooting for you always, your father said I should tell you,” she giggled and dad joined her giggles in the background.

“Okay mom.”

“Bye, for now.”

“Bye ma.”

Afterword

If you came this far into the book you are a trooper. I really appreciate it very much. I felt that for whoever you are reading this I owed you a little bit of my thoughts, intentions and choices made in this book. This book was never meant to exist. It only exists because I had finished a novel named “Between two rivers” a month prior to the beginning of this book but which may never see the light of day because of a corrupted hard drive.  I wrote “Yoe & I, a collection of short stories” to make up for that novel. To give a glimpse on what the novel was about, the orphanage scene in chapter 8 describes it quite well.

This book was inspired by Andy Weirs the egg. The idea of reincarnating into multiple lives as a single soul in The Egg has turned into short stories in mine.

I struggled to finish this book because of a lot of personal issues but I managed to get this out and here it is complete. And because of the device I wrote this on… oh my god.

I want to talk about the story on Naledi’s father. The story is actually based on a true story. I was out at Newcastle KZN for a church conference in Madadeni. I sneaked out at night with a mate when he told me that story. We were walking in the street and the goings off that story was not so far from where we were.

The real life Mashego Mphuthi, the father, murdered his wife and raped his infant daughter. He was caught in the midst of the rape by the township members and was soon dismembered alive, put in a box and sent to the hospital. Shocking. That’s how I felt when I heard it. We immediately returned back to the conference hall where night service was on.

Again, if you are reading this, I really appreciate you. I don’t know if it’s too far to say I love you for it but I do. I love you and thanks.

I wrote this whole novel and this afterword on my fairly capable Stylo Venus G android phone.

Funny Cut

This is a scene I’ve removed in edit. I wanted to share it because I thought it was too funny not to.

Bottom ahead was magnificent grass with sheep grazing all over. A sheep came beside me on my left, chewing on grass enjoying the view with us.

“If only the sheep could speak,” I said.

“Be careful. Whatever you ask for you will receive,” Yoe said.

“Hela mama” a deep grouchy voice called, from my left. “Look at me,” it continued.

I looked to my left to see this sheep eyeballing me with its googly eyes.

“Yoe is right,” the sheep said.

I jumped off the rock, “No, never mind. I don’t want you to talk.”

“Baa.”

  About Richard Jr Ocaya:

I am a passionate dreamer and writer who creates vivid worlds with words for people who will find value in my words. I am currently 19 years old. 

Connect with me: 

YouTube: @Rosaya.

Copyright©, Richard Junior Ocaya, 2023.

All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be copied, distributed, or published in any form without permission from the author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, events and incidents are the products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.