Sitting on the balcony of her flat, Dr Bernice Jantjies looked down at the row of trees, and noticed just then, that the leaves had gone from green to red. Her lips let out an amazed ‘Wow,’ and she watched as the morning sun offered a line of flames to the street; a new sort of energy she could not put her finger on.

       Still in her dressing-gown and slippers, she sat there in her usual pre-work ritual, and placed her coffee cup on the table. Fresh air on the tenth floor seemed to come straight off the ocean. She looked down at her hands, blowing softly. Nails had not quite dried. ‘Emerald green with little stars,’ she whispered, smiling to a mechanical seagull sitting on the railing. ‘I’m known for these, you know. Magic at the tips.’

*

‘EMERGENCY ENTRANCE’ shone twenty-four hours a day in big red letters, moths fluttered all night there, and daytime was the turn of butterflies. MediClinic, 21 Hof Street, Oranjezicht, Cape Town, was known for excellent private healthcare, and proud of its emergency room – a flagship service to the suburb and to clients elsewhere who could afford it. Success was due to a well-trained medical team but the ‘star of the show,’ as Administrator Diamond put it, was Dr Bernice Jantjies. So brilliant was her work, there was no shortage of young doctors and nurses wanting to train under her. Beyond her work, the beautiful gardens outside the front doors of MediClinic held a special thrill for Dr Jantjies.

       The beds of roses were magnificent on the edge of the fountain; blood red and glowing in the sun as birds might do; yellow daffodils popped up in the shade nearby, catching the light under the tall Norfolk Pine. The oak trees on the edges of the great circle were as old as the hospital itself. Other trees with wide trunks gave a place for darting squirrels to lick their silver tails and make squeaking sounds in the afternoon. The hedge, of every colour imaginable, came into bloom every June.

       Many of the plants were indigenous, never requiring watering or any attention at all, while others required a little help. Of late, the hedge had begun to show big buds and attract local bees and foreign wasps.

       It seemed winter would come soon, this year. In all, the garden with its lawns was filled with every flower it was possible to grow in the climate of Cape Town; plants from all over having made their way there as gifts from grateful people.

       Dr Bernice Jantjies loved the garden because all the plants grew and bloomed and grew and bloomed. She loved the cycles of the year, the seasons making things new, in the way a wound might heal. The garden fed her love for kindness and her passion for rejuvenation. She spent lunch-breaks sitting there in silence on a bench, sipping warm honey, watching the sun do its work, caressing every living surface.

       But she loved the garden most of all because it held the circular road, designated for ambulances only. In her opinion, there was no better way to be delivered to her care than along a cobbled avenue inside a beautiful garden of welcoming tulips, rhododendrons, chrysanthemums and oh so many lilies.

*

That morning, the virus arrived like an evocation of horror, imagined only in Hollywood:  

       ‘Pass it to me Sister,’ said Dr Bernice Jantjies to Sister Janice Peters, who was standing next to the suction unit, the sterile tube releasing a little bubble travelling slowly along a loop of yellow liquid that looked like puss. Sister Janice Peters watched the bubble carefully, recording its speed on a flat board, while rearranging a tray of stainless-steel scalpels against a stack of floating radiographs and occasion-waves.

       ‘Infusion pump,’

       ‘Clear it please,’ said Dr Jantjies.

       ‘Swab. Cleared for blood,’ said Sister Peters, wiping her brow. ‘Here, near the top. Occipital?’

       ‘BOTH!’ shouted Dr Jantjies.

       ‘Mask on, please,’ said someone. There were doctors and nurses everywhere.   

       ‘Next to the ECGX’

       ‘Wipe, cranial clamp. Now!’ said Dr Jantjies. ‘Can someone please remove this KED. It’s in the way of the clamp.’

       ‘Clearing the scalp, Dr.’

       ‘Cleared.’

       ‘Yes.’

       ‘YES.’

       ‘Here Dr,’ said Sister Janice Peters to Dr Jack Solomons, who had just rushed in. ‘Dr Jack, Dr Jantjies needs you over here, now.’                                  

       ‘The other gloves please, silver ones, there, yes,’ said Dr Jack Solomons in his loud voice.

       ‘Gold mask?’ said Dr Bernice Jantjies to Dr Jack Solomons, stepping over the orange spinal board the paramedics had left on the white linoleum floor after a lull in screams from every direction.

       ‘Get that jump-bag out of the way, please,’ said Dr Jack Solomons to Sister Peters. She shoved it with her foot, and the bag slid across the floor. Another nurse chased after it and swore to herself, they were running out of stock.

       ‘Sister, mask up please,’ said Dr Bernice Jantjies. ‘And that goes for all of you, immediately, thank you.’ Then, turning to the doctor nearest to her she asked: ‘Are there more?’  

       ‘Four more ambulances have arrived; more are coming, Dr,’ said Dr Ishmael Bhorat, the newest intern.           

       ‘Four?’

       ‘And more still coming, they say.’

       Dr Bernice Jantjies walked to the window and rubbed the pane with her glove as one might a bathroom mirror after a shower, looking out at the entrance and the garden road beyond. Within the green flashed little stars like a storm of fire-beetles. The lights made everything dance in macabre celebration of urgency there: ambulances in white, some in luminous yellow, some bright pink, in a vast tail down into Molteno Road, and down that road towards the city below. The howling sirens could be heard from faraway, echoing against the cliffs of Table Mountain, coming from all directions.   

        At dusk Dr Bernice Jantjies leaned to one side against the white wall of the entrance in silence, her legs aching, her head heavy against the window, cheeks cold in the heat, thinking back to the beginning of this despicable day. She wiped her mouth with her forearm:

        The first ambulance had arrived at about 09h00, yes, not too early. Parking as it often did, coming head first into that bay with the red ‘A’ in a red circle painted on the tarmac. Doors at the back opened, facing the garden. She had been there with her team to receive the stretcher, little wheels spinning on the jets as they had been designed to spin, the paramedic jumping to the side, IV in his hand. She had taken over then, as was her conviction, parting the patient’s blonde hair. Two small bumps appeared either side, evenly spaced, near the top of the cranium. She had seen this once long ago, had written it down in a book:

‘My residency was in the province of Ethiopia during that hot April of 2049. I was new. Ambition drove me there like lust and also like repulsion, as far north as I could go. Near the top of our vast continental country, to learn from the best. He was the best. I had left without any delay, landing in silence on a warm cushion of air, on a slope in white dust. It was 05h00. Working for the neurologist Dr Chemere Zewdie near that forest in the Great Rift Valley was my dream. Now it had come true. He was glad to have ‘the top of the class’ as one of his new doctors. They called me Top of the Class there. “Hello Dr Zewdie,” I said, stepping from under the shadow of the drone. “We are working with these people from Nechisar Village, we have lost half the tribe,” said Dr Zewdie. “All our doctors are in the tents over there. All nine men. I’ve had them at it for days. But I’d like to take you to see the king,” Dr Zewdie had said, as we began our walk. “His palace is ceremonial and therefore the trees are untouchable. He is untouchable. In a sense the forest is the palace.  The last trees in the North. Over four hundred years old, taller than buildings in cities. It’s where they bury the dead. His hut is in the middle,” said Dr Zewdie. The redness on the tops of trees was bright like blood. An island of peace. Scattering flocks of parrots whirled a jagged sky inside the trees making an island of wings. I looked around at the openness before we entered the forest. Grassland of alien white thorns: Nechisar Plains had seen many cattle, and too many people. That part of the country had seen farms become cities, in turn reclaimed by thorns. Nothing eats thorns. We entered the forest next to the mortuary tent, erected the day before, ‘AZANIANA’ on both sides in blue. The forest was dark until our eyes calmed to the green mist. A clearing came, soft light filtered on wings. The hut was tall like a totem and luminous. No dead wood. Walls and the roof of the circular room lived in growing trunks – vast juniper trees of the species Juniperus procera. The hut was empty except for him, lying there on his back on a stretcher on white sand. “It’s important that you are the last,” said Dr Zewdie, “because of The Season.”

We walked toward the king. “This is Dr Bernice Jantjies, from our capital, she was top of her class,” said Dr Zewdie. The king looked up at me, his eyes looked into my brain, through my flesh, into the curve of the back of my skull, or so it felt. “Sometimes there is nothing we can do,” said Dr Zewdie to me. “End of a season, and when he goes, the forest will go, too few trees, and they can only grow so high,” said Dr Zewdie.

“Because you are the last, you will be the first,” said Dr Zewdie. The king lifted his right arm – his hand in a glove made of leaves – patting the top of his head. I saw the two bumps for the first time: covered in fine grey hair, black near the bases, each about 10cm high, each about 2cm in diameter, shining in pointed bone at the tips.’                     

*

Dr Bernice Jantjies wiped the window pane of the emergency ward near the automatic sliding doors; condensation from her breath had misted the world. Ambulances kept coming in a constant line of red and yellow. She was about to lift her elbow to make a broader wipe with her full arm – not just the hand – when she paused, extending the long finger of her right hand, drawing a tree on the glass.  

       The team had worked through the night. The side aisle from the emergency ward into the main part of the hospital was littered with active stretchers, and nurses were busy there too, clutching ventilator-lung-transfers to supply air to those in distress. White bins along the walls overflowed with small boxes of spit and packets of stains. Dr Ishmael Bhorat sat in the first chair of a row of blue chairs, near the reception desk, below a buzzing florescent soother-light, talking to a middle-aged lady who shook as she cried. Her young son sat beside her in his pajamas, one finger in his nose, the other scratching just to the left, near the top of his head.

        From under a blue curtain leaked piss and Dr Bernice Jantjies shouted: ‘Get a catheter over there.’                

       ‘On it,’ said Dr Jack Solomons, as he rushed. ‘But we are going to have to start turning them away.’

       ‘There are no more clamps, and we’ve run out of saline solution xc557.’

       ‘We’ll make our own. Get me salt.’

       ‘And blood?’

       ‘THERE IS ALWAYS NEW BLOOD,’ wailed a man coming in on a bed.

       Dr Bernice Jantjies dropped her pen on the linoleum floor and it rolled toward the open automatic sliding doors, cool morning air tumbled in on the scent of flowers from the garden. Lights flickered and ambulances still moaned. Ambulance men shouted outside as they wheeled a panicked man closer. He lay on a stretcher slightly tilted, lifting his head, before falling back on his back, the hissing mask pulled to the side of his face.

       ‘The Season,’ he said.

       He shivered. She placed the mask back over his face, fastening the straps. ‘You need the air, old friend’ said Dr Bernice Jantjies.

       The mask filled with a white cloud as he said softly: ‘I need light.’   

       ‘I can’t hear you clearly Dr Abera,’ whispered Dr Bernice Jantjies, bending down to his right ear, pulling the blue curtain to make a wall, the rail singing on stainless-steel loops.

       ‘You remember me, eh,’ said Dr Negasi Abera, his Ethiopian accent strong, eyes deep in his head as he tried to breath. ‘Āmeseginaehu.’  

       ‘Beselami wenidimi irefiti.’ said Dr Bernice Jantjies. ‘How can I forget? All of you were like brothers to me then, Dr. And Dr Zewdie…I miss him, you know. Every day. First, let’s sort you out,’ said Dr Bernice Jantjies, stroking his forehead.       

       Dr Bernice Jantjies removed the mask for a moment, the blue glow from the fibre cable connector flashing, releasing a faint beeping call like that of a songbird.       

       ‘I’ve come from the Rift Valley. Do you remember the smoke when the forest died, remember the green smoke?’

       ‘Yes, of course.’ 

       ‘It was not smoke.’

       ‘I don’t understand.’ Dr Jantjies said, perplexed.

       ‘It was the reason Dr Zewdie took you in, at the end, to receive The Season.’

       ‘Rest Dr,’ said Dr Bernice Jantjies, parting the hair on the top of his head. ‘You need the mask…’

       ‘It was the King’s Gift.’

       ‘Nurse. Bring me the swabs and the occipital clamp.’

       ‘Dr,’ said Dr Negasi Abera.

       ‘Rest.’

       ‘Dr Jantjies, the sky was seed. And you were the only woman. Oh, the sweetness of that air then, the fecund sky, and you, yes only you, could breathe it all in.’

       ‘Nurse!’ said Dr Bernice Jantjies, looking at the top of his head.

       ‘Coming Dr.’

       ‘Occipitals and clamp.’       

       ‘Dr,’ said Dr Negasi Abede.

       ‘Yes, Dr?’

       ‘Wheel me outside.’

       ‘Dr?’

       ‘Please, wheel me into that garden.’ He began to cry.

        Dr Bernice Jantjies stared into Dr Negasi Abede’s eyes, purple circles holding tears, and she pushed the stretcher toward the light.

The trees shone in the green warmth of the sun. Grey pigeons circled above, waiting to be fed on the paving stones. Spray from the fountain sent fine mist onto translucent lilies. The flowers bloomed because it was their time. Dr Bernice Jantjies pushed the stretcher across the forecourt, past the ambulances, the small wheels singing, and she shouted at people to move. The stretcher rattled, the mask leaking oxygen from the little square electric vibration-filter box glowing at its side. Hydrangeas and rhododendrons and chrysanthemums and irises brushed against her thighs and lower legs. When she reached the middle of the lawn, tears fell from her chin. She looked down at Dr Negasi Abede.

       ‘Look,’ said Dr Bernice Jantjies, lifting his head, the stretcher raising him in a slow bend.

       ‘Green.’

       ‘Yes. Feeds my soul. Listen to the birds. Smell it all,’ said Dr Bernice Jantjies, the heat coming down onto her face.

       ‘Help me with the mask.’

       ‘Dr?’

       ‘Look,’ said Dr Negasi Abede, pulling his arms out from under the blanket, removing the mask. He reached up to grab the sun. His long fingers – yellow at the tips – began to straighten. With a moan he sat up, lungs opening to the sky, chest lifting in the freshest glow. His translucent fingernails began to blush in the shades of leaves and he photosynthesized in the middle of that magnificent yet rare garden, the only garden left in Cape Town that was a vast city – like all cities – with no space for such things.  He gazed up at Dr Bernice Jantjies, and said with a smile, pointing to the protrusions coming out of the top of his head: ‘We are not dying. These are not horns, they are branches.’  

END

Jimmy’s love entered his trap, her partner following. Through the keyhole, Jimmy watched them hastening uphill towards his shack, their firearms at the ready, their badges glinting, Tshidi’s own bouncing over the swell of her breast.

Tshidi Mohale … my god. Godly beautiful, even in drab.

Tshidi hurried to the doorstep of the shack, her hips swinging, her gun pointing.

Her partner came right up to the door, rapped it hard, turned the handle.

Jimmy took a slow breath.

“Mr Black!” the partner yelled. “Open the door.” The man had been Tshidi’s partner for a month now, Jimmy knew. He was one of those smug types: tall, lean and muscular, with a square jaw that girls liked. “We know you are in there, Mr Black,” he declared. “Open the door.”

Jimmy exhaled. Waited.

The officer reached back, his hand touching Tshidi’s shoulder. “I’m going to kick the door down,” he whispered.

Jimmy’s jaw tightened. Grubby paws on Jimmy’s angel.

Tshidi stepped back.

Jimmy did too. So far so good, he thought, his toes caressing the Mirage switches inside his right shoe.

The officer’s boot banged into the door and the walls of the shack squeaked.

BANG! again, and the door jamb cracked.

Someone is going to pay for this.

The door slammed back once more, came unhinged and fell inwards, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Jimmy waved it from his nose.

“You are under arrest, Mr Black,” the officer said, gun pointed at Jimmy. He stepped into the shack, his free hand reaching for the handcuffs on his belt.

Tshidi followed.

“Turn around,” her partner said. “Hands behind your back.”

Jimmy retreated deep into the shack, past the table and chairs.

“Stay where you are!” the officer said, approaching the unseen line that ran from wall to wall and through the table like the halfway line of a football pitch. Through that line, a Mirage would run. And its twin would run behind both officers, closing the door off.

“Turn around!” the officer said again.

Jimmy took another step back, the buttons in his shoes gnawing at his toes. Just a step closer, Officer.

“Turn around, I said!” the officer yelled, taking another step … right where Jimmy wanted him.

Jimmy pressed the button under his big toe, and both Mirages whispered to life, the centre one sizzling and glimmering across the room and through the officer. The officer wailed, quaking.

Tshidi screamed. A sweet sound.

The officer’s gun thudded to the floor, followed by his shaking body.

Tshidi looked from him to Jimmy.

Jimmy shrugged, and Tshidi … beautiful Tshidi … fired at him, the bullet exploding onto the Mirage, shrapnel ricocheting, the watery wall rippling.

Jimmy smiled.

Fear flowered on Tshidi’s face. Jimmy could smell vulnerability on her. He’d smelled it on other girls too. But they had only been practice for this moment.

Tshidi reached for her radio. “Constable Smit is down! Send back-up.” She retreated.

“Don’t!” Jimmy yelled.

But she did. “Ow!” she cried, the Mirage behind her sparking and glimmering where it had clipped her back, making her dart forward. She kept her firearm trained on Jimmy.

“Put the gun away, Tshidi,” Jimmy said softly. “You won’t be needing it.”

Tshidi’s grip tightened. Her eyes widened. Her voice was shaky. “How do you know my name?”

“The same way you know Jimmy’s. Think back. We went to school together.”

Tshidi’s eyes reflected. She shook her head.

“Jimmy Montsho. Northview High. Back in Johannesburg. You must remember.”

Tshidi scrunched her brow, shook her head slowly.

Utterly disappointing, Jimmy thought.Then he bellowed, “Was Jimmy that invisible?”

Tshidi startled and fired, the bullet exploding before Jimmy’s face and shimmering into a yellow flame, sending waves across the Mirage.

“Fine,” he said. “Waste your ammo if you want.”

Tshidi’s finger remained on the trigger. Her hands were shaking.

“If you relax, you will remember that Jimmy asked you out, once.”

Tshidi scowled. “Many boys did.”

Jimmy was only one of many. Forgettable. Dismissable. “You told Jimmy you were … busy.”

Jimmy was in Grade Nine, and Tshidi was a new grade eleven, just transferred from Sandringham High. She was short and voluptuous and bright. And Jimmy wanted to be near her. He and a score other boys.

The popular ones managed. But Jimmy was … awkward. He wore a frumpy uniform and wore thick glasses. He was one of those kids everyone silently agreed was the butt of all jokes; the recipient of all meanness.

For a year Jimmy feared asking Tshidi out. When he found out her family was moving to Cape Town, his fear was crushed by the pain of knowing he would never see her again and would forever live with regret.

The day he finally asked her, it was so cold her cheeks were rosy. Her baby hair showed under her beany in a sacred way.

His mouth was dry when he managed to say, “Tshidi, would you like to go to the movies?”

Tshidi eyed him like he was a fly on a window. “No. I’m … busy”, she said.

It felt like a punch to the gut. Busy. How did she know she was busy? Jimmy had not yet suggested a day. “When will you not be busy?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m just … very busy these days.”

Though painful, Jimmy wanted to stretch the moment as long as possible. “Preparing for the move to Cape Town?” he asked.

Tshidi eyed him suspiciously. “How did you know that? I haven’t told anyone yet.”

Shit, Jimmy thought. “Lucky guess, I guess.”

“I don’t think so,” she said, disgusted. “Leave me alone. And stop spying on me.”

Jimmy had walked away, ashamed.

Jimmy only saw Tshidi a few more times after that, his heart jumping in his throat each time.

It had been eleven years, and after he’d finished school, he had tracked her down to Cape Town. First to Kenilworth. Then to Bergvliet. Now to Newlands.

“If I said I was busy, I must have been,” Tshidi said, gun still pointing at Jimmy. “But I don’t remember you.”

“Okay. I believe you. But you aren’t busy now. You and Jimmy are going to have that date.”

Beside Jimmy, on the table in the middle of the shack lay a basket brimming with food. Jimmy gestured to it. “There’s ostrich biltong. Your favourite. Cucumber sticks. There’s also vanilla custard. Parmalat, not Ultra Mel.”

Tshidi’s faced contorted at the mention of each item. “You’ve been stalking me.”

“Mm … Jimmy prefers to call it … research. To learn how to maximise your enjoyment. Now. Have a seat, my love.”

“No.” Tshidi fired until the gun clicked, the Mirage fluttering like a curtain on a washing line. Swiftly, she changed the magazine. Pointed.

“Come. Sit, my lady. All Jimmy wants … all Jimmy ever wanted was a date with you.”

“No.”

“Please. Just an hour.”

Tshidi glanced at her partner’s now still body.

“Don’t worry. Our time together will be private.”

Tshidi shook her head. “You are sick.”

“Please. Don’t make Jimmy do this.”

“Do what?” Tshidi said, backing away.

Jimmy pressed the second button. The Mirage behind Tshidi drew inwards, hissing, vibrating.

Hearing it, Tshidi looked behind her. “What’s going on?”

“What Jimmy doesn’t want. Please. Take a seat.”

Tshidi stood her ground.

Jimmy pressed the button again. A spark glinted at Tshidi’s elbow, a glimmer following. Tshidi yelled, yanking her arm away and stumbling towards the table. She gave Jimmy a stink eye and planted herself in the chair. “Now make it stop.”

“You already have, my love,” Jimmy said, sitting opposite her.

Tshidi’s brow furrowed. “That’s how you’ve been killing all these girls.”

“No, no. Not killing,” Jimmy said. Jimmy is not a murderer. “Practising. More lived than died.”

Horror crawled over Tshidi’s face. “How … how do you live with yourself?”

Jimmy shrugged. “Not well, if Jimmy is being honest. But after our kiss, all that will end. Jimmy wants the feel of your lips against his to be the best thing he remembers. Now please, my dear. Relax. You’ll tell Jimmy all about yourself and he’ll tell you all about himself. Then will come the sweet end. And you’ll be free to go.”

Tshidi placed the gun on the table, next to her hand.

“So, tell Jimmy. What are your interests, your hobbies?”

Tshidi’s eyes darted about the shack. They stopped at the woollen blanket on top of the wardrobe. “Knitting. I like knitting. That and ….” She eyed the basket. “… gardening.”

“You are lying to Jimmy.” In the years Jimmy had watched Tshidi, he had never seen her knit or garden. But she loved movies. Jimmy always booked the seat behind her at the cinema. Then he could lean close enough to smell her Forever Elizabeth.

“I’m not lying,” she said. There was an edge to her voice.

“Okay. What’s your favourite crop to grow?”

“Tomatoes,” Tshidi said without batting an eyelid.

“What type?”

“Any type.”

“Preference between Beefsteak and Roma?”

“Roma.”

“Why?”

Hesitation. “I just like them, OK? Look. Cross questioning me doesn’t make much of a date.”

Jimmy sat back. “You are right. Jimmy just hates being lied to. Tell him then. The movie I am Legend. Have you finally decided if you prefer the original ending or the alternate?”

Tshidi scowled. “How … how did you …?”

“You are a detective. You know it’s not that difficult. A clue leads to a trace. A trace leads to a fact.”

“Do you not have a life?”

“Jimmy has a life: You. It’s always been you. Since the first day he saw you.” Jimmy smiled. “You had just transferred from Sandringham. Your uniform was fresh. Not a hint of lint. Not a pimple on your skin. Not a hair out of place. Perfect, white teeth and dimples on each cheek.”

Tshidi shook her head. “I …”

” … don’t remember him, yes. Jimmy believes you. That’s what hurts. Being forgotten so easily. Not registering at all.” Jimmy smiled again. “Well. From today onwards you will remember Jimmy.”

“I don’t want to remember you,” Tshidi said. “You killed my partner. You killed all those girls.” Tshidi looked Jimmy in the eyes. “What kind of monster are you?”

“This is not how Jimmy wants our date to go, my love. Us calling each other names.”

Tshidi laced her fingers. Leaned forward. “Actually, I do want to know you. What makes people like you want to kill?”

Jimmy shrugged. “Jimmy can’t speak for others. For him, it’s not about killing. It’s about wanting something badly, but an obstacle standing in his way. Your partner, for example—”

“—Smit. His name was Smit.” There was a knot in Tshidi’s voice.

“Smit. Take him for example. Jimmy wanted a date with you, and he was in the way.”

“The girls, then. How were they in your way?”

Jimmy took a deep breath. “The obstacle there was Jimmy’s ignorance.” He shook his head. How could he explain it to her? He had needed to gauge the right amount of Mirage voltage to elicit the right response. He had to know how much was too much. “The girls were … research. But why don’t we talk about you a little?”

“What’s the point? You’ve got me figured already.”

“From the outside, perhaps. But there are things we can never know until we talk to people.” Jimmy shuddered. “Jimmy can’t believe you and he are actually talking. After all these years. So, please. Let’s go back to the beginning. What do you like, truly?”

Tshidi sat back. “How about people who don’t hurt people?”

Jimmy winced. “Jimmy is trying for a decent conversation and you keep needling him.”

Tshidi folded her arms. “I’m being serious. I went into this job to protect innocent people from people like you.”

That’s what makes Jimmy so … enamoured of you. “When did you know? That you were a hero?”

Tshidi looked at Jimmy a while. Studied his face. Then she shook her head, exhaled. “My last year at Sandringham. I was at the tuck shop. And these two grade-elevens came up to this tiny grade-eight. One of them stuck out his palm. The grade-eight shrunk into himself and glanced around. Everyone looked away. He dug his small hand into his pocket and put a fifty-rand note on the big hand. He left the queue, crying, and the grade-elevens took his place.” Tshidi grimaced. “And no-one did anything.”

Jimmy sighed. “See? Jimmy could never have known that just by watching you. You are really nice.”

“Did you not listen to my story? I didn’t help that kid.”

“But you are nice. Jimmy remembers a day in Grade Nine. There was this kid who got bullied all the time, and one time some of the big boys made him take his trousers off. They rolled the trousers up and threw them onto the roof of the music room. Remember that?”

Slowly, Tshidi nodded, then rapidly she said. “I remember. I was in Grade Eleven, I think. The kid was so scared. So humiliated.”

“But you stopped that, didn’t you? You gave him your blazer to cover himself. You climbed up to the roof and got his trousers for him.”

“He was crying so much. Shaking like a reed.”

“You looked away while he dressed. Then you embraced him until he stopped crying.”

Realisation crossed Tshidi’s face. She leaned towards Jimmy.

The Mirage! “Careful, Tshidi!”

“It was you, wasn’t it?”

Jimmy looked away.

“I remember the kid had a blotch under his left eye.” Tshidi raised her finger to Jimmy’s birthmark.

“Careful—”

The Mirage rippled where Tshidi had touched it, and she abruptly withdrew her hand, wincing. She put her finger in her mouth and, Jimmy thought she looked as beautiful as ever.

“I’m sorry, my love.”

“It was you, then.”

Jimmy glanced down. “Yes. It was Jimmy.”

“I’m sorry you experienced that,” Tshidi said, cooling her hurt finger in the cucumber sticks.

“Jimmy thinks … I … think I fell in love with you then. But I was so afraid. The thought of talking to you made Jimmy’s … made my stomach want to run.”

Tshidi picked up a cucumber stick and bit it. “You should have. You should have come and said hello.”

“But Jimmy did! Eventually. When he heard you were leaving Joburg. He realised he would never see you again. But you told him you were busy.”

“I was! My world was being turned upside down. My parents were splitting up. I was being pulled from the only home I ever knew. I wasn’t in the headspace for dating.”

Slowly, silently, the sun rose in Jimmy’s heart. “Really? You didn’t say it because you thought Jimmy … because you thought … I … was a nobody?”

Tshidi scowled. “I didn’t know you. How could I think that?”

Jimmy smiled. I might have been a somebody, then. He picked up a piece of biltong.

Police sirens sounded outside.

“Seems your colleagues are coming for you.”

Tshidi bit another cucumber stick. “Seems they are.”

Jimmy put the biltong down. “That’s the end of our date, then. Except. Now comes the real end.”

“Give it up, Jimmy. Soon this place will be surrounded.”

“There’s a Mirage surrounding the shack.”

“They’ll eventually find a way to deactivate it. All they need to do is cut off the power source.”

“Clever. It will take them a while though. Enough time for our kiss.”

Tshidi scrunched her nose. “You really are mad.”

Jimmy nodded. “I think you are right. I finally accepted that about myself. Just this last week, actually. That I’m a freak. That I’m everything they ever called me at school. And I found … I found a strange kind of peace. The kind that falls over you when you finally accept who you always were.”

Jimmy heard a  police car speed up to the gate and skid to a stop. He watched Tshidi look out hopefully through the window. Three cars followed the first, blue lights flashing, cops pouring out and running towards the shack.

Jimmy waited for it.

The Mirage ensnared the frontmost two and they vibrated like guitar strings, screaming.

Tshidi screamed, “Oh my God!” She glared at Jimmy.

“I know,” Jimmy said. “I really am mad.”

A loudhailer sounded. “Jimmy Black, we have you surrounded. Surrender and release your hostages. I repeat. Surrender and release your hostages.”

“What do you want!” Tshidi said, fists clenched, tears filling her eyes. Jimmy wanted to wipe them away. “You’ve had plenty of time to kill me.”

Butterflies buffeted Jimmy’s stomach. “A kiss.”

Through the window, several officers aimed their guns at Jimmy.

“Mr Black, don’t make your situation worse,” said the loudhailer. “Release the hostages.”

“The game is over, Jimmy,” said Tshidi. “Let me go.”

“One. Little. Kiss,” Jimmy said. “And the game will be over.”

Tshidi balled her fists, folded her arms, shook her head.

Under the table, Jimmy turned a dial.

Outside, the paintwork of the furthest car darkened, smoking, bubbling, lifting, peeling, revealing glowing metal.

“What’s going on!” Tshidi said.

“I’ve activated a new Mirage around the shack. I’m drawing it in, sandwiching your colleagues against the inner Mirage.”

The burning car exploded, all officers turning towards the sound, backing away.

Another car, closer to the shack, started burning.

“Make it stop, Jimmy! You are going to kill them.”

“You can make it stop, my love. Under the table, there’s a button. If you press it and hold it down, the Mirage between us will dissolve. You’ll kiss me. I’ll then press a button on my side. In that way, together, we’ll switch all the Mirages off.”

Tshidi groped under the table. “Done.”

The Mirage separating them vanished. Jimmy reached for Tshidi’s wet cheek.

Tshidi leaned away. “Now press yours.”

“After our kiss.”

A third car, even closer, exploded.

Tshidi glared at Jimmy; her eyes jutting at him like knives. Her hand clasped her gun.

Jimmy tilted his head and shrugged. Being killed by an angel was maybe as good as being kissed by one.

Tshidi huffed and shook her head. She relaxed her grip. Leaned towards Jimmy.

Oh, my God! Jimmy thought. He leaned in too.

Tshidi’s lips quickly bounced off of his. “Now press your button!” she said.

Jimmy sighed. “Somehow that didn’t feel as magical as Jimmy had dreamed all these years.” He averted his eyes from Tshidi’s face. “But you’ve done your part. Jimmy will do his. I will remember you, Tshidi.”

To Tshidi, Jimmy suddenly looked like that grade-nine boy from many years ago. Small. Shoulders hunched. “Jimmy, look at me,” she said.

Jimmy looked up at her. Two wet lines glistened his cheeks.

Another explosion.

Tshidi placed her fingers under Jimmy’s chin and lifted his face up. She closed her eyes as she kissed him as lovingly as she’d ever kissed anyone. She felt the passion in the caress of his tongue.

When she pulled away, Jimmy was grinning, another tear rolling down his face. “Keep your finger on the button,” he said. “I’m going to press mine.”

Outside, Tshidi’s precinct mates were huddled beside the inner Mirage, trembling, eyeing the Mirage closing in. “Jimmy, please,” she said. “Quickly.”

Jimmy put his hand under the table. “Goodbye,” he said. “My love.”

A Mirage shot from wall to wall, through Jimmy, and his body vibrated, his eyelids fluttering.

Tshidi gasped.

Jimmy’s chair rattled against the floor. His teeth chattered. His face twisted.

Tshidi’s hands went to her mouth.

Suddenly, the shaking stopped. And Jimmy dropped to the floor, still.

For a while there was silence. Jimmy’s face was smiling. Tshidi was shaking, her body tense.

The silence was broken by a voice at the door asking if she was OK.

Tshidi nodded, then shook her head. Goodbye, she thought. Jimmy Montsho.

THE END

This morning, like most mornings, before our landlord’s wife began her speaking-in-tongues devotion and before Mummy woke and began her yoga, I stood in front of our full-length mirror, staring at my sad reflection that scared me sometimes. For the umpteenth time, I asked myself the question that had consumed me for a year now: What and who am I?

Each morning, while I performed this mirror-viewing ritual, I hoped that the person staring back at me would offer me a comforting answer to my questions. Rather, all it always offered were endless stares and silence.

I retreated from the mirror, staring at our 2060 Echi City as it roused and got ready for another day of rain, traffic and everything that made people hate the city, though they were unable to leave it. Today marked the hundredth independence anniversary of our country – a country where robots were trusted more than humans, where cars had no steering wheels, and where each door you entered knew you by your name and face.

Mummy said there were two kinds of people who lived in our city – those who really lived in it, and those who lived in the heads of those who really lived in it. She always wished life in our city and the weird people in it were the way they used to be in 2031 when she was born.

For a nine-year-old only child living inside my head and inside the minds of people, my world and theirs were at crossroads. But I had not always been this way. My specialness began a year ago, with no warning that it was coming. It came the way ghosts did and had not left ever since. I now had two identities – the identity of a child who was lovable and innocent, and the identity of a superhuman who was omniscient and weird.

Though I missed my old life, it felt empowering to read minds. Last Sunday, when our pastor said God knew the minds of men, I had wanted to tell him that I knew the minds of men, and those of women, too.

The first time I remembered being possessed by this specialness, I had woken up one Sunday morning hearing and seeing things. The things were the thoughts of Mummy sleeping next to me. When she woke, I told her I was a superwoman. She laughed and told me she was not ready for my little jokes. When I told her exactly what was going on in her mind, she looked at me in shock.

“No way, baby,” she had said, laughing. “You’re lying.”

When I told her what she had intended complaining to the pastor about, after church service, she held her chest, mopping at me in shock. 

*

My parents had been separated for a year now. Mummy was a customer-care staff at a bank, while Daddy was an oil company engineer.  Although I spent more time with Mummy than I did with Daddy, they succeeded in making me feel like a parcel they could transfer as they liked from one town to another in the name of shared custody.

My specialness started after they separated, but they made it seem as if my condition was the reason. But I knew better. They remained separated because Daddy was still dating Mummy’s friend whom Mummy caught him with in their bed, and Mummy was still flirting with her boss whom Daddy saw when they were together in a restaurant opposite her bank.

I shocked them with this information six months ago, while we were on a weekend tour – something they were obligated to do because of me. After they had fought over their infidelities, they poured their anger on me.

“This’s crazy!” Daddy had said in his mind, scowling at me. “She’s fucking crazy!”

“God,” Mummy had fumed in her mind. “This girl won’t kill me.”

Daddy said I was possessed by something, and Mummy should take me to her church for deliverance. Mummy said I was hallucinating, and Daddy should take me to a mental hospital.

After Mummy and Daddy separated, Mummy got me a nanny. One week later, the nanny resigned. She said I was a witch. I did not do anything to her. I only told her the names and the addresses of the men who had patronised her in her bed the night before that last day she came to babysit me.

Mummy used to work at a telecommunications company. One day, shortly after I arrived at her office from school, her boss walked in and laughed at my hair. He said I looked like Willie-Willie, the scary mysterious character from an eighties television series ‘Hot Cash’. Enraged, I told him he liked to be with men, and that one of the guys at the glass office in front was his boyfriend. The next day, Mummy was sacked.

After the sack, Mummy had cried all day, and then, she sent me to Daddy. Daddy was not comfortable around me. He paid his elderly landlady to look after me in the night, while he went to sleep in his mistress’ house. When I told him this, he felt like breaking my head.

“Stop acting like the world is only meant for you,” he had fumed. “Get real. Or pretend to be. Get along with people for once.”

Four days later, Daddy shipped me back to Mummy with a note not to bring me back. Two weeks later, Mummy got the bank job. She swore not to take me there.

Mummy was losing faith in the possibility of me being normal again. She had once told me, in tears, that I could say anything about her and Daddy, but I should not inflame other people with things that were not my business.

Since then, she had taken me to two witch doctors, two white-garment prophets, many churches and two psychologists.

The first witch doctor said I was possessed by evil spirits and he would flog me with a special cane to ward off the evil spirits. I told him he had had a heart attack two weeks before that day, and in the process of flogging me he would have another one and die. The man cursed Mummy and me, and ordered us out of his shrine. 

The other witch doctor said I was betrothed to a marine god and she would cut my chest and put something into it to set me free. I told her if she cut my skin, her only son, who was sick with chickenpox, would die. She recoiled from me and told Mummy not to bring me back there.

The white-garment prophets were funny, confused people. They thought their deafening bells and nauseating incense could cast out the demons they believed were in me. But I told them that the confusion in their minds was the real demon. They cursed me. One of them even said he did not want to see me again.

The churches were full of drama. One of the pastors who spoke in tongues said I was possessed with ‘Legion’. I did not understand what a legion was, but I knew he frequented a witch doctor for his healing powers. When I told him this, he ended the deliverance session.

The psychologists, whose names began with Dr and ended with PhD, kept asking me questions they had already asked before. The first one said I had schizophrenia, and I was too cute and young to suffer such an illness. I told him he was a bad man who liked to touch children. Then I named the two last children whom he had touched their privates after threatening that he would kill them if they ever told anybody. Mummy had looked at the psychologist with disgust, and hurriedly pulled me out of the consulting room, without another glance at him.

The second one said I had something I could not pronounce. She insinuated I was a weirdo. I told her how she was always hiding to sniff a white powder that made her happy. Mummy had squeezed my ear and mouth that day.

Prior to these places, Mummy had taken me to our pastor – who she said was also a psychologist – for deliverance. I loved and respected our pastor, but he liked my mummy, even though he was married to the children’s Sunday school teacher who disliked me because I sometimes got her and the other children upset. While our pastor was shouting in tongues to deliver me, I told him he had a crush on Mummy. He had said the devil was lying through me and prayed more. I told him that the choir mistress was pregnant for him, even though he was not aware of it yet. He stopped the prayer and walked away.

Mummy had thought and imagined all kinds of things about my specialness. Recently, she thought I was possessed by the spirit of her late mother, who had been a witch doctor.

Grandma had been fond of me. I was her only grandchild from her only child. I looked like her. I liked her. She named me after herself. A year and a half ago, before she died, I spent the entire New Yam festival week with her in the village. She taught me a lot of things. She taught me how to cook and how to weave cloth. Every holiday, when Mummy took me to see Grandma, she took me round her garden and showed me some leaves and trees that could heal sicknesses. She also taught me how to perceive the presence of snakes through their smell.

Last week, Mummy travelled to the village to enquire from her aunt if I was destined to serve Grandma’s god but she came back disappointed.

*

This morning, as I was preparing for school, over breakfast, I asked Mummy if she preferred my old or my new self. She stared at me in dismay and walked into the kitchen. Who would prefer a freak? she had asked in her mind. I told her I would not prefer a freak too. She cursed me from the kitchen.

When she returned with the prescription drugs I was meant to take to make me normal, I told her the unpleasant thoughts in her mind. She did not know whether to cry or to yell at me or to spank me. She was worried I would grow up into an inhuman being, like Chucky, the mysterious doll character in the Chucky horror series that she remembered from her childhood. I told her I would rather grow up into a diviner like Grandma, but she forbade it and reprimanded me.

“I loved Grandma,” I said. “She was a good woman.”

“Children don’t run around wishing to be like a dead witch doctor.”

“I don’t care.”

Of course you do not care, because only normal children care, Mummy said in her mind.

I scowled at her. I told her that Grandma was a better woman than she was, that Grandma would have been proud of who I was now, and that I did not care about what she thought about me anymore.

“Really, baby?” she cried.

“I’m sorry, Mummy.” I replied, suddenly overcome with remorse for making her hurt so much.

*

It had been three months since we relocated to our new neighbourhood. We shared a compound with our landlord and his wife. They were busy, corporate people. I did not see much of them, except on weekends. Mummy had briefed them about my condition. They seemed not to care. Before long, I could see that the woman was childless because of the baby she aborted while in secondary school, and the man had two children from another woman whom his wife did not know about.

I was treated like an alien in my former school. The headmistress was Mummy’s friend, which made matters worse. Some staff and students left the school because of me. They even had a special PTA meeting to discuss my issue. However, my expulsion was fast-tracked when I told the headmistress that she was stealing the school’s money for her private use.  

My new school was the worst school on earth. It was full of normal children with smiling faces. Mummy had chosen it because she thought they would tolerate my specialness. But they stared at me as if I were a child with grey hair, wobbling with a walking stick.

Today, just like other days, my classmates avoided me. I had only one friend, Christian, and one enemy, Christiana. Christian and Christiana were twins. During break hour, Christiana and I got into a quarrel, and I told everyone how she stole meat from her mother’s pot the other day. They laughed at her, as she cried and ran out of the playground.

In the classroom, after break hour, I overheard two girls gossiping about me. One said I was the meanest person in school. The other concurred, and said my Afro looked like that of a witch. After school, I approached them and told them things that made them cry.

My teacher – how she hated me for ridiculing her in class – had reported me to the principal many times. She had also accused me of using magic to excellently pass my examinations.

A week ago, when she scolded me in the staffroom for not paying attention in class, I told her that, at least, I was not like her oldest child who was an imbecile. She had squeezed my mouth, called me a little witch in her mind, and reported me to the principal and to Mummy.

The principal was worried about my conduct too. On many occasions, she had informed Mummy about my steadily deteriorating manners, adding that, if I continued that way, she would expel me. But Mummy kept telling her I would improve with time.

This afternoon, Mummy called my teacher on the phone to inform her that she would be coming to take me somewhere. I just hoped I would not disappoint my mummy again.

*

I hated Mummy’s 2040 car. She was one of the few people in our city who still drove cars with steering wheels and used mobile phones charged with electricity. Daddy always said Mummy was too young to be old school, and too young to behave like she did not understand what it took to live in our world.

Mummy and I were now in her car heading to one of those places she believed would make me normal.

“I don’t want to go,” I blurted, as she drove us.

If something was wrong with me, I was tired of going to places where they would end up not knowing what it was.

“Since you don’t want to help me understand what’s wrong with you,” Mummy said, “I’ll find someone who will.”

“I don’t know. I just want to go home.”

She was not happy that I did not know. Though she was more comfortable with me not knowing things than me knowing, she wished I knew how to make myself normal or, at least, who could help me to be normal. When I told her what she said in her mind, she flared.

“Really?” she blurted. “How many times have I warned you to stop these nonsense mind games with me? I’m your mother for God’s sake.”

“But you just called me a freak in your mind, Mummy!”

“Damn it!” she slapped the steering wheel. “What the hell is wrong with you?!”

We were now in traffic and Mummy was worried because she had to return to work in the next hour and half. Cars were honking everywhere, and she was having a migraine. She was stressed, and her blood pressure was high. She was seeing a psychologist too.

She honked the horn and sighed, staring at her wristwatch for the tenth time. I looked at her. She gawked at me. I shook my head and looked away.

“What’s it this time?” she barked.

I told her that an accident, a hundred metres ahead of us, was the cause of the traffic jam.

“Oh no,” Mummy looked at me, shuddering. “Did anyone die?”

I felt both glad and awkward whenever Mummy patronised my specialness, which she seldom did. Unfortunately, nobody survived the accident. While Mummy was gaping at me with teary eyes, I told her that we would be in the traffic for another ten minutes. Tears rolled down her cheeks slowly.

Exactly ten minutes later, the traffic jam cleared.

Mummy and I were soon at our destination.

I was sure I had visited more strange places than anybody my age. It always made me sad whenever I found out, through Mummy’s mind, that I would be going to a shrine, prayer house, church or clinic of whoever would make me normal.

As I scanned the name on the glass door, which read: Sira Temuno, I wondered if this psychologist was a real one. The name did not begin with Dr and did not end with PhD. I wondered if this would be the last psychologist I would see. Mummy was already contemplating another arrangement in case this one did not work.

“Do you think we’ll get answers here?”

“Answers to what?”

“Are you kidding me?” Mummy scowled at me. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

I kept quiet, staring at my shoes.

“Do you?”

I did not say anything.

“I thought you’re the centre of the universe,” she fumed. “I thought you know everything. Suddenly, you don’t know a thing?”

I was mute, still staring at my shoes.

“Oh boy,” she sighed. “Bad sign. Bad sign.”

Mummy was bent on finding the solution to my ‘problem’, but I had accepted my specialness in good faith. I wondered what would be the outcome of our resolves.

Standing few inches from the automated glass door, the little camera on it scanned our faces, identifying us by our names and personal identification codes.

Oh God, Mummy sighed. Where are all these things leading us to?

I giggled. Mummy frowned at me and sighed again.

When we were inside the glass door, Mummy looked sternly at me and said, “I hope you’ll remember everything I told you.”

I nodded.

“Young lady, the last time I checked, you weren’t mute,” she exploded. “I hope you’ll remember everything I told you, for God’s sake!”

“Yes, Mummy.”

“Good.”

When we were seated, Mummy and Sira – she said I could call her Sira – started talking. Her office was different from the other psychologists’ offices. There were no big textbooks and wallpapers with human brains on them. Rather, there were children’s toys and a television showing cartoons.

On Sira’s table was a gold plate that read: ‘Psychologists do it with the mind’. This sounded both funny and interesting to me. If psychologists did it with the mind, that meant I was a psychologist too.

When Sira finished talking with Mummy, she asked her to leave and come back in forty-five minutes to pick me up. Before Mummy left, she gave me a mean look that said: If you say what you’re not supposed to say, I’ll spank you.

*

“You’re a psycho because you live inside your head and inside the minds of people.”

I moped at Sira, fidgeting on my seat. There was an unsettling certainty, not just in her words, but also in her convictions. When I regained my composure, I read her mind. I could feel her reading mine too. For a while, I could not open my mouth. This woman must be a psycho too.

“Yes. I’m like you. I’m sure you know that by now,” she said. “So, no lies and secrets. Okay?”

I nodded.

“That’s my girl,” she smiled. “Sometimes you wish you were happy, that people would stop calling you bad names. You have a boyfriend at school, by name Christian. Last Valentine, you stole your mother’s money and bought him a red candy. You wish your parents were together, but you keep pushing them apart with their secrets. Sometimes, you’re confused about your powers. You don’t know if they’re a blessing or a curse. But you choose to use them in wrong ways to draw attention to yourself.”

“The things I see and hear and say are true,” I blurted.

“Of course, they are. You see and hear the good ones too. Don’t you?”

I nodded.

“Good. How are you feeling now? Happy or sad?”

“Sad.”

“That’s exactly the way people feel too when you tell them their secrets or behave in a weird way towards them,” she said. “That’s why they call you a psycho. But you’re not a psycho or a weirdo.

“But you just said I’m a psycho.”

“Well, I made that up to see how you would feel,” she smiled. “Now you know why people call you bad names, you have to change the way you treat or behave towards people.”

She paused and looked at me before continuing, “You have to start doing things that’ll make them like you and call you good names. Are you ready to make these changes?”

I nodded.

“Fantastic,” she beamed. “It all starts in your mind.”

I knew how the mind worked. Sira and I were the same, or almost the same. But she was likable – at least I liked her.

“What did you do to be normal?”

She chuckled and told me she had never been normal, that she only pretended to be.

I did not know how to pretend or to—

“You have to,” she just read my mind. “That’s the only way people can like you.”

Why should I pretend with something that makes me different? Or even try to solve problems pretending—

“I use my uniqueness to solve people’s problems, not to ridicule them,” she said. “You too can use your powers for good.”

“I use them for good. I say the truth.”

“I know. But some truths hurt.”

“Should I tell lies then?”

“No! Don’t just say truths that hurt like lies,” she laughed. “Secrets are secrets. Leave it at that.”

I could not believe this.

“You have to,” she smiled. “Try reading more of people’s heart than their minds.”

Heart? I did not understand.

“Yes, heart. Everyone is fighting a battle.”

After Sira finished reading my mind, I read hers. Unlike me, she was born with her powers. She was labelled half child, half devil because she caused trouble with them. But when she discovered the power of the mind, in secondary school, she changed. She decided to be a psychologist to help people like us understand and use our powers in right ways.

Notwithstanding, I wanted to fire back at her. But, I could not. Beneath the ambiance of her soothing smiles were grief, anxiety and regrets. She was recently widowed with three children, and was afraid of losing her only son to sickle cell anaemia. She was nervous about tomorrow, about marrying again. Sometimes, she regretted having special powers without knowing how to use them to solve her problems.

“You’re afraid he will die.”

She tittered. “You shouldn’t be doing that. Focus on the good, not on the bad.”

“You’re afraid he will die,” I repeated.

“It’s possible. But I don’t think about that.” She exhaled and continued, “I’ve locked up my mind on him, on his future. I want to love and enjoy him for the moment. Sometimes, the moment is worth more than the future.”

I tried to read Sira’s mind as regards her son’s future, but it was not possible.

“Nice try,” she said. “You’ve a long way to go on how to positively explore your mind.”

“I was trying to help. I know you can’t help yourself.”

“I know. Sometimes, our help can be harmful.”

I told her I would like to know how I came to be like this.

 “Only you can find that out,’ she said. “When you develop your mind for good, the answer will come to you naturally.”

Her words made me feel calmer than before.

“All these may not make sense to you now,” she continued. “But with time, you’ll understand and appreciate yourself and your powers.”

I tried preventing her from reading my mind, to let her know that I did not have all the time in the world to waste when she could teach me everything today.

“Easy. I know what you’re trying to do,” she smiled. “Don’t worry. With time, you’ll be able to do it.”

Minutes later, Sira scanned her wristwatch and informed me the session was over. I did not want it to be over. I was enjoying her company.

“When I grow up, I’ll like to be like you.”

“Don’t be silly, dear,” she chuckled. “You’re just like me. Besides, I haven’t finished growing up.”

*

When Mummy opened the door and entered, I read her mind and her heart.

“Mummy, your boss asked you out to dinner today,” I said. “Don’t say no this time.”

Mummy held her chest and shot me mean eyes.

Sira and I laughed.

When Daddy was teaching me chess, he said that life was like chess – that you cannot undo the moves, but you can make the next move better.

In that moment, I saw that Mummy had given up her life for me. She had stopped a lot of things she had passion for and a lot of things that made her happy – just because of me. But that did not change the fact that she had soft slender hands and a big heart. I could not remember the last time she held me tight and told me I was her best friend. I wanted to be her best friend again. It had been long since I saw her smile – that real smile that showed me I was the centre of her life, where everything was normal.

Maybe I was a psycho. Maybe I was normal. It did not matter anymore.

Looking at Mummy standing there, tears clouded my eyes. There were a lot of things going on in her mind – the good, the bad, the ugly. But they were fine by me now.

“Go and have fun, Mummy.”

Transfixed and speechless, tears cascaded from Mummy’s eyes. Elated, she bent over and hugged me.

“I love you, my darling,” Mummy said.

The End