PUBLISH’D AFRIKA MAGAZINE FACEBOOK SHORT STORY COMPETITION – August 2023 Leg
THEME: KNOCK YOURSELF OUT
TITLE: A TRAIL OF YOUTHFUL BONES
Written by The ‘Weird’ Brown Girl
Langa watched as children ran around the bedrooms looking for their best clothes to prepare themselves for the day ahead. The sun’s glow permeated through the floor length windows of the orphanage, illuminating the shabby Christmas decorations adorning the walls. Langa would have carried on sleeping if it weren’t for her cruel overseer Mother Tulip.
Mother Tulip was a voluptuous woman of cruel pedigree with a permanent twisted scowl on her face. Mother Tulip was kind to every child in the orphanage except for Langa. Langa wasn’t sure if the reason for such hatred from Mother Tulip as well as all the other inhabitants of the orphanage was because of her skin colour or sharp tongue. Maybe it was both, but she couldn’t bring herself to care anymore.
Langa was an anomaly. Even to herself. She was a tall, thin seventeen-year-old girl with hair as wild and gorgeous as a lion’s mane. Her skin was a smooth shade of black that was so dark it was almost navy blue. Everyone at the orphanage started a rumour claiming that her skin colour was an unnatural shade of black because she had been kissed by a demon when she was a baby. People considered her unlucky or evil. These superstitions led to people alienating her and despising her existence.
Langa had been abandoned by her mother in an alley. She had been tucked in a blanket and placed in an old box with a note that had her name on it, including a small but beautiful crescent moon-shaped pendant with the words, “be the light.”
Sister Shamiso, a nun with a beautiful heart had found baby Langa in the alley wailing, the pendant her mother had left her fisted in her small hand. Langa abhorred her mother for leaving her to suffer the cruelty of strangers. She didn’t want anything to do with her mother, but she was always strangely convicted to keep the pendant her mother had left for her. The pendant brought her comfort, it was her solace and her only hope in a miserable world that fate had fashioned for her. She often clutched it to her chest after some of Mother Tulip’s painful mulberry stick lashes and other people’s horrible comments about her skin. It was her only source of comfort when Sister Shamiso passed away after a difficult fight with cancer. Langa was jostled out of her reverie when Mother Tulip’s massive bosom shoved her away from the window sill.
“Go get dressed Soot, you might get adopted today,” Mother Tulip ordered, her usual scowl etched on her face. Mother Tulip towered over Langa, her imposing build dwarfing the straight-faced teenager. Langa was not the least bit intimidated. If anything, she silently challenged Mother Tulip by squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin, her gaze unwavering.
“My name is Langa, not Soot,” she enunciated confidently.
“Your name is whatever I want it to be, you little devil. Now go get dressed and do your best today,” Mother Tulip hissed.
Langa let out an aggravated sigh before stomping off to a room she shared with other girls. She grabbed the best dress she had, quickly yanking it on her body. Langa was a dreamer but she was no fool. She knew that no one cared to adopt her, because of her age. She was now 17 and no couple was willing to adopt a teenager. Langa remembered when she was younger, about six years old, when she wanted nothing more than to be adopted and rescued by people who would love her. That proved impossible seeing as how no one cared enough to even consider her. Couples would take one look at her and disperse, no doubt apprehensive of her dark skin and curious features.
Thanks to Sister Shamiso, Langa had grown up self-aware. She would constantly tell Langa that humans often despised what they didn’t understand. They despised differences in anyone even if the person was one of them. Langa firmly believed that her own people often displayed shocking amounts of self-hatred by ridiculing dark skin. Langa maneuvered her way through the sea of children and nuns bustling around the orphanage in preparation for adoption day. Langa hated adoption days with every fibre of her being. She didn’t like being paraded around like she was up for sale at an auction.
The couples or customers as Langa liked to call them arrived, their eyes lit with the hope of finding a child to call their own. Before Langa could join the rest of the children, one of the nuns in charge pulled her aside and warned her not to be as mouthy as she usually was. Langa couldn’t help but snicker; her tongue was a little sharp. Some couples offered Langa warm smiles which she would return with scowls.
One woman told Langa that her frock was pretty, to which she replied with, ” I can’t say the same thing about yours.” The woman gasped in disbelief and left the premises beside herself with anger. The day pressed on and Langa braved every irksome moment of it. It wasn’t until a couple donning sleek, well-tailored clothes approached her that Langa’s interest was slightly roused.
“I don’t care for politicians,” Langa said and yawned after the imposing couple had introduced themselves to her.
The couple, Rudo and Tino Hove, were some of Zimbabwe’s most prominent politicians. Their faces were plastered on billboards and they always managed to secure themselves an interview on television.
“Well, we’re interested in you, Langa. Mother Tulip tells us that you’re mouthy but brilliant. I mean, your report filled with impressive grades speaks for itself,” Tino pointed out.
Langa scoffed. “Mother Tulip complimenting me? Gosh, she really does want me gone.”
The back-and-forth repartee carried on between the couple and Langa. Langa was surprised that her curt tongue hadn’t ran the couple off yet. In the end, it was clear that Langa had come to like the couple. No sooner than a few weeks later, papers were drafted and filed, the court was paid a visit and miraculously, Langa became their daughter.
After a week, Langa was excited when a sleek black car came to a stop in front of a huge silver gate, adorned by damp intertwined vines that shimmered like emeralds under the afternoon sun. Langa knew that the couple that had taken interest in her was well-off, however she had not expected such a blatant display of opulence. The gates were opened by two security guards, revealing a driveway made of cobblestone. As the car drove up the driveway, she marvelled at the wide expanse of manicured lawns and a kaleidoscope of flowers.
Her new home was ensconced on a small hill, overlooking the lawns. The Hoves were standing at the front door, warm smiles adorning their faces. Rudo’s smile widened when Langa stepped out of the car, her eyes perusing the splendour of the house.
***
Two months had passed since Langa had started living with the Hove couple. They were kind, intelligent and attentive. They gave her just about anything she desired. They had found her an artistic private tutor whom she adored. They spoilt her with books, paint and cameras as she loved art.
One rainy morning, Langa settled down to eat her breakfast when one of the maids, a petite woman with a mouth especially created for gossip, placed Langa’s cup of tea on the table. The maid kept glancing at Langa.
“Spit it out, Farai,” Langa ordered.
“You’re the tenth child,” Farai muttered as she twiddled her thumbs.
“What are you talking about?” Langa sighed.
“You’re the tenth child the Hove family has adopted,” Farai said quickly before scurrying away. Langa suddenly found it difficult to swallow the mealie-meal porridge she had been enjoying. Farai was known to gossip but there were always elements of truth to what she said. Still, ten children seemed far-fetched. If what Farai said was true, why hadn’t Rudo and Tino mentioned any of them? Why weren’t they here? There was no sign that other children had lived in this home.
Langa tried very hard to ignore what Farai had said. She had tried to choke it up to mere gossip. Try as she might to ignore what Farai had said, she just couldn’t. Her curiosity had been peaked. Langa could barely focus during class. After her tutoring sessions, Langa found herself in front of Tino’s study. It was a private room that the staff was only permitted to clean on Fridays. Her parents hadn’t explicitly told her she wasn’t allowed in the study, but it was obvious she wasn’t allowed.
Langa tried to open the door, but it was locked. She grabbed a Bobby pin from the pocket of her tunic and dismantled it, whilst ensuring to elongate one end of the pin. She fiddled with the keyhole until the door opened. Langa had picked this trick up at the orphanage in her countless escapes from the cold and damp detention room. The study was a plain room with a table that had a phone on top of it and two chairs on opposite ends of the table. It was dark as the curtains were closed. The table had a few files on top of it, but there was nothing out of the ordinary.
She scanned the room until her eyes landed on the table drawers. She opened the top drawer and pulled out a thick file that was placed underneath a myriad of papers. Langa blew the dust off the thick file and opened it, watching flecks of dust saturate the air. The file contained various images of children, including the information about their dates of birth and ages. There were nine children in total, all from different orphanages. Just then the phone on the table buzzed, Langa grabbed it then clicked on the notification that opened a pandora’s box. She saw a message from a Mr Moyo who was excited for Rudo and her husband Tino’s invite to dine on a new child. Langa gasped in horror when she realised that this Mr Moyo was one of many people invited to dine on a new child. She read further and uncovered that the couple had been adopting children in the past only to slaughter them like animals and dine on them. Langa realised that she was their next meal. The revelation was horrifying.
Langa made to grab the phone and the files in order to present them to the police. She heard footsteps trudging up the stairs and her parents’ voices. She quickly put everything back in its place and ran to her room before she was caught. In the morning, she planned to pass by the study, grab the evidence and head to the police but when she went back to the study, everything was gone. Had they cleared the study, fully aware that she had been snooping? Her heart sank and fear gripped her like a vice, but she was determined to go to the police.
“I think my parents are cannibals who adopt children to eat them,” Langa reiterated for the fifth time that afternoon at the police station. The chief of police in Burnside roared with laughter, even going as far as to invite his other colleagues to laugh with him. Langa sighed when she realised that they didn’t believe her. She understood why they didn’t believe her. She had no evidence except for her word. Her word alone wasn’t credible.
The police continued to laugh at her as she pushed her chair backwards and stood up. She grabbed her backpack and left the police station, then headed to a place she couldn’t call home anymore. Her heart was filled with fear. Langa laid awake in her bed, staring at the ceiling. She was well aware that she was in danger. She knew that she had to leave with her life intact.
Where would she run to? Where would she hide? She knew that Rudo and Tino would find her and make her disappear from the face of the planet just like the other nine kids who came before her. No one would look for her. After all, no one cared about orphans. They had resources befitting of crooked politicians that would ensure she was caught and killed. She knew that to be free, she had to face them. She had to bring their dark deeds into the light. To do that, she had to get evidence of their misdeeds and take it to a competent police officer who would imprison them.
Langa knew that if she didn’t act fast, she would end up dead. She immediately sat up straight, kicked off her duvet and rushed for her satchel. Langa yanked on a jacket. She was going to get the phone and the files and flee the mansion before they caught her. Langa was in Tino’s study in no less than five minutes, shoving every file she could find into her satchel. She searched all the drawers for Rudo’s phone which contained all messages the couple had with their fellow cannibals.
“Looking for this?” Rudo asked after switching on a light that illuminated the whole study.
Langa’s heart sank as Rudo marched up to her. She ordered a security guard to apprehend her. Langa felt a sharp pain on her head after the buff security guard delivered a devastating blow to it. Everything faded to black before she collapsed. When Langa came to, she realised she was bound to a chair, her wrists and ankles firmly secured by thick rope. Rudo and Tino were staring at her with hollow eyes.
“You two are cannibals. You’ve been eating them? You’re evil!” Langa screamed.
“Animals eat other animals all the time. How is what we do any different?” Tino asked.
“You two are sick! You’ll never get away with this… all those children—you killed them,” Langa struggled to say as she choked on her tears.
“We put unwanted kids out of their misery, and we enjoy youth-giving meals,” Tino smiled sinisterly.
Rudo set the files ablaze with her lighter. She threw the papers into the metal bin in front of her. “Now, our colleague will come by later today for dinner,” Rudo grinned gleefully. “Try not to look so mortified. Consider it as us taking you out of your miserable existence.”
“You’ll never win!” Langa announced. “Say Hi to the camera; my friend and I have your confession on live and the world is watching.”
“What?” Tino gulped.
“One of my jacket buttons has a camera on it,” Langa smirked triumphantly.
Relief flooded Langa when she heard sirens in the distance. She would make sure the Hove family paid for their crimes. Langa phased out the couple’s panicked noises as she mused about how she hadn’t expected to go sleuthing to live up to a pendant that implored her to be the light.
PUBLISH’D AFRIKA Magazine Facebook Short Story Competition is funded by the National Arts Council, Department of Sport, Arts and Culture and Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme 3
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