Dreams of the Son

By Tawanda Chingombe

The story focuses on the protagonist, Mwana Mutota, who is a descendant of an ancient bloodline of kings of the Great Stone Empire. The son is in constant conflict with his conscious and subconscious mind since, in his dreams, he finds solace and peace, and this is embodied in the f irst scene, The Castle in the Sky. This is unlike when he awakens and finds life futile and existential, as evidenced by the second scene, Return to the Earth Realm. Dreams therefore present the highest form of existence as one is in their truest form and bound by no rules, sin, or flesh and present the only peace in the protagonists life.

Life therefore revolves around the conflict of the internal (the soul that is only free in dreams) and the external (the body that is trapped on earth) that drives the protagonist to the brink of insanity as the plot unfolds. The Great Stone Empire presents an empire that, through colonialism and corruption, is economically and socially depleted to the point of widespread unemployment and poverty.

Mwana Mutotaor rather The Son, as he prefers to call himselfon the request of Chaminuka (the guardian spirit of Nubian empires), is crowned king under the wings of the premiere of the empire (the last defiant Nubian leader against the west). The underlying battle of the story is of the sons of light versus the sons of darkness, a story that began from the dawn of time and is still ongoing. This is embodied in Mwana Mutota (the son of light) and his battle with Adam (the son of darkness), the deadly assassin hell-bent on ending Mwanas life.

Gladys is Mwana Mutotas love,and yet they have not seen in each other in years. The platonic relationship presents the struggle of pure love in a corrupted world, and the desire to once more be together is Mwanas ultimate hope in life. Gladys is the descendant of the Mojaji queen who, in a past life, was married to the Mutota king; and they were separated through conspiracy and treachery. Gladys Mojaji and Mwana Mutota, therefore, represent mediums of the greatest spirit of the empire, which is Chaminuka, and form part of his trinity and their reuniting in the Earth realm represents a return to a lost virtue in the universe of the highest form, which is love.

The last scene is called Return to Eden, as it captures a pure and lost Nubian love as the bodies and souls of the Mutota and Mojaji king and queen once more reunite. A perfect harmony is restored in the universe, and the two souls reunite in the spirit world. They walk hand in hand in the full allure of a spiritual garden full of the beauty of nature, and the two embrace in the earth realm. And the story reaches an end (for now).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Jun 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543741155

Book preview

SCENE 1 PART 1

The Castle in the Sky

The faint sound of the mbira (music instrument) melody Dangurangu is heard and there is absolute darkness in the scene, it starts off low and slow with an ancient cry that only the Shona people would understand. A mellow white light slowly starts to show and the music starts to get louder and the melody picks pace and rhythm, the darkness is slowly eaten up by bright white burning stars and the ancient cries become louder and louder: the picture slowly zooms out and it captures space-a milky way of stars painting an intricate pattern on the 3-dimensional canvas of darkness.

The picture zooms out further and a bright moon is seen: bright and enchanting, it seems to sit powerfully on its own with the dark crater within it showing ever so clearly from space. The picture rotates 360° to show the universe and the planets and stars and sun burning in limitless abundance and a white shooting star burns through the darkness seeming to go to earth but fades off as it is entering its atmosphere with a thunderous sound to almost deafening silence: the earth is seen from space-a sphere with blueish radiance and the picture seems to zoom into it.

Closer and closer it gets, the other planets and universe seems to fade off from the scene and all that matters now is this world, this realm: the focus slowly zooms in until it is lost in clouds and the zoom stops and the scene moves through the thick white clouds showing many of different shapes and sizes and seems to eat through them. The wailing Dangurangu tune has reached its peak with the hypnotic rhythm and ancient Shona voice crying at the edge of insanity, on and on the mbira plays…the clouds seem endless and the journey to the destination of the scene seems to never come. Somewhere in this world he exists, he is there but is not there, unseen and unheard…mbira music reaches its fastest pace and the voice is gone…the mbira goes silent and the scene just becomes pure white: the light and white merge harmoniously and a figure is seen from behind on the very edge of a cloud:

He sits on the clouds, his long thin legs dangling and swinging like an impatient child. The pure white clouds seem to float on a deep blue sky of nothingness. There are no birds here, no cool breeze to gently lick one’s face and tingle the nerves, there is nothing. nothing? Nothing! Just him, some clouds glide through the air like small blankets of smoke creating wonderful shapes; that one looks like an elephant, oh and that one looks like a human figure- he wonders how it is that clouds always take the shape and form of familiar things; how perplexing! He looks down and sees beyond the greenish oceans or the deep blue seas, beyond the timeless gigantic trees on their never-ending feasts of the sun’s golden rays, those tiny beings…beings? Beings. These creatures en masse onto a lot of the picturesque carvings that mother nature has perfectly moulded.

These beings have engulfed their surroundings and have created their own world. Tall structures hang over the skies, smoke fills the fresh pure airs, trees are cut down for rubber or some other futile activity all in the name of the inventiveness of human nature. He sits on the cotton fluffy clouds looking at them, they are little ants all in a hub of activities clustered in iron jungles-victims of their wills. Sometimes he drifts down just to feel how it is to be human, in fact he has no choice as this is the only way he dreams -when his eyes eventually open. He is trapped in this dream called life, an alien seldom seen or heard. he tries to speak as them but all that comes out is a slow deep whimper.

Here he can do anything on blind impulse, his mind is connected to the universe in this realm and he is a free body of energy formed in the likeness of his physical self somewhere down there on the earth in dreamy solace. Dreams, dreams? Dreams! He dreams at night and during the day, it is all a dream, life is a dream and in his dreams, there is life. He, a dreamer, dreaming the dream he cannot live, and living the dream he cannot live-what is a dream and what is life if one is merely living in one and dreaming in the other? He is not himself; he in himself finds himself yet he himself cannot be him, he sees him in him but he himself cannot be him-it is only him that can find him and only he can ever become him.

The conscious and subconscious; one laughs at the other’s tears yet its sadness brings happiness to the other. They: Cain and Abel walk a brotherly antagonised path. He wonders where that ancient music has gone that was permeating from the other world, it is the only force that enters this realm and it had materialised into a wonderful rainbow a few leaps away from him. He feels nothing within him, he Thinks of absolutely nothing; he is absorbed in the moment-he feels like he is nothing, air, water, dust- the only reminder that he is something is the outward form of his being-his nose is partially visible between the angles of his eyes; it seems neither here nor there with each focus of his retina. His long protruding arms, he looks at them-he opens his palm to see his long thin fingers which almost glow as he is merely a body of energy in this part of the universe and he looks at them stand over the open sky. Loneliness, his only friend; they often speak when he visits the clouds and he wonders where he or she is.

This is the mustard seed of sanity in his life, away from it all. The world; it is nothing more than an obstacle of madness; a mountainous play of misery and futility-a mirage from thirsty souls drifting in a dessert-y walk of nothingness. Here is where it all begins and ends, he knows not where this is but it is all he has. He is free to move with blind impulse to the very bowls of his nature and being, away from desire, want and envy-this sky; this milky white kingdom rests on nothing more than a bluish ocean of nothingness. Sound is almost none existent for there are no earthly noises or physical need of existence, just an abundance of feeling and being-one is perfectly in sync with nature and all…is, was, will ever be.

His emotions flow like the Nile in the rainy reason, full of an abundance of life, like the highest point one reaches on a swing as they are pushed and hurled in the air; that slight pause before one has to go back to earth as a little child. Green tropical memories of childhood grow here surrounding the rich and ever flowing emotions, little fishes of love swim along only to be engulfed by other forms of life nourishing them as the fish are in abundance. They are almost golden and give a rich colour to the river, other fish feed off them, these however are of lust and envy with sharp dangerous piranha like teeth only meant to disrupt this peaceful place. Yes, fishes of pain came from deep within the bottom of this river too consuming these golden ones, the act is so fast it is almost at the blink of an eye. Yet more and more gold fish appear and besides the bed lay little yellow plants of hope. They are rather small in number and size yet significant enough to be seen, many other creatures lay deep within these waters yet the only other significant one was the hippopotamus of ambition which are legendary for their ferocious attacks on all others. They have not been seen in a long time however, and many claimed that they had been engulfed by some fungi called time that none could see, here or touch yet all would succumb to one day. Where had ambition gone? It just remained somewhat of a legendary myth somewhere deep within him he would one day search it out.

There is that rumbling sound again in the far distance, it was some giant clouds sumo wrestling to a thunderous halt as they cannot outmanoeuvre each other any further. These clouds are far off in the distance yet they seem to be at the exact place always. This part of his world is dark and gloomy and rarely did he go there because something told him he would not be able to return from it. The clouds never rain though, for all the lightning and thunder that they spark and rumble and he finds it strange. Sometimes he would fly just a bit nearer to this place just out of curiosity but all he saw was a deep dark blanket of gloomy darkness he could never fathom. There was an almost diabolical presence there and at the edge of these clouds was a grey sombre sky. Once he glanced down at the world but he saw nothing but massive mountains with fire and brimstone boiling at their very crests violently. There seemed nothing below them but a thick cloud of smoke. Yes, he rarely went here, but it astounded him how this world was perfectly spherical and mirror like to his world and formed a perfect line of separation and when he did enter this darker world he felt some heavy feeling in his heart and a strange weight on his shoulders and when he wakes up his face would be drenched in tears.

Loneliness is the only being he ever meets in his surreal kingdom, she was very shy and only whispered to him when he was in this solemn cocoon. It is as if he was awaiting some transformation, loneliness had whispered to him that he was not going to be always there, she was going to see him again in the future but a long time from some particular day…soon. When is soon he asks? But loneliness would suddenly go quiet, imagine, his only friend vanishing, loneliness told him that he was going to meet a new friend; destiny-she was more caring than her. she was going to soothe all his pain and worries when he entered his dream called life again. she was even going to take him away and make him more human and the apotheosis of serene clouds was going to become a dream as she and him are to embrace on a secret romantic path of life. Loneliness was just a speck of light, he always tried to see through it but could only, if he was lucky, see small transparent wings. Her voice was like a whisper only it was that of a little child but clear like she was in an empty hallway with water at the bottom of it. She became his friend when he was quite young and he played with his imaginary friends as his brothers had gone to that far off place called school which the lucky elder children went to with nice food packed in their little bags and ice creams when they were being collected.

Loneliness, she is his friend in this dream called life, she comforted him when he saw strange beings in the middle of the night as he lay in the court in his parent’s room as a child. He never forgot those things, they seemed only to come in the deepest dark of night as some small radiant glow only he could see. The glow would separate into two and sometimes 3 bodies of ghostly darkness that seemed to perfectly mix with the darkness and not stand out. They would take the form of some puff of smoke which would float in the room as if invisible yet he could see them, once one of them pointed at the other that he, the little child, could see them and they came floating right in front of him to see if it was true. He wanted to cry out to his mum but he was afraid the beings would get him so he kept quiet as they floated closer, and closer, pressure in his chest would build and he would want to explode into tears but fear gripped his little body until…until…his mum switched on the light going to the bathroom and he would burst into tears and want to sleep with his parents in their bed. Yes, loneliness began to appear to him whispering gently in his ear as he grew a bit older not to be afraid of the dark, and slowly but surely these beings disappeared and he never saw them again. Now as he was older, he only saw her in his realm, she had been swallowed by his more mature mind which could not grasp the same tenants of a rich imaginative mind he possessed as a child.

He thinks about what loneliness had told him, how can life become a dream and a dream life? This is a paradox his mind cannot fathom. He stands up and begins to walk on the snow like cloud with the mishmash feeling like teeth carving through a watermelon; a rainbow beams through it and he is allured by the array of colours. The clouds are full of precipitation and feel cool beneath his long bear feet; he enjoys the tingly sensation and puts his hand in the ambiance of the rainbow and it turns to colours he cannot even comprehend for they are not seen in the earth realm and to any human eye. There is an explosion of colour all around as he walks in the full radiance of the rainbow, he marvels at every speck of light he sees; there is an awesome magnificence of light as if his eyes are looking out of a disco ball and he begins to run embracing the different beams of light. The cloud slowly drifts away so he slows down to a halt when he reaches a speck of blue radiance, this, his favourite colour; he opens the palm of his hand and slowly closes it as if he is to touch it, slowly, slowly? slowly! Just as he is about to close his palm a blinding light suddenly appears. He looks ahead and sees a golden ball of light bursting from beyond the giant cumulonimbus clouds in a distance-he always tried to drift into these anvil clouds but they are too high and too far even for him in this somewhat limitless realm. When he drifts towards them, he becomes motionless until he manoeuvres his way back to an anti-gravitational hold he understands. Golden beams of light shoot across the bright blue skies like spears thrown by a thousand fierce Nubian warriors.

Humanity, he looks down and wonders what really being human is, he sees them as they talk; they merely draw breath which they knew not where it comes from. They laugh, jerking their bodies this way and that as if in this laugh was the very answer to life, such trivial actions. Sometimes when they speak, he looks at them, how lively they seem, breath just seems to ooze out of them and words seem an abundance of nothings merely drawn out of some mouthy-teethed hole sounding at just that very moment and gone forever. He watches them talk, their voices sometimes he hears not, life is about more than words, within him was another him which seems to be just there to watch and witness. This inner him is who he really is, this him sitting on his airy empire of vapoury glaciers resting on a deep blue sea of sky. He sits, he sits, he sits…Somewhere in the silhouette stage shrouded by his closed eyelids in another realm he sits. It is never dark here, never cold, there is no hunger, no wanting, no turmoil, no government, only him, governing his desires and will, free to be who he is and always will be.

He opens his palm and feels a kindly beauty flow all through him, it seems to generate itself all around him then a flower begins to form between his palm. It is at first a tiny green dot that seems to majestically spring into a small stem, then a red leaf forms at its very tip. The plant grows into a rose which, when the stem finishes growing, blossoms into a bright red flower, it opens up slowly yet, with closer inspection, something seems to be inside it. Inspecting it closely, he sees little eyes and he curiously opens the rose petals with his other hand and…a little butterfly comes out with the same bright red like the rose and then…2,3,4!suddenly butterflies begin to spring out of his palm and the rose disappears with one sitting playfully on his nose: the butterflies fill the air and begin to fly in a well-orchestrated pattern forming a bright red glow and…they flutter straight into the rainbow and seem to melt into the bright glowing colours-he loves how it is as if anything is possible here, anything of beauty or close to good or perfect, a nature which clearly will never manifest in the earth realm unless it is imperfect, unjust or vile. This realm, he never tries to understand but seeks only the peace it comes with. The son loves drifting along and the tingly feeling he gets with his feet off the clouds mostly but this needed him to think and concentrate always, there had to be a level of peace, freedom and calmness within him to create the perfect balance in his inner nature. He would run a bit like some human plane propelled by his emotions and navigated by his free will; if he got it just right, he would…yes…he might….there we go he was about to fly. He hurls himself into the air and there he flies free and complete.

Sometimes, he would look down at the edge of a cloud and he would be lucky enough to see the top of a mountain in a distance and he would try to jump down but he would just lose himself in the drifting motion and enter another dream. He wonders how this happens, his consciousness seems linked in some unfathomable chain that only it understands so most of the time he just remains in his comfy blissful cloud. These dreams, what are they? where are they from? How do I go to this place?

These are the questions he asks himself in active consciousness but he did not know the answers and where to begin. Sigmund Freud did much research on the matter and he tried to read some of his work but, perhaps there is more to the mystery called life than we know it be it human or spirit or soul; the conscious and sub conscious minds pose a question he ponders on many a time: which is real and which is not? Are they both real? Are they both not real? What is to be real? These are questions he asks himself as he lies in bed at night in human form trying to reflect on another nothing day he has spent.

Walking around, talking, searching, hoping..it is the same routine over and over again and yet to him it did not feel ‘real’. He merely travels to this place called Earth in this form and in this state of consciousness to learn and experience something involuntarily. He looks down from the clouds and sees this realm and ponders, is it that he has to go there to one day leave his footprint in that world like the supposed astronaut Mr Armstrong who decades after ‘walking on the moon’ had taken a philosophical giant step for mankind? What would this footprint therefore entail? Shall it be something great or something of a great failure? Something that would make this struggle in dreaming in these 2 realms all worth it? Pain and emptiness therefore would be some chisel those in heaven were using to chip out the unnecessary parts of him and mould him to the very person he was supposed to be. Destiny, loneliness said it shall meet him one day, the thought seemed to weigh so heavily on his shoulders he therefore went through these dreams afraid of committing himself to anything outside of an impulse as this might be the day he meets this mysterious being.

What about that dream he once had of strange beings holding him up while one seemed to teach him something from some strange giant book? Was it a language? Whatever it was he remembers learning it even though he did not remember anything else about the dream. If he had learnt something in the other part of the universe how come his life was the same and he thought and felt the same? It was dangerous for him to move in-between these 2 worlds he thinks; does insanity not manifest like this? The philosophical aspects of life and dreams and what is real and not real therefore took centrefold in his life, he was trapped in 2 dreams yet he could not tell which was the dream and which wasn’t. Before he slept he could not wait to go to his world, the one he knew and understood, this dream…this dream? This dream…

Humanity, he wonders about them; a dog howls at night under some mysterious animalistic passion, a cock crows early morning, a cow moos all day long-such actions are nature, an action that is in built yet genuine part of their true selves. Humanity; their nature is to smile when they have hate in their hearts, to cry when they have no emotions within them, to laugh at something cruel. Yes, their nature is to be in genuine-these ‘Adam and Eves’ have lost their Eden-innocence and genuineness and this is all that is left: fragments of something pure scattered all over the earth realm. They stumble from here to there under a compass of knowledge which does not even have a fixed north: sometimes it is religion, other times it is art, other times it is under some idolised Mwari like dictator, or superficial caricatures on television. Their true nature they know not, to explain it to them is to try to explain the motion and beauty of a bird in flight to a blind man. This illusion called life, it swallows him into their world: cigarette stained yellow smiles under an untamed Nubian sun;

The son runs and runs exploring his surreal surroundings but some parts just seem to fade while others only create smoky clouds that he walks right through and into other giant cotton clouds which enclose themselves like the very edges of a spherical snowy cave. Here, he cannot enter and he wonders why; he moves back and runs at full speed and jumps onto and off these edges and the momentum makes him drift like he is in an invisible ocean. His body, now fully adrift, pauses like a diver with his hands straight upright only he is falling upwards, he looks down and he sees…he sees ...an illuminated spherical ball of light eating up the sky in a distance. He tries, in swimming motion, to escape it but the light is faster than him and seems even to be drawing him towards it. His world appears to be frozen and he moves in slow motion and backwards…he floats backwards now and no matter how hard he tries to fight it he is being drawn to the light.

He hates this part as the sun means that the hustle and bustle of his dream-land has begun and he will soon be leaving his ethereal empire. The son runs across the clouds back into the rainbow and sits looking at it for the last moments. He wishes he can share such a picturesque scene with someone who too would feel the ticklish clouds with him and drift along the skies without a care in the universe. He knows however that this may never happen as only he can enter this world, only he has the key somewhere deep in his heart. He is not a part of the world, he isn’t, he can’t be, he won’t be, he shouldn’t be, he wouldn’t be, he will never be. He will never be? He will never be! He had cut himself out of it to dwell in the sanctity of this surreal bliss. This place far from it all is where he has found that part of himself that only he knows. People seem more like puppets controlled by strings of other people’s expectations, the fingers of many a family member had tried to pull his strings of life and he felt he was getting hurled this way and that way like some lifeless mindless doll without its own mouth to say No! Leave me be. So many emotions had built up within him like some hopeless prisoners with no escape, dwelling behind a caged face that is locked with a blank stare. He just wanted to explode from the pressures within him. He sat on this cloud, this drifting nothingness carrying not only him but his burdens. He cursed at the fact that such heavy thoughts were already creeping up on him, his consciousness was already active and he knows it is only a matter of time before he will be up. A soft blanket of darkness begins to form as the clouds slowly fade; the world is flickering into life.

The morning choir of birds permeates through his window, the cooing doves seem to provide the bass in the orchestra, while others seem to whistle four times; the first one is loud and seems to pull while the other two are fast and only seemed to lead to the last whistle that was longer and louder than the first-this was done three times in quick succession while other birds seem to just whistle forever as if they did not have any breathe to re-load in their small fragile lungs. There are footsteps and a growl which is the all too familiar sound of his dog warning the less aggressive bigger one not to touch any of the two female dogs which are on heat in the blistering winter. (he never understands why his father has four dogs anyway). The clouds have almost faded and he is drawn into the now spiralling clouds just behind him: they always seem to come from nowhere and as he enters their vortex everything becomes a calm blanket of grey-the blank darkness in his eyes is penetrated by the rays of the sun which seem to dance on his eye lids.

He is not going to fall for this trick again, he is not going to wake up! Crystals of light begin to form in the grey nothingness within him, they seem to grow and spread outwards engulfing the little darkness that is left. This calm light makes his eye lids lighter; the sun’s rays dance their way into a gap in-between his eye lids and one tiny sparkle of light enters them and he impulsively flickers and shuts them yet however, he feels his soft breathing; the sound awakens his ears fully and he hears the wicked world calling. Alas, he instinctively yawns as his lungs take in breath faster than the soft breaths of sleep. He turns to the other side were his curtain is and the patterns on it are clear: it is morning and cars are bellowing away on the road right next to his parent’s house.

SCENE 1 PART 2

Return to the Earth Realm

Mwana Mutota yawns, he becomes fully conscious and he cringes at the thought of facing a new day. His father is pacing about early in the morning preparing for work after his ceremonious stroll through his garden checking this and that with the occasional nicotine intake. His back stings with a sudden sharp pain and he curses at the spring less mattresses he lies on, he looks at the off-white ceiling and checks his tab for her message;

Gladness: hello, I’m going to work,

Hie I’m back from work"

He waits for his dad to leave and, after his usual shouting out of the ‘garden boys’ name and a few curses as to why he did not respond fast enough, the silence is a certain sign that he has left and he calls her on Facebook messenger. His groggy voice is a sure sign to her that he has just woken up and he says what he always says:

The son: Hie babe, how you

Gladys: I’m fine how are you.

He quickly realises the sternness in her voice and her intentional omission of babe and he knows he has done something wrong.

The son: what’s up?

Gladys: I’m fine, so did you talk to your parents?

The son: I messaged my mum but she did not reply me babe, I will talk to my dad

Gladys: if you say so

The son: I will babe…

Gladys: whatever (bluntly)

The son: babey don’t be like that

Gladys: Yeh Yeh whatever.

The son: I will come babey, soon…you will see (his voice getting groggier with each word)

Gladys: you always say that!

The son: yes, but…

Gladys: when will you come? It’s been over a year and you keep promising, I’m lonely. I need you here, other people are enjoying with their boyfriends and I’m just suffering here from loneliness.

The son: (silent) ...I know babe sorry…

Gladys: but you got the place for a masters, why can’t you talk to them about the money to come?

The son (silent)…

Gladys: Anyway, just try talking to your mum ok…?

The son: (in a low voice) ...ok I will

Gladys: (noticing his frustration and disappointment) ok we will see what to do don’t worry

The son: ok babe

They chat a bit about how she is in bed and tired from work and he tells her about his somewhat trivial plans to clean the house and go to town and leave his CVs around. He has just come back from the Tiger Empire with nothing to show but a degree tattooed to his back and some added weight and new dreams. The Great Stone Empire, yes, his motherland…it is better and worse than he had imagined. Better because unlike The Tiger Empire he has a sense of belonging, he has awoken from his zombie like state of existence and has people that genuinely are concerned about his well-being and show him love. It was worse in every other sense, he feels like he has gone 50years back in time; the empire is a 34-year-old man in a drunken stupor of rugged politics, reeking of corruption in every form with a head full of dreams of a better tomorrow through an unfulfilled indigenous policy that would create jobs alleviate poverty and rid the people of their dependence on the savage colonisers or so the campaign says.

The Great Stone Empire, the buildings in this politically drunk sovereign empire seem only to be awakening with a strong colonial hangover, everything is still under files, the digital age has somewhat skipped it as seen in offices and empire buildings. The thought of a fire was terrifying, yet remarkably interesting in its aftermath. The roads; when he dropped off the capital city international airport he thought it looked ok but the roads? the roads, the roads! His aunts new c250 Mercedes Benz seemed inconsequential in its air of sophisticated opulence as it was largely undermined by the pot hole infested road which seemed only to test its ingenuity to its limit. The Empire had just embarked on a new campaign to rebuild the roads and the estimated cost would be 25million Eagle dollars which seemed absurd only to him with its mention (perhaps indeed this was the cost although he did not know how such a calculation wad made or it was rather a mere case of 15 million for us pot-bellied wallet necked elites and 10million for the rest of the impoverished nations wanton needs)

What he hates though was not the ancient infrastructure or the sharp contrast in rich pot-bellied opulence against the ramshackle vendor infested streets with airtime selling hustlers on every corner, nor the poorly run administrative ideology which ran from the sports teams to empire buildings to the ruling political circus no. Not even the money mongering churches which seemed to sprout in every corner with the promise of redemption through giving away one’s last hard earned pennies and Ludacris miracle money schemes and evil miracles moved him, no, what really got to him was the deep-rooted sense of surrender and hopelessness in his people. The Great Stone Empire had become a vacuum with the once great and lavish lifestyles of the people being utterly depleted to an instinctive sense of shear survival; any job was ok for as long as one is working, any shoe was ok for as long as it covered one’s feet, there was no sense of revolution anymore like the 2002 that saw the formation of the MDE. Somehow the party and its leader had become not good enough and the people did not believe in strikes or demonstrations or even any outspoken disgust of what was happening.

He for one had been disgusted by the new mentality indoctrinated on his people by the empire officials which were ferocious in its pursuit of not only iron fisted dominance of the people but also, the lustful desire for self-enrichment which engulfed anything from projects to donations all for the progress of the people. As someone that had been away for 4 years he never did think of his own native empire but instead tried by all means, like everyone else out there, to never to return. He was back and felt like the poets of yesteryear he used to read about:

The Great Stone Empire, the once graceful princess of the Nubian Empires whose supple bosoms were full of milk and honey, her womb was the very womb of Mwari full of the finest diamonds, Gold, Platinum, tin, and other precious minerals, The Great Stone Empire she walked with her hips swinging with the rhythm of ancient drums and mbira in a melodious tune lost with the very annihilation of its ancestors. Her feet were finer than the silkiest threads of the finest cotton and silk, her eyes were the brightest horizons full of the promise of a brighter day tomorrow.

The Great Stone Empire, in her heart flowed ancient rivers and great waterfalls-Mosiyatunya the very waters thundered into mists that made men gaze at and fill their hearts with desire. The Great Stone Empire, her back stood firm and full, her buttocks made even the most racist white man glance in admiration. for on it stood the great mountains of the North West, and the very crevices of her kishkes. Murungu came somewhat undetected and after some surveying declared that diamonds were rampant (and after some obvious raiding of it under the radar of the ignorant empire).

The Great Stone Empire, how beautiful she is, Mwari’s very moulding of perfection could be seen in her very essence and physical beauty, her udders were not only succulent enough for the whole world to want to suckle on but the points stood firm and black; black like the rich coal mines in the North East which were yearned for the world over by western corporations in their never ending raids on the mother continent of the Nubian Empires.

The Great Stone Empire, how the very hairs in-between her crevices were the very essence of life; bushy like the very natural habitats that held the very wildlife admired the world over by tourists rich with lions, elephants, giraffes, name it and it would be found here. The Great Stone Empire, how many westerners came to seduce her with sweet songs of enrichment of her people? Development of the roads and infrastructures and employment of her people? The Red Dragon empire, the Bear Empire, Eagle Empire, The lion Empire, The lion Empire? The lion empire

The Son enters the sitting room as it is called in this side of the world and tries his best to stay sane enough to watch the empire television channel the Great Stone Empire Broadcasting Corporation; it is a show called star-bride about upcoming talent in the empire (or so they thought the capital was) He imagined what the purpose of this channel was in the first place, it seems more like a shambolic circus with performers trying to annoy the crowd with chaotic displays of disgraceful artistry and he at that moment felt the sudden urge to get a gun from some imaginary place and blow his brains out. Everything in the empire was a problem that had a problem that had problematic management because of outdated philosophies from colonial predecessors and to modernise the systems would be an even bigger problem. Money was scarce, confidence was low so investors although very willing had to compete with the problematic indigenisation programs which were a problem to draw, agree on and implement. The real problem therefore was the fact that empowerment of the ‘people’ was a problem because it rested on a foundation laid on smaller problems such as lack of financing, and other such problems. The problems therefore rested on smaller problems which rested on even smaller problems and this therefore was a problem in itself. The entirety of the problem was so problematic that government had to deal with the smaller ones first all the way to the larger problems and this clearly captured the very heart of the main problem indeed.

WhatsApp conversation-

Gladys: hey babe how are u just done with work on my way home

The son: I’m fine babe just watching…uhm tv

Gladys: ok talk to you later I’m driving home

The son: ok babe, how was work?

Gladys: it was boring as usual…love you, bye

The son: don’t text when you are driving babe, luv u too chat later

In walks his brother with his usual grin on his face-

Dambudzo: what’s up ekse

The son: (mumbling)…nothing

Dambudzo: I need money to go to town ekse

The son: .… I don’t have

Dambudzo: just make anything ekse

The son: I said I don’t have! (saying it louder than he thought it would be and obviously irritated)

Dambudzo: (slight pause) ...even just 5 rand ekse

The son: (ignores and walks out of the sitting room)

SCENE 2 PART 1

The Game of Thrones

The Lion Empire, the colonial enslavers of the great Stone Empire and many other ‘common empire’ states. the most recent relations he had heard about was the much cried about sanctions that had been imposed for the alleged rigging of elections to the state of shear poverty, lack of fuel, food, violence, and all other negative words thrown by western media. After the recent elections and devastating win by the ruling elite there seemed however a sudden turn around by the West, declaring that the elections were ‘free and fair’ and everything was now fine-business overlooks everything, the capitalist machine has to keep grinding; precious gold and diamonds were needed, platinum mines were opening, coal, tin, and other precious metals needed extraction. Who could forget the Red Dragon empire who were strengthening their ties as well as Bear Empire and gaining ground? Diplomatic ties had to be recovered and who could forget the Great Stone Empire elite rubbing salt in the Lion Empires wounds by suing them for the sanctions which they claimed were illegal and the western contingency not appearing for the case (quite embarrassing on their end!).

The Great Stone Empire had just been voted tourist destination of the world and foreigners were flooding in, yes, there was something special about this empire. For all its people had been through they were still living life normally, they were social chameleons; they changed to every political spectrum reflected by the unstable atmosphere culminating from the volatile politics. Yes, the air here was fresher, the people were friendlier than the uptight Tigre empire citizens who seemed more content walking in zombie like manner pressing their phones and tabs in complete ignorance of anyone zvirisei mdhara, ko parking how far hazvibvumidzwe ka izvi

This is a police man standing next to a small Honda fit with 2 beautiful heavily built ladies who were completely dumbfounded by the young police officer’s utterance. The smirk on his face was overwhelming and his fellow officer friend stood as if learning the tricks of the trade, lunch was surely on its way and judging from the ladies’ vehement irritation they were going to give him a small fine so as not to face the ‘heavy hand’ of the law. This thought flashed in his mind as one of the first things that made him feel at home as he walked in the small town Tshaka Zulu which was ever buzzing with women in all corners in numbers way higher than the slimmer darker men.

To describe his empire would be by no means colourful or picturesque. it seemed more like a portrait painted by an unimaginative artist with dull grey, white and brown strokes resting on a thin layer of pot-holed black. The buildings were no higher than 5 stories on average and seemed to wail for modernisation with a dash of paint. They were however silenced only by the hustle and bustle of Samurai Empire cars buzzing all over the police monitored roads and seemed only to momentarily go silent as they went through a port hole they could not manoeuvre past and the worker-cars seemed to be the Honda fit buzzing this way and that as a taxi or private car. Many banks sprouted under the corrupt wealth of some political guru but died almost instantly while news reports were rife with the most outstanding being ‘Mutasa fingers Grace’ alluding to the ousted secretary of the Upper house instigating the first lady in his political demise in the cheekiest style of journalism he had ever seen. There was nothing new other than that except for the opposition leader crying foul over some newly abducted poor chap from his party and a call for demonstrations to the deaf masses tamed by their own struggles while other stories were about poor harvests, some newly unearthed scandalous corrupt activities and some case of sexual brutality all of which were to sell their soon to be toilet paper newspapers. The city was however quite neatly laid out and very clean with some form of identity slowly creeping in as seen by the Joshua Nkomo statue, city of king’s labels on bins and the fresh breeze of African fashion blowing against the murky euro centric, black Eagle Empire and Zulu Empire sense of fashion which had engulfed the city. The fake gold chains, colourful hats, bright t-shirts and shorts or fake leather pants typically worn by the younger generation where now at logger heads with the cheater vests or Nubian attire with leather sandals and cow skin head gears.

There was no place like this in the whole world, it was its own universe with its own Supreme beings, faith, statutes and laws. There is so much red tape to everything, regulations and rules were the order of the day, yes, the elites had its fangs deep in the throat of this damsel and this was a little red riding hood story were the wolf violets this innocent girl after saving her from colonial beasts. Every law seemed to be another blood gulping act of savage greed, farmers had just revolted at the low market price of tobacco, pensions were being lowered to spine snapping levels and the wilderness was only grooming more and more predators. As someone from the much-revered diaspora, he felt like a blind calf that had just lost the rest of the pack stumbling its way through its path at the ominous howl of the wolfish police trying to scrutinise his driver’s licence or skills for a chunk of his wallet-flesh. There were also the feline girls purring their ways through guys with their eyes illuminated at his sight as if his blind experience at the city had been spotted deep at night; they smiled at him but he walked past unfazed but shockingly skipping a heartbeat at their luscious frames swinging on their outstanding hips. There were many dangers here, and lucky for him his unfading silence and his dream of meeting his one true love seemed to guide him to some dreamy romantic sunset riding end to this existential bubble. He was not going be some failed pull-outer trying to warrior though life with his unloving spouse for the sake of their bastard child, erring through some thorn infested path of life as many his age was experiencing. He wanted to do it the right way, suddenly the worldly weight of his unemployed stature rested heavily on his shoulders once more and he almost felt like suffocating. There was no future here, this Babylon like empire with geriatric old men masquerading as saviours of the people had killed the future of the next 2 to 3 generations and the only way forward was leaving (or so he thought)

SCENE 2 PART 2

The City

All he thought of were…his dreams…. dreams…dreams. To him, dreams were the very epitome of life, the height of the subconscious life screaming to be heard seen and felt. Dreams are the feathers that whisk away invisible dull airs of now to the very mountains of life’s one days, to the vertigo sunsets of hopeful tomorrows and happy rainbow yesterdays. Tear off this shell oh dream and set me free! take me away from this matrix, I am no trend following consumer like neo consuming advert television nothings of happiness, drifting off the simplicities of fleshy feelings. I draw not empty breaths of laughs at worldly riches in green eyed envy of adversaries, I only yearn the ghostly touch of a dreamy love, the dove flying from new baptisms of understandings of self-discovery and understanding, the shaking of Sir times hands as he creates tick-tock moments of life the never ending Adam and eve cycle of children and commandment to fill the earth with little Is.

The old women here all seem overweight he thinks, the hairstyles seemed like saloons had become some highly competitive market of creative insanity. Some hair styles looked like wet cat’s hair geld in the opposite direction of its natural form, some looked like white horse tails on a horsey dark face complimented in the highly fashionable cheater/leopard skins. Some hairstyles were the legendary black girl brainwashed by commercial hair which looked rather itchy and hot in this devilish hot weather. Another trend from the mother of civilisation (our Godly Eagle Empire) was the so-called leather tights which however looked like a cheap plastic. He wondered how sweaty in between their thighs was and the thought of the smell almost instantaneously resulted in his nostril closing shut like a hippo about to dive into water. No matter what, these women were cats, purring their ways through it all, cute, beautiful, some even exotic in the simplest ways possible. The artificial cosmetic tornado of the west with all its silicon, pink cheeks, fake eyelashes and intoxicating perfumes had not yet blown into this part of the world. The beauty was pure