The Golden Rays of a Summer Sun

By Briella Khobotlo

A young, ambitious lawyer on a verge of a promotion and with a bright future of him has the night of his life only to wake up to find the world on top of him, his future in doom and his entire career in jeopardy. With time running out, will he be able to save his career and more importantly, his freedom? Follow Temba Ngcuka as he goes on a journey of his life, seeking hope in the worst of places, because every rising sun that shines on him could be the last he sees

• Language: English
• Publisher: Briella Khobotlo
• Release date: Nov 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9780620963244

Briella Khobotlo

Author, novelist, poetess

Book preview

The

Golden Rays

Of A

Summer Sun

BRIELLA KHOBOTLO

The Golden Rays of a Summer Sun

© 2021 Briella Khobotlo

First edition

First published in 2021

Typography and layout by Briella Khobotlo

Cover design & Photography by Thembelihle Gratitude Mabuza

ISBN: 978-0-620-96323-7

E-book ISBN: 978-0-620-9634-4

No copy of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by an electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying and recording, or by any other information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher or license permitting restricted copying. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

© All rights reserved

For all of you who stood by me, supported me and stayed with me during the darkest days of my life. I wouldn’t have completed this book without you.

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Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter One

I don’t know how I got here; I don’t know where I am to begin with. Some days I believe it is because of grace reeled by my dying faith but some days I believe it is a curse. I felt cursed today.

Life happened so quickly for me that I lost myself at some dodgy turn. Beasts of the jungle nearly devoured me whole. They became aware of my weaknesses and saw an opportunity to hunt me. I found myself running into prickly thorns and entangling bushes. With no direction and no one to hold on to I felt death coming and my glimmer of hope was lost.

But here I was, staring at the empty walls, looking but finding no warmth in them. For two years these walls protected me, clothed me and became my fortress; but for the last few days they were cold and unwelcoming. They closed in on me and shut me in. I was suffocated by gloom. I cried until the echoes of my laments were no more. Somehow I managed to push through cracks and let myself free. Once I was out of bondage I told myself I was never going back to the walls that deprived me of my freedom and almost killed me.

Looking back I didn’t feel like I won. Instead, I felt like my body was moving freely in the colorful streets; swaying to good music and smelling the scents of freedom but my soul was stuck in these walls, clamped onto the sunken place with nowhere to escape from. My victory didn’t feel like a victory at all. It made me think of life before coming up here to Despatch.

My family wasn’t destitute although we struggled at times to make ends meet. Born in the hinterlands full of lush green valleys our summers had an apt description of paradise. My father would go into rhapsody over the splendor of a conical ridge at the end of our village. The interlocking valleys molded a meandering stream downhill. Immoderate fresh water flowed across our village all year round.

Ntakwendela village detracted the haunting view of beauty on the eastern part of Mthatha River. For a modernistic community it devoutly followed preservation of nature. A momentous and often fastidious practice for them I must say. On the west laid the pride of Mthatha. Green rain-fed crops of rich African soil springing out gratefully. Fattened cattle and livestock in kraals engulfed by the green pastures around them on the far end of the grazing land.

Our annual torrential downpour hindered us from enjoying the clement summer sun sufficiently…a causative factor in the evergreen forests browed on the hills of mountain ranges at the end of the village and of the herbaceous borders in the fields.

I was a child like any other – screaming up and down the hills, running helter skelter in the golden autumn. Dead brown tree leaves would pervasively fill the entire land making us feel regal for a season long. Peter Panning the cold dark mountain shadows on winter. We would end up far north chasing the setting solar, and arriving home after dark bore us bitter fruits at all turns.

Punished with an unusual rigor it felt good to break the rules every now and then. My family was unnecessarily strict at times. I remember one time I finished my homework and house chores on time. The summer sun was adequately warm outside and I had nothing else to do. My mother decided to lock me in and the hurt I felt that day…was the beginning of many that followed.

We used to play in the outbound of the dark conifers plantations plucking up our courage to walk through it every day. It’s something of a misnomer to call my childhood a happy one. Adventurous as it may have been we had both good and bad days. Like when we messed our neighbors gardens and got away with it. Or when our parents locked us inside our rooms because it was cold or raining outside. We never liked that. It was a feeling worse than death - being deprived of your own freedom.

We grew up but our personalities remained the same. The rich kids developed pride and the poor kids lost theirs. They hid in the crowds behind others and always lonesome. Despite my heartrending efforts to stand out I was grossly lonesome too. The fistful wealth didn’t cut it in the big league. I created a false modesty of it though. Days I wish to forget. When you get into high school and you’re in your teenage years it’s only then you realize enough is not enough. You get to see how much life has changed.

What you wear determines who you are. How people perceive you. Tight and skimpy clothing expounded women’s pulchritude. More leg and butt exposure meant more attraction. Heads would turn and whistles would blow as they passed by. Seems women have been seeking a wrong kind of attention since the beginning of time. As for us boys we had to look cool all the time. If you had latest shoes you were considered cool or the expensive pair that one celebrity had… you would have all kinds of cool friends.

And girlfriends…

For a reason I still don’t know girls really liked a guy who dressed expensively. It wasn’t about the grades or how many sciences and sports clubs you are part of. They didn’t care about all that. Surely they didn’t talk about any of the school stuff in their dates. I don’t know because I never got the chance to be a part of the cult. I wanted to but my parents would guilt trip me every time I asked them for a new pair of runners. They’d raise issues about rather buying new school pants or buying stationery for the next school term. Or something else in the house that we were short of. They never politely declined. It was always followed by a thousand reasons why so I can feel bad enough not to ask again.

I didn’t have many friends either. My childhood friends and I grew apart. Some went to different schools; did different stuff. We had no time for our friendship. Some moved to other places. My neighbor friend’s parents separated and he had to live with his grandparents down south in Port St Alfred.

Life happened. And there is no way anybody would’ve stopped it from happening.

I had only two friends at school. Nhlamulo lived towards the eastern borders of kwaNomzamo, a small community adjacent to ours known for its yellow chrysanthemums, while Vuyolwethu and I shared Ntakwendela. We were more of study buddies than friends. We would do assignments and study together before leaving for home. We hardly visited one another unless it was for homework. If we had little time to spare we would discuss football or girls.

Girls…I have never been comfortable discussing that topic.

I wasn’t timid but I wasn’t outspoken either – I was an ambivert. It depended on which gender I was interacting with. My friends were smooth talkers. They had their way with the girls. As for me I could hardly look at one for barely three seconds. My head would always be hanging down or looking the other way when I pass a girl like a swan with a pride of fools.

In my ninth grade my Geography teachers had one time given us a task to work on in pairs and that day he opted for me to work with Clara, a girl a few blocks from my house; precocious, loud and agonizingly domineering.

Annoying.

I had no choice but to work with her on that one. I would go to her house every afternoon to prepare the presentation. My first of many visits there haunted me for days after whenever I thought of it. Knocking on the aluminum kitchen door someone would yell from inside at me to come in. Clara’s parents had a beautiful home. White porcelain tiles on the floor so clean my image reflected on it. White glossed walls with built-in cupboards on display. Fresh garden tulips made main center of attraction on top of the stove hob in the middle of an enormous kitchen.

On my first time there my glaring led me into an imaginary manmade paradise. I landed my muddy disturbingly smelly shoes in and an attention seeking cough stopped me in my eye candy tour as I looked onto the far end of the room and noticed it’s an open plan house.

So modern.

Following the direction of the cough with squinting fearful eyes my gaze met the Ngezis’ who glared at me with near disgust. Walking towards the lounge I couldn’t help myself but to grin at the brown granite covered walls and the matching yet impeccable furniture.

I greeted with my face looking at the grey and tan cornices on the ceiling. With reluctance they greeted back. Mr. Ngezi’s voice was heavy and stern. He did not lift his face to greet back. What was written on the newspaper seemed more important than a greeting from an untidy fourteen year old school boy with creased pants and shirt. Looking back from the door I walked in to where I was standing, I could understand why. Every footstep I took left a grizzly small lump of mud from my shoes. One of the reasons I hated torrential rains of Mthatha.

Mrs. Ngezi glanced at me and went back to painting her long recognizably artificial claws. The room reeked of nail polish. A small spark could have ignited the room and sent the house ablaze. Towards the end of the room next to the main sliding door that was firmly closed sat Clara with a pile of books in front of her. Looking at her then at myself I noticed how neat she was. She looked as if she hadn’t gone to school sat down or played at all. She waved at me and pointed a seat next to her. I scrambled to the couch with my head hanging, stumbling into the round oak table before them.

That’s the day I realized that she was not just a loud mouth but an intellect as well. I left the house with so much on my mind. The mess I left behind constantly playing at the back of my mind. I couldn’t help but wonder what the Ngezis thought of me. And what my mother was going to think of me when I arrive home after the sun had set…

It came as expected. She was her usual self. High temperatures, spitting fire, earth quaking and everyone’s eardrums bursting. My sisters peeked from their bedroom and silently made funny reactions. My focus was shattered and my attention divided. I couldn’t hear what mama bear was raging with fury for. Her husband was busy with his own business as always; fiddling with the remote for the millionth time. His vision was deteriorating and his literacy was almost none.

Had I been home on time I would have saved him from his common misery, but he was not complaining nonetheless. My mother pardoned me with a stern warning before instructing me to change into home gear and wash the dishes after supper.

The following day I had informed my Geography partner all about it and without considering all the ramifications we agreed she’d come to my house after school instead. Arriving at home I changed into my usual white and cerise striped shirt and grey shorts. The clock had just hit four. I had no football practice and I needed comfortable clothes as possible to relax on my day off.

A loud knock on the door had me leap into the air. Steady on my feet I charged to the door and my mind got refreshed in a swift. As planned Clara had come to my house. Staring at the sink full of dirty plates and the bread crumbs on the floor I realized how little I had done to prepare for her arrival. I opened the door with hesitation and she strode in. Like me she also wore grey muslin shorts but with a black camisole.

For the first time I noticed how grown up she was. Thick peachy