Fewer than Many

By Sambulo Kunene

The memories of others of how life used to be. All these life stories memorialized in these short stories which can take our breath away, are evidence of our luck to have met life on it's own terms. It is as if we are caught unawares. Who is there? Don't forget to wash your hands. Don't forget to wash your face. Always smile and be kind. Respect your elders. Life sucks sometimes, brace it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sambulo Kunene
• Release date: Jul 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005753856

Book preview

Table of Contents

Chapter Separator

M

om it’s me....

The printers called

Ashes to ashes

The journal that could....

Bye love

Lights out!

!Our traditions shall carry us through !

Who do you like?

The police report that a man was found...

Second Chances......Really?

My past is my.....

I propose....

Character is waiting

re: Ally Conde

Missing a valuable object

The spring dance

Fewer than Many

Sambulo Kunene (nenosasi)

Mom it's me....

Chapter Separator

I

thought that I was adopted when I was younger than I am now. She was unkind to me, my mom was. I think it had to do with my being a girl when in fact she wanted a son. The one and only son that she was willing to bear to this earth.

Having lived in a very strict culture with women’s roles clearly defined, my mom took her role seriously. She had been from a well to do family. Unfortunately, her dad accidentally shot a neighborhood boy who was a lunatic in a hunting accident. This boy had taken a liking to my grandfather. That was way before I was born. Anyway, my grandfather had a large truck in which he rode with his sons when he felt like resting. Taking a break from life to them meant hunting, mountain climbing, taking risks with very adventurous games which almost always were life-threatening.

One midday they all packed their coolers with snacks hoping to go hunting for deer and horns for the walls in the home that was full of trophies that showcased all the hunting days that they had had.

Not realizing that their hobby had become a well-known secret and that the local boy who was always alone, somewhat aloof, had taken an interest in their movements and on that fateful day, would decide to follow them. My unlucky grandfather was the one who had the unfortunate shot. It instantaneously killed him. There were no two ways about it. They could not hide the body. They were good people and everyone might have seen the accident. He could not be prosecuted because it really, for real, was an accidental shooting.

My grandfather was wrought with guilt. He decided to send my mom to the dead boy’s family as a bride to pay for his debt. If only he knew what he had decided!

I was born with the hope that I would be the only son who will be the heir to a very questionable family with questionable genes, genes of lunacy.

When I turned out to be a girl my mom faked her own version of mental illness! I want to be away from that man! Stop me from having children with that man! I am here to pay my family’s debt not to roll out children for that man.

It was a difficult birth! my mom one day hysterically told everyone who would listen. My poor dad looked down and in embarrassment raised his fist and said; You are here, we did not ask for you. It was your family that sent you to pay respect to us for the boy that your father killed. You failed to give me a son. Now shut up. he said, aware that he was the one who needed my mom more than she needed him.

My mother never again said a word to him or anyone about how she felt about ‘that man.’

Instead, she transferred her hate to me, her only witness of the short sold life that she was destined to live. Her family had moved on. In their mind, her marriage was like a community service which she had no reason not to enjoy. They totally forgot about her and her needs or her hopes. They stopped calling her or visiting her and she became bitter.

I was her only solid existence and I reminded her of how her life had been stolen from her. Not only was she unkind to me, she beat me as if to beat the poverty that she had married into, out of me. I cried. I complained. I wailed. I sent letters to her parents asking them to pick me up. All my letters returned to me unopened. Years later I learnt from a passerby that they had moved to Europe!

My mom became more and more unbearable. I started to learn to cope. Some of my classmates also had similar problems. We traded secrets on how to deal with difficult parents. I knew I could not leave her. She was more in pain than I was because her husband had taken to ignoring her. He was not even cheating or having a hobby. He just ignored her. He talked to me. He fed me. He cleaned my wounds and he just ignored her. That took a toll on my mom because she started drinking and when she drank, she danced and sang and that seemed to make her feel better. Until her depression set in, she would remember that I was the reason that kept her in the marriage and she would throw a shoe at me, a shovel, a book, anything that was within her reach. I was black and blue most of my teenage life.

School was my only escape. Even cooking at home was a bad experience. Some meals reminded my mom of her childhood and she would cry and make all of us feel bad. I started to see her point of view. She did not shoot anyone. Her dad was the one with money and in exchange for the good upbringing, he opted to make my mom serve time for a crime that she did not commit. No women or men wanted to be near her. They thought of her as a reject someone to be ashamed of. Especially when she failed to give my dad an heir, a name! It was not her fault, but once the machinery of hate started churning it’s wheels, nothing could stop it, only luck or death. I hoped that something would resurrect my parents and that one of them would come up with something that would change the cause that was our life. It just was hope without any basis. I talked to my dad briefly about my mom. You don’t know who the Mc Clintocks are to my family. We did not know that they knew that we existed. We all used to stand up on that hill just to take a peek at them sitting on their lawn. Your mom is more to me than you realize. my dad quietly said to me one day. I then understood what our destiny was. That my mom was not throwing a tantrum. She was the unlucky one and I had to pick up the pieces of my life and move on or stay and hope to be my dad. I could hope that someone would one day take me away from my station in life.

The beatings became lesser and lesser. I could have a year of pure thought without fear of pain. My dad was in a car accident and was lucky enough to not kill anyone. He was badly injured and spent time in the local hospital. My mom went berserk. "He is leaving