Hello: Hello series, #1

By Abbas QriquaS

Hello is a thriller based on a true story that happened in Thembisa. After reading this first volume, observant readers will immediately make the connection between this story and the decuples hoax story the so-called Thembisa 10 in 2021, because the common denominator in both tragicoms is one and the same woman who nearly fooled the nation to believe she had birthed 10 babies in one morning then the next day cried foul claiming that in the cover an unknown hand of darkness had virtually disappeared her babies. In the virtual world, this was virtually true but in our real world it turned out to be a bad drama played out by an unrehearsed actor. Modi played the same card to the unsuspecting father of the triplets when one Friday morning in September 2018 snatched TAM from Steve Biko Academic hospital in an effort to block the father from joint custody. The character portrayed by Modi is presented as conniving, scheming, deadly but gripping in its intensity. A tragedy worthy of fiction, crafted from documented facts and reconstructed from memory. In Hello Stranger, the author presents a backstory, the heart of the tale unravelling its intricacies bringing to light five years of high search and rescue. Camouflaging the macabre details with a forest of nifty interesting titbits, the author has succeeded in circumventing the horrifying to broach the philosophical.  At its core, this is a story of loss, tenacity, and hope. A story of compassion and forgiveness connecting with the readers at a deeper emotional level. Topics such as child trafficking and the impact of estrangement on parents adds depth and relevance to the story making it more relatable in a contemporary culture of child-trafficking and infanticide.Hello is a thriller based on a true story that happened in Thembisa. After reading this first volume, observant readers will immediately make the connection between this story and the decuples hoax story the so-called Thembisa 10 in 2021, because the common denominator in both tragicoms is one and the same woman who nearly fooled the nation to believe she had birthed 10 babies in one morning then the next day cried foul claiming that in the cover an unknown hand of darkness had virtually disappeared her babies. In the virtual world, this was virtually true but in our real world it turned out to be a bad drama played out by an unrehearsed actor. Modi played the same card to the unsuspecting father of the triplets when one Friday morning in September 2018 snatched TAM from Steve Biko Academic hospital in an effort to block the father from joint custody. The character portrayed by Modi is presented as conniving, scheming, deadly but gripping in its intensity. A tragedy worthy of fiction, crafted from documented facts and reconstructed from memory. In Hello Stranger, the author presents a backstory, the heart of the tale unravelling its intricacies bringing to light five years of high search and rescue. Camouflaging the macabre details with a forest of nifty interesting titbits, the author has succeeded in circumventing the horrifying to broach the philosophical.  At its core, this is a story of loss, tenacity, and hope. A story of compassion and forgiveness connecting with the readers at a deeper emotional level. Topics such as child trafficking and the impact of estrangement on parents adds depth and relevance to the story making it more relatable in a contemporary culture of child-trafficking and infanticide.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abba QriquaS
• Release date: Jan 31, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224622849

Abbas QriquaS

Abba Qriquas has the following collection to his name: Fiction Hello series Travel series The world temporarily closed Current affairs Betrayed, broken & corrupted Twilight at dawn Free humanity free the earth 1632 centennial series Biography Ek is 'n Qriqua YA Inspiration Soaring eagle Letters for my sons The kingdom series Book 1 Book 2 Book 3 Book 4

Book preview

Flirting is in the eye

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Living by yourself has its moments of self-pity and paranoia. I remember laughing at myself with relief that the age boredom goes from generation to generation. Also, the same sardonic wit is used to escape from it. How things never change.

Into my carefully ordered world stepped Modi and her twin boys and proceeded to break every rule in my book. It took very little time for them to be in and out of my kitchen, in and out of my bedroom as they pleased owning not only a part of me but all of it. There was no Sunday or Friday everyday was the same. I started resenting every minute of it feeling like I was trapped in my own home. Beneath Modi’s polished demeanour lurked something, something darker.

From her point of view, it appeared that I possessed precisely what she’d always wished for herself: good-looks and material wherewithal necessary for settling down. Modi did things intentionally than most tenants in the property and not shy to spell them out to anyone wishing to know. Judging by her ups and downs in the open yard strutting her stuff, it seemed to me Modi was telling anyone who cared to watch that a new Sheriff was in town  to convey this message was not subtle. Her moves were inelegant.

I couldn’t help but notice there was something different about her that morning. Then I noticed the flash of bright-coloured floral dress unmistakably showing off her derriere. All of her. The vulgarity of it somewhat offended my sensibilities. But I couldn’t do anything about it this is who she is.

Her conversations with me were without preambles,  acting as though we were reviving an off-and-on relationship of years.

There were two kinds of women living on my property, the plain and coloured. Those with clear edges to them and those with implied mystery. This is the first thing a man senses in a woman, and first thing that attracts or repels him. Some of the women fascinated me others frightened me sending chills down the spine. Pure terror.

The plain ones were useful. If I wanted to gain a reputation and respectability, I would do well to befriend the plain type. The colourful were charming. They painted their faces in order to try to look young. As long as a woman can looked ten years younger than her own daughter, she was happy. I remember what someone once said to me at a dinner table about beauty. ‘Beauty is a secret of life.’

Modi belonged to the latter group. In a yard crowded with women, no man can be unaware of the gaze of desire settling upon him, even if he cannot detect its source. Even though I thought of myself as anything but handsome and attractive some women saw me differently. Created a new me in their own image.

I have lost the grasp of the phenomenon of love on a sensual plane, with it, sexual fantasies receded somewhat. The quality of emotional experience, the ecstasy averred might be there perhaps in significantly less amounts. Only conducting a love affair through all its stages, from infatuation to consummation, wholly within my head. That said, I have never understood the guy code that enabled men to ‘pick up’ women and ‘go off’ with them.

At middle age, I had remained as keenly receptive to feminine beauty as ever. And I met a few women in my earlier days who matched my exacting standards. But that is all in the past. Today, women’s self-assurance made me feel gauche, or their nervousness compounded my own.

My physique may still hold appeal but was not about to fulfil anyone’s sex cravings. And then in the midst of my self-congratulatory introspection life happened. Time speeded up. In other words, one of the women in the yard had seen me attractive and nick-named me ‘Cutie Pie.’ That became my name after her arrival.

It had been a long time since I had desired, or even allowed myself to believe in, the possibility of closeness with anyone.

But if I wanted, then why could I not feel it exciting the little creature within me, rapid and rhythmic into the heart. I looked at myself thinking, why me? I don’t exude currents anymore and whatever currents she was feeling must have been just released into the environment aimed at no one in particular. She was discharging desultory currents not me.

‘Do you have milk? She came inquiring at midday. ‘We have absolutely nothing in the fridge except a fruit. I am a terrible housewife.’ It was as though she was emoting shame. She sat in my kitchen table, leaning casually against the back of her chair as if she had been doing this for years. Modi was theatrical in all her expressions. Her claim to an empty fridge and a wifely failure was not self-deprecating but congratulatory. I knew this because I checked her face, she was broadly smiling,

I handed my visitor a litre of long-life no-name Spar brand and she placed both hands around it, in that grateful and covetous way people sometimes have when given soothing. She had requested the item and was given it but was not showing signs of going to her room, happy to chat to me as long as she could. In her moves her intentions were clear by now.

She’d allowed herself to hope she would find it necessary to kiss me when I saw more of her often. I never knew if he’d flash her smiles in a knowing way that blossomed through me like morphine or walk by like I was part of the monotonous brush. The terms of our tenant landlord relationship made it easy for me to deny we’d had any interaction, which meant our connection survived mostly inside her head, metastasizing in the dark.

‘Do I really have to spell it out in words that this man is a sex god of my fantasies.’ I heard her telling another tenant in their usually loud conversations by the washing line. The look on her face emphasised her intent. She had a combination of facial symmetry and a profound lack of interest in what other people thought of her. This naturalness was in fact, a construct to hide something more deadly. That woman was into me, warts, and all. She made little effort to hide it. In fact, she was eager to tell anyone willing to listen that I was hers. Taken.

When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving oneself and one end up deceiving others too. To my mind, had the invitation come from someone different, had it had a simpler and blunter meaning, I might have been ready to welcome it. But it came from a woman I could hardly describe as attractive. I was less than impressed and became very self-conscious thereafter.

Unobtrusively I watched her from my room. How different she was now from the person she was few months back. Frightened ghost-like woman seeking refuge from a pack of hungry hyenas baying for her blood. Today, she walks around as if she owned the place and everything in the property.

My kitchen the one place where I spend most of my contemplative moments was no longer mine but her playground. It had become a place for exchanges where felicitous coincidences were devised, with time I resented it but too coy to tell.

Modi reckoned life was too short to be plotting meaningless gestures waiting for moments that may never come. Instead of whispers and gestures she went for the real thing, the thing she wanted the most. To be laid.

‘The way you play with Kara, and Rato I can see you are a good father, ‘cos you like kids.’

‘I love that about you.’ She said.

Emphasis on you rather than love. With that she kissed me on the corner of my lips rather than the centre of my mouth. A gesture ostensibly meant to declare her love for me. The kiss was not one of passion but for a show. There was no upwelling of feelings, no vulnerability of desires. Dead act to me.

The kiss happened and went unnoticed by me.  I dismissed her plea without even as much as giving it a second thought. It appeared that this ‘act’ kick-started the first phase of her courting with me. She was in love, and I got tagged along just as a friend would be tagged on Facebook. With that she put out a story willy-nilly, ‘Mastandi and I are a couple.’ And that’s that. I was dragged into cuckoldry sexual banter I didn’t need or want in my life. WTF, I was a bachelor and content with my status.  

Since then, she had variously described herself as happy and in love with the right man. As days went by she was free to express her private thoughts. She knew names of each tenant living on the property and she boastful that she was on first name basis with me her landlord. What an achievement, she must have thought.

CASE STUDY 1: In laboratory studies, scientist have learned that when it comes to love, a very tiny portion of the brain is actually involved. For example, friendship lights up receptors all over the cerebral cortex, but this isn’t true with love, which activates parts of the brain more commonly associated with emotional responses like fear and anger.

The brain of a person in love will show activity in the amygdala, which is associated with gut feelings, and in the nucleus accumbens, an area associated with rewarding stimuli that tends to be active in drug abusers. In short, the brain of a person in love does not look like that of a person who’s been snorting coke. I think mine is the latter.

Love the most enigmatic motion of all is born into every human being. Love calls back the halves of our original nature together. It tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human condition. Some say love is a temporary insanity easily curable by marriage. While other believe men marry because they’re tired, women because they are curious both lead to disappointments.

Some say marriage is an overrated thing that brings more pain than pleasure. In love, do opposite attract, or are people with the most in common most likely to stay together? A question easily answered by some but difficult for others.

Back in my day, I would meet a woman I was attracted to. I would ingratiate myself, would invite her to a social event, then ask her out on her own, then again, and after a goodnight kiss of variable heat we would somehow, become official as a couple. Only when I was semi-public, would I discover what her sexual policy might be. And sometimes this meant her body would be as tightly guarded as fisheries exclusion zone.

Modi was not like the women of my days. She was liberal. As long as there was clothing between flesh and flesh, she could press her breast against my chest without making it a big deal. On other times she would kiss me until the colour rose. She would be perfectly aware of the shift going on in my trouser without a care in the