Where is God?
Start writing here…The rain battered the thatched roof. Branches swayed briskly following the dictates of the ferocious wind. Locks of soot dangled on the thatched roof and rustled in union with the gust of wind sneaking through a triangle shaped opening on the mud wall. Water coursed down the mud wall and meandered on the floor like a stream.
A loud thunder roared and a bolt of lightning tore the sky, illuminating the little dark hut. A rusty yellow teapot sat on a corner on top of a pile of dirty plates and pots. Cockroaches scavenged the pots in a futile search for food.
A cold droplet fell from the roof and splashed on Sihle’s face. She winced. Sihle was lying on her tattered blanket, her eyes facing heaven. Mbuso pushed in and Sihle’s head banged on the mud wall. The mud wall trembled and sprinkled specks of dust into her eyes. She squinted and a puddle of tears flooded her eyes. Mbuso thrust his manhood in and out tightening his back with every movement. Sihle’s plump breasts rolled up and down in unison with Mbuso’s thrusting. Mbuso cupped Sihle’s plump breasts and his hard nails sunk into her soft skin. He breathed profusely above her naked ebony body.
Three year old Mpilo lay on a mat close to the door of the hut. Mpilo’s eyes were wide open gazing at his mother’s mat were puffing sounds were echoing. Darkness enveloped the hut and whenever a bolt of lightning tore the sky images of Mbuso heaving his body in and out of Sihle flashed in front of Mpilo’s innocent eyes.
It was not a new scene. Mpilo had seen it countless times. The different men that had visited his mother’s hut had all groaned and breathed like tired horses. Their grotesque shadows dancing on the mud wall to the rhythm of painful pleasure. Mpilo was a silent witness to the wonders of the adult world that he was not yet fully able to comprehend.
Sihle’s mind was locked in a dungeon of thoughts. She wondered if her mother was still alive. How she would feel if she was to know that she had degraded her life from that of a potential lawyer to become a vessel for satisfying men’s sexual desires. Different smells of sweat had dripped on her plump breasts and meandered to her navel. Filling it like tributaries depositing into a delta. A delta of desolated dreams and devastating despair.
Her life had much hope a few years back, she was looking forward to all the good things that she hoped education would bring her. Money, marriage and children. She didn’t have the first two but at least she had the latter. Mpilo her son, was her pride and shame. She loved her son but was disgraced that she could not provide for him a world where he could dream and look forward to something. Anything that is better than nothing. She wanted him to go to school but she had no means to give him a luxury that she also had been deprived of. One slave of poverty to another.
A sudden gasp by Mbuso hauled her burdened mind back to reality. Her eyes were opened once again to the veracity of her despondent existence. Her empty shack of shattered dreams. Her house of hunger were thoughts are a poison that feeds the mind a cancerous venom. Where is God?
Mbuso puffed, his buttocks tightened, and his manhood burst and spit into the condom wrapped around his penis.
“Oh Jesus!” he gasped.
The explosion sent a chill of relief down his spine. The floor thudded as he flung himself on the tattered blanket.
“Will you be around tomorrow?” a wheezing Mbuso asked.
“Yah” Sihle responded softly
“I will bring your money tomorrow then” Mbuso said tossing the used condom on the corner where the dirty pots and plates were piled.
The cast-off condom plopped on an open pot. A scourge of mosquitoes swelled and hovered around the empty pot. An intrusion of cockroaches scurried away and sought refuge under Mpilo’s urine drenched blankets. Sihle raised her head and her wet eyes faced Mbuso. A bolt of lightning tore the sky and a flash of light exposed Mbuso’s impassive face. A scar was drawn across his face like a lightning bolt. The scar roved from just below his left eye, ending on his upper lip. His face was dark and littered with small holes. His hair was black with patches of grease and grime.
Sihle’s lips shuddered. She hated him at that moment more than yesterday when he had said the same thing. She wanted to slap him. To bang his head on the floor until his brain was smeared all over the place. But her son Mpilo lay at the door. She didn’t want to awaken him with her fury. A mother’s first thoughts are those of protecting her child, even from herself if need be.
Sihle rested her head on the tattered blanket. She gazed at the thatched roof. With her eyes facing heaven she clasped the tattered blanket and a sob streaked, leaving a watery track on her face. The salty tears streamed into her quivering lips. Her body trembled and snort dripped into her open mouth. She clinched the tattered blanket tighter and let out a silent moan.
The rain had subsided and Mbuso’s snore roared in the hut. Sending vibrations into Sihle’s ears that lugged back visions of the mine grinder. The mine grinder pounded ore and produced the gold. Gold the wealth of sweat. That feeds the uneducated and puts food on the plate of a pauper’s spore. The tiny yellow hope that God has hidden in the pockets of the ground. So that the unfortunate can search and survive in a senseless selfish world.
It was three years now. Three years since education had slipped from Sihle’s fingers and vanished down the drain to the sewers of lost dreams. Three years since hell had become her home. Three years since Mpilo had breathed his first breathe and opened his eyes to the abyss. Three years of wandering through the gold panning pits and witnessing the agony of men sweating in the gold pits, seeking that tiny yellow hope. Three years of waiting… Where is God?
