No one will point and say, “Oh here it is!”

But when it arrives, the three skinny-legged girls Phil abandoned will experience a revival. An erect tent will direct the lost to his house. A box will not be enough to contain the musty smell of thawed rotten flesh. The stench will fill the house as the chemicals used to mask it fail. Neighbours will caution others not to enter if they want to eat after this. There will be people wanting to know the cause.

“If you know, will that be enough for you to wake him up?” The new wife will snap.

Some will recall his mistakes. Others will call it a huge loss.

“The greatest tree has fallen!” They will lament as they enter his yard.

They will bow their heads in respect. Abobaba will wear amabhaji and Abomama will cover their heads with amaduku. Everyone will expect silence to cover the yard, but nothing will stop the girls from gyrating their hips in an act of vengeance. These aren’t your typical daughters who mourn through ukuzotha. They will mimic those rowdy people who commemorate their gangster friends with displays of heathen acts. On that day, Sodom and Gomorrah will feel honoured.

Saints cloaked in blue and white will carry his coffin around, dancing. But no one will move like the three skinny-legged girls. Theirs will be a dance filled with passion. It responds to the rhythm of the hate they carry for the dead man. Saints, on the other hand, will lament. They will sing that his passing resembles the ark, and their words will ask, “Noah why they were left out?” The tears of the ones Phil chose over the girls will be enough to drown the saints, but the girls will announce that his grave deserves to be danced upon. They will say, no honour should be rendered to a man who left them. They will taint the soles of their feet with the orange soil of the graveyard. They are not too sacred to be sullied by dirt. They believe in the miracle of an orange sack to scrub it out. When they get home, they will wash the dirt off and throw the water down the drain, as Phil did with them.

The day of vengeance will be witnessed by many, when both the forgotten and the loved will have a grave for a father. On that day, observers will learn from the daughters he never wanted. They will see the kind of battle that erupts when one heeds the sound of the trumpet. The girls will vow to permeate the pits of hell, to train the devil. They will be called bitter.

“His departure was something between him and their mother! It had nothing to do with them!” people will cry.

Observers will no longer ask where one has seen the daughters of the dead so happy. But they will reference his funeral as proof that death does not always canonise. They will point at those ashen kids paraded by the new wife.

“Ey bafana naye,” they will whisper at the sight of the photocopies left behind.

These kids always look so dehydrated. Their skin is cracked glass and Vaseline would get a bad rating if it were to be applied on them.

“Is this what he left us for?” They will scoff as if they themselves had signed up to compete for his love.

Yet none will question his worthiness. Really? Phil? The man whose shoes collected dust like ighanda-ghanda clearing debris at the dumping site. Is this the man they would be worthy of? Anyway, this woman will try to shove the children down their throats.

“This one looks like you and this one has your nose,” she will say to the girls.

She should not be so adamant to seek from them the recognition that her children are legitimate, now that  Phil will be gone. She should remember that when Phil was alive, it was her who had chased them away as if they were flies that gathered on his neck. The girls won’t say a thing. They will just wave at their “siblings.” They won’t claim them. They won’t touch them. Amafinyila adorn their nostrils. And to keep food intact in their stomachs, they will take one look, then look elsewhere.

They will jump up from their chairs like students who know the answer to a question, and every disapproving look will hear the tale of how the funeral looks cheap. Of course, the pinewood will give it away. They will tell the attendees that his relatives had to scrape their pockets for the last of their coins. Their money will buy artificial wreaths, but no amount of cheap artificial wreaths could mask the smell of his abandonment. Greater people have become extinct and now only the petulant and petty remain to prowl.

Yes, Phil is not dead yet. But, when the day comes, it will appear as if the girls were standing by the clock of his life, waiting for the fulfilment of Isaiah 60:22. They did not know the depth of the resentment that they carried. What pain is left would only resurface when the relatives, shooed away by the new wife, would speak of the flies that stand on his neck. They said that a lump was there, and the doctors would have to operate. There have been so many scans, and even they, with their proud qualifications, cannot see what is wrong with him. Did someone throw this on him? Did someone sneak through the night and consult Inyanga to cook something that would end him? Now, the open wound is a feasting ground.

“Phil, the man who left for a loaf of bread at a spaza is about to die,” said the relatives.

Phil, the man who walked out wearing flip flops, a vest and isikhindi like he always did on those hot lethargic days, is now heard crying, “Impilo is for those who are left, mine is a journey to the grave.”

The dry bones that were believed could awaken had more life than this man. Even Ezekiel, with his unwavering faith, would tell God that these aren’t bones worthy of an awakening.

Filled with memories of the day their mother searched for him, the girls are bound to fantasise about celebrating his death. The poor woman asked for leave and lost her monthly salary. She visited the sick, the dead, and the vagrant, as if Isaiah 6:8 was engraved in her heart. And when she couldn’t find him, she lit a candle every night, asking that the guiding spirits lead him home.

On that day, people will call what the girls are doing “ukuzibizela amabhadi”, as if being abandoned by their father wasn’t enough of a curse. They will warn them against disgracing his resting place.

“How can they do this to him?” Mourners will wail.

But people need to stop feeling pain for the dead. The dead feel no pain. The three skinny-legged girls’ biology teacher once compared a dead man to a stick. Sticks don’t feel pain, do they?

On that day, the three skinny-legged girls will soften their voices a little to let the preacher submit Phil to the Father, as if heaven were made for men like him. But they will be loud enough to let the intended parties hear. They will dare his spirit! He can’t awaken to stop them. It will disqualify them from being counted as mourners, because “people in pain throw themselves to the ground! They scream! They don’t dance like this!” The unresolved issues they have with him will be disregarded and the three skinny-legged girls whom Phil abandoned as teenagers will be scorned by the elders.

The church chac-chac will rattle as the drums echo with hopes of silencing the three skinny-legged girls – but they will not be silenced, because when Phil left, Mama cried herself to sleep, and when one neighbour knocked three years after he had disappeared, claiming to have laid eyes on him, Mama was in shock.

“Bamthwebulile,” she responded.

Life was imitating art when she made reference to Isibaya, thinking that her husband was now umkhovu. The news brought sleep to her restless heart. She wanted to know if there would be any Sangoma in their proximity to help cleanse this. The idea of him being this tokoloshe figure enticed by dark magic to forget his family and work for this new one made sense.

Phil, the man who left his wardrobe full of expensive labels, “couldn’t have been in his right mind.” He was the kind of man whose grave would have the loxion klevas working the graveyard shift. They would have held ipiki nefosholo to dig out the Uzzi, Adidas, and gold teeth he would have been buried in.

The neighbour saw this “ghost” on the train.

“We were looking for the church service coach and ran into him in that gambling one,” she said.

This didn’t make sense and Mama left home early with the neighbour to catch istimela. When it stopped, she pushed with those who pushed. Day one of the search was futile and even day two rendered nothing. But day three, Mama didn’t even have to roam around the coaches. She and the neighbour were waiting at the station when she laid eyes on him. There he was, holding a black plastic bag! He descended a flight of murky grey stairs. He was wearing a Dickies bucket hat, a striped shirt and khaki pants. There he was! Chewing gum as if the kids are alright! The sight of him alive and well shook the inner parts of Mama.

“Sanibonani!” He greeted them.

The words came out easily. The walk was well-directed. He was definitely not like the man in her favourite TV series. He was a man with a choice. He walked away from them and stood far away.

“Ungakhali makhi. You have to be strong!” said the neighbour.

Mama was supposed to know she was not alone.

Together, the women walked hand in hand towards the man chugging a can of energy drink.

“Phil! Where have you been?” She cried.

Phil pressed his phone.

“Philemon! Philemon!” The neighbour shouted.

Phil was still quiet. The neighbour lost it and started hitting him with her bag. Phil ducked and commuters were entertained. So entertained were the commuters that they either did not hear or did not care that the announcer just told them of a delay because “someone jumped on the rails and got killed by istimela.” When the train came, Phil waited for it to take off and then he jumped. One leg made it into the train, the other stuck out, treading on the pavement. Isparapara is something that young men do. No one could tell him that mdala for these things that he was doing. Not wanting to be stripped naked by words, those who were unimpressed, moved to their desired coaches.

And when Mama came back home, she told the girls about this. They all rushed to Isangoma with his things.

“He looked okay,” Mama said to Isangoma.

“It’s because Phil is okay. He is not under any spell. Leaving was his choice,”  Isangoma said after throwing his bones.

And now, Phil, the man who abandoned the three skinny-legged girls, is said to be violently knocking on death’s door. The girls can’t help but fantasise about the day when he takes his last breath so they can dance on his grave.

Some might say that it was a long time ago and that they should forgive by now. How dare they? Phil, the man who left his wife and three skinny-legged girls, will die and leave his new wife and skinny children. The girls will dance on his grave as they avenge those stick-legged teenagers who visited Phil in his home, pleading with him to help out because Mama was struggling to make ends meet.

“If you ever come back,” Phil threatened, “I will ask my wife to boil warm water for you!”

Phil’s legacy must be tainted, because the girls don’t believe disease to be a punishment for evil. After watching Mama waste away from cancer, they saw that bargaining with God and reminding him of her good deeds wasn’t enough to save her. And neither is death a punishment. After all, it is a path set for all living things.

Phil, the man who once walked two hours to his new home, now sits under the shade of the Marula tree and hopes to see the three skinny-legged girls. The last time his relatives were able to stay longer was when his wife went home to visit her mother. They told him that the oldest girl was a doctor, the middle one was a teacher, and the youngest was a pilot.

One of the relatives visits the three skinny-legged girls to relay Phil’s Message. Phil wished they could visit and maybe the Doctor child would be better than his current doctor. Maybe she would dig deeper and see something the other had missed. He also yearned for the Teacher to recommend techniques to help one of his children, and wondered if the Pilot would have him fly for the first time? After all, they are his kids and if it weren’t for his seed, they wouldn’t be here. The three skinny-legged girls just listened. And when the debris of the relatives’ message was carried off by the swirling fan, the youngest said,

“This man has been dead to us for so long!”

 “It will give us great joy to dance on his grave,” the teacher said.

“However, we won’t dance on his grave!” the oldest said, voicing their resolve.

They won’t dance on his grave not because they are too afraid to make their pain known, but Phil showed no remorse when Mama was struggling with death. He shows no remorse now that he is struggling with death. Is it in death that he will show remorse?

About the Author:

Zenande Black was raised in Winterveldt, better known as Sgandaf where girls used stones as characters and drew square shaped houses on the soil to tell stories. She eye-rolls happy endings because the stories she knows are filled with anguish. Of course, there is laughter here and there which can mostly be found in the film scripts she writes but life is unpredictable, maybe if you stick a little longer with her, she might tell you a love story. Please pray that it’s not a Shakespearan tragedy because the man ruined her.

*feature image by smallmccall from Pixabay