Dear readers

As stated on my profile, My name is Vhuhwavho Maumela. I am 18 years old and I love to write and read stories. Thank you for reading through my stories and supporting my blog. One day when im older I would like to write a novel( maybe even two). I am just starting to show my stories to people outside my family or friends. I would really love your views and opinions on my writing. please do feel welcome to comment or contact me directly at vhuhwavhomaumela@gmail.com. I am open to ideas and advice to. thank you.

yours sincerely
Missvee, Vhuhwavho Maumela

cruelity of the universe

I couldn’t believe my eyes. The smell had been lingering for a while now. I am quite sure passers thought it was a cat.  Cats die frequently in Hilbrow, Johannesburg. I am sure it was not just here. It was all over South Africa. Where I come from Limpopo, was a naturally beautiful province. We had cats there normally wild cats. They died all the time. They were hit by cars or killed by other cats. It was normal, cruel, but normal. Many say it’s the universe’s way of balancing life in the animal kingdom. I simply say its cruelty of the universe. It was also very normal to have such smells in Hillbrow, after all, this suburb is known for high crime, prostitution and drug abuse, but above it all was pollution.. I don’t think I had breathed a breath of fresh air since I got here. The air was dense, heavy with the life around this place. Limpopo’s air was clear and fresh, but a man must go out into the world and find his purpose. With my highest academic achievement being a mere high school certificate I had set out to Johannesburg to find a job. This city is known as the city of gold, city of dreams; the USA has New York City. South Africa has Johannesburg; the biggest economic city in the country. It sounds all glamorous when you don’t live in it, but this place, I have learnt, is the wide road to hell that is mentioned in the bible.

I stood there in disbelief. It was not a cat. It wasn’t even a dog. It was a baby; a dead baby. The lingering smell was the smell of his tiny body rotting in the flat trash storage bins.  He looked…I don’t know. I simply cannot find a word to describe that sight without being disrespectful of the dead. It is custom in the South African black community to respect the spirit of the dead no matter how young. I looked at him. He did not look like he was resting. The looked tired of screaming. He looked like he was calling out and no-one seemed to hear. Well, not until now. His eyes where filled with blood and his gut cut wide open. Who in his right mind would do this to a child? He looked no older than a year old to me. But I wouldn’t know: I had never really seen a kid grow in front of my very eyes.  What do I do with a dead baby?  If he were alive, I could take him in; try to give him the love he needs because I felt like he had died too young. I felt he had never really experienced the love a father can truly give to a son.

And then I looked around me. I was in Johannesburg. What would happen to me if I reported this to police? The police would find its mother and she would be questioned.  If she knew I had reported this, she would probably try to kill me. I know I sound paranoid, but this is clearly a woman that had killed before. Maybe I am being too quick to judge. Maybe the child was abducted from his mother and she didn’t know where he was.  I felt a chill down my spine. I was never a man of fear, but today, right now was different. I felt scared. The abductors could be watching me right now. They could be aiming a gun at me. I could turn around and find a man with a knife. I could be dead in the next minute; all because I tried to call the cops on a dead baby. I turned around, hesitated a bit, but moving on. As I moved away from the bin I felt slight relief. I was escaping the danger. Every step I took felt safer. My father had always told me to always do the right, humane thing, but my father was not here now and the child was dead already, I convinced myself. What good could I be to him now? This was Johannesburg and it was no place for a man like me. Someday someone would find him and maybe they would do the right thing for me.  I couldn’t help the child. I simply couldn’t.

It still haunts me today. Twenty years later. I still wonder to myself. Did anyone ever find the child? What if he had truly been abducted? Has the mother found peace? I really wonder if I could have helped her find her child. But what if it was her that had killed him? Was she ever prosecuted? Does the child’s DNA still linger in that place? Did another man find the child? Did he call the police or did he submit to fear the same way I did? I will never know neither will I forgive myself.

my father's fate

Daniel couldn’t believe this. The man he had grown up to respect as his father had just been arrested and sentenced to death by hanging. His own father was the serial killer that Britannia had suffered from for the past three years.  Eight women had been killed and two were left to die in the woods and found by police after a whole week of searching. They had described the suspect to police. Daniel remembered the day he saw that photo. Even when he saw that the man bore much resemblance to his father, he did not want to believe his father was responsible for this. How could he be? Rosemary had been attacked and killed by the serial killer. It couldn’t be him. Why would he rape and murder his son’s own fiancée? But police evidence had proved it was him. He had raped and murdered all eight victims including his beloved Rosemary, the women he had sworn to marry.

He took one look at his father. This was him, the man who had taken the life of his beautiful wife to be.  He felt partially guilty because although this man had killed seven others, he felt as though his heart would excuse all of it if he hadn’t touched Rose. How could he touch his son’s fiancée? She was forbidden fruit, especially for him. At once Daniel gathered the courage to speak.  “Why dad? Why Rosie?  Of all the women in Britannia, why did you have to touch her? My one and only true love, why did you have to take her away from me? Father, I loved her. Of all the women in the world father it is her that I loved, tell me why you had to take her away from me” Richard looked at him. There he was, Daniel, the little boy he had loved from birth. He had watched him grow and cared for him more than he had cared for his other children. He was proud of him. Dan was an excellent lawyer; he owned 5 businesses in town. How could he tell him he did all this out of pure insanity?  How did he tell him he had the urge to kill and make people suffer after he had witnessed his own wife murdered three years ago? How could he tell him he was angry at the world for not attempting to find the men who had entered his house and slaughtered his wife with an axe?

 

And then he spoke “I am sorry Danny; I didn’t know it was her. I wouldn’t have touched her” and then his eyes glittered, tears streamed down his face. “Danny, I’m sorry” he said this and he looked down. That had been the events of their last meeting. Tomorrow he would see him again in the prison hanging room. His father would be killed tomorrow. He would have to suffer the consequences of his wrong doing. He would be murdered like he murdered Rosie. Murdered the same way mother had been murdered three years ago. He could appeal and represent his dad in court. They could appeal for a lighter sentence, but he was not going to do that. Not to the man who had killed the love of his life. Not to him, he would have to die. 

 

He looked at him. He was sure he had been the last person his father had seen. His other siblings did not show up. They were angry at what he had done to people. For him, it was different. He had a grudge to hold. He wanted to see it; the death of a man who had ruined his life. He felt happy but sad; the kind of sadness that completed him. And when his father’s neck broke, he felt his heart ache and then he realised what he had done. He had let his father die. He felt no better than his father, he felt as though he had killed a man; as if he had pulled the rope that had killed his father. His father had never tried to appeal solely. He had placed the ball in Danny’s court and Daniel felt as though he had failed to play. He remembered the promise he gave to Rosemary’s corpse. “I will make sure the man who did this pays with his life” he had promised, but then he wouldn’t have dreamt it to be his own father. He left feeling like a true lover and big hero to his late fiancée yet feeling like an even bigger traitor to his father. As he drove home he wondered to himself, what will separate a man and his father if it isn’t true love?    

the last of my marriage

Melanie looked at him. She searched deep in his eyes for answers that would never come. She didn’t understand how things had turned so bitter; how her life had changed in just a blink. Inside she felt as though her heart was crying out for help. She felt as though her heart screamed in vain; that no one could hear her scream. His big dark eyes starred at her. It had been a while since they starred at her. In fact it had been a while since they looked at her at all. Sometimes she thought they didn’t notice her at all. Today they starred at her the same way they had starred at her five years ago on her wedding day. Today was however a very different occasion. Today they had nothing to celebrate. It was regret and not happiness that she felt now. It was heartbreak that lingered in her mind. She felt as though she was looking at a different man; as If he was not the same man she had locked eyes with five years ago. And then it all came back to her. She remembered everything like it had happened yesterday.

 

She remembered their wedding day. She had been the happiest woman on the planet and he the happiest man. Her father had walked her down the isle; he had been so happy for her. He knew he was sending her off to a good man. She knew he believed that when he died. He had been a victim of leukaemia and had surrendered to it three years ago. Then, she and Rick had been married for two years. He had been the most supportive husband. Melanie loved him then, she loved him now, but things were different now. Things had changed now. It was a different kind of love tat she felt now; a more matured love. Almost as if this love had reached its ultimate maturity. It was the only thing that explained why she still loved this man. Nothing else could explain it.

 

She remembered their honeymoon. It had been a year later. They hadn’t the money to go on a honeymoon when they got married. She remembered how she dressed in her wedding dress and he in his wedding suit. She remembered how they had repeated their vows in their bedroom the morning before they left to Mauritius. They had saved for this trip for two years before the wedding and a year after that and finally they were going on the honeymoon of their dreams. She had loved him then; and she still loved him now; with a different kind of love. She had been happy on that honeymoon. Her eyes had glittered with happiness; and they glittered now, only this time with tears and as she looked across, she saw that his eyes too glittered, not in the same way they did four years ago, they glittered with painful tears.

 

And then she remembered their married life. It had been glamorous. They had danced in the living room of their apartment which was not of any form of luxury. They never had much; never had enough, but they had each other. They had sang and danced in that apartment like it would be the last time they danced together, neither of them being much of a dancer, but dancing as if they were famous dancers  Martin and Donnelly Adams. Rick was a better singer than she, but she always dared to challenge him to a singing competition. They had laughed together and they had been happy; very happy. That was until two years ago.

 

Tears streamed heavily on her cheeks when she thought about it. They were great until she lost their firstborn child.  She was three months pregnant when she had that miscarriage. She had cried every night since. That is when things changed for them. Rick had always wanted kids and when doctors confirmed their worst fears, it had broken him in ways that made her feel guilty. It was her after all who couldn’t carry full term. It was her problem. They drifted away in ways that she had failed to fix. From that moment on, Rick had never been the same. He had given into alcohol and had beaten her in his insanity. He had called her names and mocked her for being unable to give him children.  The pain she felt now; it was all because of this. All those words he had said to her, they had scarred her too deep. It felt as though they had taken away her womanhood. She too was to blame. In her darkest hour she had sort comfort in the wrong company. She had kissed another man.  She didn’t love him and rather felt nothing for him, but she had committed that one mistake; that three- seconds kiss that haunted her. He too had brought in another woman into the picture. She felt hurt and betrayed, but had stayed with him; all because she loved him.

 

All this could have been pardoned six months ago when Rick had apologised to her. She had loved him then; she loved him now. They had tried to fix their relationship, but there was too much pain; too many tears. There was not much of a marriage left there. She couldn’t love him the same way. He had tried very hard to fix it all, she had too, but her heart had given up. She had given up on their love; their friendship. It was all over for her and then she looked at him again; this time crying more than ever. Reaching across the table she grabbed the pen and his head shook in disbelief and the she signed them and handed them to him. She stood up to go and looked at him as he cried in a way she had never known. There he was, her now ex-husband. He sobbed heavily and her heart broke, but it was too broken to be fixed. Their marriage was over and she walked away feeling happy but broken. Love wouldn’t be enough to fix them.  She closed that door for the last time. It had been home for five years. Now it was just an apartment with bitter-sweet memories. Rick stayed inside and looked around with the divorce papers in his hands. He did not sign them. He felt as though they still had a chance, but to Melanie, it was all over, all gone, it was the end.