David (narrating years later to Adrian):
The day my mother died, the sky didn't cry. It stayed blue. Silent. Mocking.I remember thinking the world should've stopped, even for just one second — like in those books where time freezes when something important happens. But the sun kept shining. The cars kept moving. And I… I just stood there, clutching a chipped suitcase and a stuffed lion with one eye.
---
The orphanage wasn't as grey as I thought it would be.
It was worse.
Grey would've been neutral — this place felt tired. The kind of tired that seeps into walls, into bedframes, into the cold porridge they called breakfast.
St. Mathias Children's Home had once been a church. You could still see the wooden beams arching like praying arms in the ceiling, though now they were cracked and sagging like the faith of the people who built them.
I was nine. Old enough to notice when people looked at you like you were baggage. Too young to carry the weight they asked you to.
At the gate, a short woman with a clipboard met me. Her name was Auntie C, that's what everyone called her. Her voice was tired, like the rest of her.
"You're late," she muttered without looking up. "You'll have to share a bed until we make room."
She didn't ask my name. Didn't say sorry. Just turned and walked.
I followed.
The dormitory smelled like old wood and damp socks. Boys looked up from books, dice games, whispers. Most didn't care. A few stared. One threw a balled-up paper that missed.
I didn't flinch.
That's when I first saw him.
TAKUNDA
He sat on a rusted jungle gym outside the window with his knees pulled up and a slingshot dangling between two fingers. His shorts were too big, and his shirt looked like it had once belonged to three other boys before him.
He didn't smile. Didn't wave.
Just said, "New boy?"
I nodded.He jumped down, walked over like he owned the gravel, and offered a hand. His knuckles were scraped, his fingers ink-stained.
"I'm Takunda. You?"
"David."
He tilted his head. "You're not shy."
"Same to you."
He laughed. Not cruelly — more like surprise. Like someone who'd just found out a stone could speak.
"You'll do," he said, like I was something you bought at a street market.
---
That night, I slept on the top bunk of a bed that groaned every time I turned. My suitcase sat unopened beside me. I didn't want to touch it. I already knew the things inside smelled like a life that didn't exist anymore.
The boy beneath me whispered too loud.
"He's the one from the fire."
"I heard he didn't even cry."
"They say he talks to himself."
I closed my eyes. The ceiling fan hummed above like a tired god watching boys sleep.
Takunda's voice sliced through the dark.
"Don't mind them," he said, just loud enough for me. "They talked about me too when I got here. Called me a stray. I bit one. He didn't talk again."
I didn't laugh out loud, but I smiled. The first real one in days.
That night, I didn't dream. I listened.
————
David (reflective, speaking softly):
You don't really know what silence is until you've lived in a place where even the walls are too tired to talk.
That was home for me. Orphanage. A place full of faces, but none you could call family. It wasn't that we were unloved. No. It was just... no one ever really saw us. We were like shadows, sliding in and out of each other's lives without ever really touching.
---
David (pauses for a moment, eyes distant):
You learn to keep quiet when your voice doesn't mean anything.
We were too young to understand the kind of pain that came with being orphaned. But you knew something was wrong when the matron, Miss Makore, could hold your gaze for a second too long — her eyes were the kind that could cut right through you. And the way she called our names? As if we were just things. Not people. You'd hear your name, and for a moment, you'd wonder if you even had a name at all. Just a number. A shadow on a wall. A forgotten word.
-———