David (narrating):
You learn quickly in orphanages:
Who to trust.
Who to fear.
And who never to speak around.
At St. Mathias, that last category had a name — The Master.
---
Brother Josiah was not a large man, but the silence that followed him was heavy. You'd know he was coming by how suddenly conversations died mid-word, how cards vanished from hands, and how backs straightened like puppets pulled upright by invisible strings.
He wore black — not robes, just dark shirts, always buttoned to the throat. His belt buckle had the same shine as his glasses, and his shoes clicked too slowly on the tile. Like a clock that ticked once every fear.
He wasn't a priest. He wasn't a teacher. He was… management. The one they called when other staff couldn't control us.
He never shouted. He just looked. And somehow, that was worse.
---
One afternoon, a boy named Panashe broke a window while chasing a football. It wasn't even his kick. But he was the one Master found first.
Panashe swore he didn't do it. Swore on his mother's grave — which, in a place like ours, actually meant something.
Master didn't raise his voice.
He just said, "Lying is a habit of orphans. Do you want to be another one no one believes?"
Then he made Panashe kneel in the corridor — for three hours and that was after a severe session of flogging.
No supper.
No water.
No justice.
The rest of us just watched.
That's what you learn, too — how to pretend you don't see.
---
Takunda wasn't good at pretending.
"The man's a tyrant," he said that night, pacing the dorm like a general plotting a coup. "He acts like we owe him gratitude just because we get three beans and a blanket."
"You'll get caught," I warned.
He pointed at his cheek where a bruise was still fading. "Already did."
I didn't ask what happened. He didn't offer.
---
The "Master's Joke" wasn't a joke at all. It was Takunda's plan.
He whispered it to me behind the laundry line, next to the half-rotten compost pit.
"We'll rig the prayer bell," he said. "Tie it to the latrine door. So every time he goes to his royal throne— DING-DING-DING."
I stared at him.
"You want to prank Brother Josiah?"
He grinned. "I want to remind the Master that even kings slip."
---
It worked.
At exactly 9:04 PM, during evening devotions, the old bell above the dining hall rang out — twice, then three times, wildly and off-rhythm like a drunk trying to pray.
Then came Josiah's voice from somewhere outside:
"Who tied this nonsense?!"
The whole dorm exploded in laughter. Even the staff couldn't suppress it.
He never found out who did it. Or maybe he did, but couldn't prove it. That was Takunda's gift: causing storms without getting wet.
For the next week, he walked around like a folk hero.
And for a while, we weren't scared.
---
David (present-day voice):
That's what Takunda was for me. Not just a brother. Not just a shield. But proof that joy — even in tiny sparks — could exist inside a system built to break you.
---
But sparks don't last.
The week after the joke, Josiah brought new rules. More chores. Earlier wake-ups. Random locker searches.
And then, the punishments got worse.
Not violent — he was too clever for that. But colder.
No blankets on rainy nights. No seconds at dinner. No books on weekends.
"Discipline builds character," he said once in assembly.
But we all knew what it really built: silence.
---
Years later, people would ask me why I always seemed so composed. So calm. So measured.
They thought it was wisdom.
But it wasn't.
It was what you learn when raised under a man whose gaze taught you that existing was something you had to earn.
---
But even then, we had each other.
Takunda was the wild in me I never showed.
And I was the quiet in him he didn't trust.
Together, we made a whole person.
And together, we'd get out.