David (narrating):
After Takunda left, the days at school stretched longer. He left a year after Neria left also. The quiet became a constant companion — not just around me, but inside me. I became "the quiet one," again. The one who never complained. The one who never caused trouble. The one no one quite knew what to do with.
After Takunda came Lucie, Ali and Abigail and yet they all left when they deemed me unsafe. I lived alone and quiet after that…too broken to try to mean something.
But you can only live like that for so long before something — or someone — breaks through.
That someone was Jonathan.
---
David (voice soft, like recalling a warm memory):
He came — a boy who showed up with books under his arm and this strange way of laughing with with everyone.
He was patient. He didn't ask questions too quickly. He didn't come with sermons or pity. He came with stories.
Stories that didn't begin with tragedy or end with survival.
Stories that held adventure.
Stories where boys like me weren't side characters — we were the heroes.
---
David (smiles faintly):
One day, he found me sitting alone near the back gate, sketching in the dust with a twig. I didn't even notice him at first.
"You draw?" he asked.
I didn't answer.
He didn't push.
Just sat beside me and started sketching his own line in the dust — a boy. With a stick for a sword and his head held high.
"His name's Zuba," he said. "He's afraid of nothing. Not even his past."
I blinked. For the first time in a long time, I listened. Not because I had to, but because I wanted to.
That was Jonathan's power. He listened to you even when you weren't speaking.
He made silence feel safe again.
---
David (pauses, reflecting):
He became the keeper's keeper — my keeper.
---
David (voice firm, proud):
When others saw a quiet, broken orphan, he saw a storyteller.
He made me believe that the Listener didn't have to be just a vault of other people's pain — he could be a mirror.
He could reflect, respond, even speak.
He taught me how to write. Not just for school. But to remember. To let things out that would've eaten me inside.
He taught me that grief and guilt can be teachers, not just jailers.
And he never told me to "move on."
He taught me to carry it right.
---
David (to Adrian):
You know the way I speak now? The way I carry stories like folded letters in my voice?
Jonathan gave me that. He helped me rewrite my silence.
---
David (smiling):
And when I finally left the high school for university— when I was old enough to sign out with a duffel bag and a heart full of nerves — it was Jonathan who drove me to the airport .
He said nothing for half the trip. Just music on the radio, humming low, and the sound of tires kissing the tarmac.
Then he said, "David… the world won't wait for you to feel ready. But I will."
That was it.
---
David (softly):
He became my anchor.
---
David (gently, to Adrian):
And when your mother died… when your father couldn't face you- I couldn't face you,, when the world cracked in two and left you standing in the dust — it was Jonathan who picked you up, too.
That's why we're sitting here. That's why I'm telling you all this. Because he believed in both of us long before we could even believe in ourselves. He died so we could be together
---
David (closing his eyes briefly):
And though I didn't know it then…
He was preparing me for the day I would stop just listening —
And start speaking.
---
David (narrating):
The years between high school and manhood blur like rain on a windshield. But a few moments remain sharp — etched into memory like scars that refused to fade.
One of those moments?
Form 5.
Joe.
---
David (soft smile):
You wouldn't believe it, Adrian, but Joe was the loudest boy in the whole school. Laughed like thunder. Argued like it was an art.
He was the opposite of me — brash, loved, impossible to ignore.
And yet… he saw me.
He found me when I was a ghost walking through corridors. After Takunda's betrayal. After Neria's silence. After Simba. After Rufaro.
He found me when I wasn't The Listener anymore. I was just David. Broken. Buried.
Joe pulled me back.
---
David (quietly):*l
He said, "You're not just here to hold pain, man. You're here to hold people."
That year, for the first time, I didn't just listen.
I talked.
I spoke in dorm rooms.
On balconies.
In debates.
In poems scratched into the backs of textbooks.
And the other boys… they listened.
---
David (smiles at Adrian):
That's when "Cursed by a Grave" happened. That moment of truth, of standing at the edge of memory and choosing to face it.
You were young then — but it was happening all around you.
And I knew that if I was to help you carry your silence, I had to finally carry mine with purpose.
---
David (gentle, with emotion rising):
All these stories — these boys, these ghosts, these confessions folded into bunk beds and bleeding into notebooks — they weren't just burdens.
They were the bricks that built me.
And now… they've built you too.
---
Adrian (softly):
"So what now?"
---
David (looks at him, proud):
Now, you take the silence and shape it.
Now, you tell your own story.
Because you are not cursed by a grave, Adrian.
You are the seed that grew from one.
---
David (final words, voice resolute):
The Listener spoke.
The silence broke.
And in its place,
A voice rose —
Not perfect.
Not unscarred.
But true.
---
THE END