The phone would not stop ringing. Smanga's name glowed on the screen like a curse, a vulture circling a body not yet cold. Ayanda's voice pressed at me from the side, sharp with worry.
"Yindaba ungamphenduli? Maybe he's trying to tell you something important."
But I could not bring myself to answer. His betrayal was still a fresh kill, the kind of wound that bled inside the soul. I needed time—time to let the blood dry, time to decide if I would roast the memory over fire or stew it until the bitterness softened. Not now. Not yet. His voice in my ear would only tear it open again.
And still, a darker thought would not leave me alone: what if he had a hand in the deaths of our brothers?
Amaqhawe had been a fire once. We were not just boys in the township—we were brothers. We hosted football matches on the dusty fields, PlayStation tournaments that lit up forgotten halls. We were building something, even if small, to remind the youth they were not abandoned. For a time, we were a force. A movement. And then, like flames doused in water, we scattered.
Now, suspicion poisoned even the memory.
My mother had raised me different. Her words came back to me like echoes of a prayer: "Ungabi nomona, mntanami. Don't be selfish, share with the other children." She taught me that giving was strength, that an open hand held more power than a clenched fist. But the world I grew into spat on those teachings.
In the township, kindness was mocked. Sharing was seen as weakness. To give was to be eaten alive. I learned it young: neighbors sharpened their teeth behind smiles, family disappeared when you needed them most. Strangers turned out to be safer than blood. The law of the streets was simple—dog eat dog, wolf devour wolf.
And yet… as I sat there ignoring Smanga's calls, I felt my mother's whisper stronger than the noise of the world. Ungakhohlwa, mntanami. Don't forget.
I realized how much I had conformed. How easily I had let society bend me into its shape. And the bitter truth hit me: as I try to help others unlearn the lies of the world, I must also relearn what she planted in me. Giving is sacred. Sharing is survival. Not survival of the body—but of the spirit.
It is not easy. It burns in the throat like bitter medicine.
"You are distant today," someone said. "How come?"
I forced a smile. "Not really. I'm just preoccupied. I've started teaching meditation online, and the response is crazy."
That was the truth—but not the whole of it. Inside me, storms raged.
At night, when I closed my eyes, I heard the voices of the ancestors. Sometimes soft like rain, sometimes sharp like knives.
"Ukupha kuyakha, ukuvuna kuyadiliza."
(Giving builds, hoarding destroys.)
They reminded me that society's teachings are weapons. The system whispers that giving is wrong, that every act must be capitalized, that love itself must be sold. They shape us into consumers, scavengers of each other's flesh. They separate us with invisible walls until we forget how to trust.
But I see the design now. This is how they keep us chained.
They tell us survival is standing on another man's back. They tell us wealth is hoarding while the village starves. And in believing them, we erase ubuntu. We erase the one truth that has always been ours—that we rise together, or we do not rise at all.
The ancestors' whispers grow louder with every sleepless night. I feel them pushing me, urging me to choose. To give, even when it hurts. To share, even when betrayal has poisoned my heart. Because kindness itself is rebellion.
And as the phone buzzed again with Smanga's name, I stared at it with a trembling hand.
I was not sure yet if I could forgive him. I was not sure yet if he was innocent, or if blood stained his hands.
But I knew this: if I stopped giving, if I stopped sharing, then I too would become like him—another piece of a broken system.
Ungakhohlwa, mntanami.
The ancestors whispered again.
And I understood.