My Brother But One by T.M. Clark

Author:T.M. Clark
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mira
Published: 2015-02-22T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

16

Five years of hell in the Zimbabwe prison, but finally Rodney was out.

Amnesty 2000. A new millennium. A new start.

An overflowing, overcrowded jail system emptied out. Cleaned out, to start again. He’d been set free with a pair of shoes on his feet, trousers and a shirt. He’d had nothing on him when he was arrested, so there was nothing to claim on his release. To the jailer, he was nobody.

But a short visit to Meneer Lawrence’s house, and he had money, more than he needed, to travel back to Angola. To go home and regroup.

Meneer Lawrence had found God while in prison, and he had no plans to rejoin any of his poaching partners. Rodney’s special services weren’t needed anymore. Meneer Lawrence said he was cured of the blood lust. His God had shown him a different path.

Rodney had passed his use-by date. Their business partnership was ended.

Rodney sat cross-legged on the cracked floor in the dilapidated hut, the rain pounding on the collapsed thatch roof and running down the wall in rivulets. He shivered as the wetness seeped through his meagre clothing and pressed into his skin and bones. The window, its glass broken years before, rattled in the wind. The gusts of wind shook what was left of the old ikhaya.

He looked out through where the door should have been, and could visualise his mother walking towards him with her stack of firewood on her head. He could hear her chanting, haunting him, as she walked alongside him, looking for this place, their last home together. He’d buried what remained of her when he visited his home so long ago, now he’d come home again, to heal.

Lightning flashed brightly outside. He heard the sizzle as the bolt struck something nearby. But he didn’t care. He was free. He had fresh air, he could feel the breeze and the rain, and he was alone at last.

Although the hut was ruined, he didn’t want to pitch the tent he carried. He wanted to feel the elements and know that he was still alive. Still able to feel. Because after the Zimbabwean jail, he’d wondered if he’d ever make it to the hut again.

The trial had been easy – he’d already known the penalty for poaching was death before he killed his first animal in Zimbabwe. But the money had been good, and the blood had been even better. However, no one had told him that while death was easy, life imprisonment was hell. Until he began his years in captivity, he hadn’t comprehended that life in prison would be so hard.

The closeness of the other inmates constantly around him.

The lack of food.

The bloodlust that at first he attempted to curb, but in the end had saved his life after he established his pecking order within the grey walls with the razor wire on the top, where the bell ruled your life and the guards took pleasure in ensuring your life was misery.

In his mind he could still see the walls of his shared cell.

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