LOVE BINDS. PART TEN. III: REVELATIONS, REVENGE AND REDEMPTION.

Shock brings attention to the details. Mwila-An was alive in front of me. I heard the crisp texture of her voice, I smelled the soft fragrance that followed her. My Bison. It's possible that she was a mirage; a concoction of my desperate mind. Everything was dead around me and this was me dealing with it. Dr. Kaputula said something similar when I was committed at the institution; my mind had the tendency to create things. I was creating Mwila-An. My reality was a nightmare so I decided to indulge my hallucination.

She bit the corner of her lip, that usually meant she was nervous.

"Butah can I come in?"

I removed the brass bar that kept me safe from the world and the world safe from me. I was going to self destruct no matter what. I opened the door wide and let the world in, my world. My world came in form of a girl who became my woman. The slight curve of her waist was distinct even in baggy clothes. Armed with knowledge I knew it was incestuous to even think of wanting her but I did. I wanted her. I wanted to grab her, hold her and tell her all the pain I had been through with my touch. For once in my life I disobeyed my impulse, I closed the doors and followed her into my house. It suddenly felt small. Mwila-An was a presence, she filled up my life easily. She slipped off her shoes and lowered herself down to the carpet, right at the spot where I sat before she arrived. Maybe she really was my half sister.

I didnt need to ask her anything. The silence was nudging her to speak. She had to explain what she was doing on my carpet, two years later. Even hallucinations had to explain. I reached down to her and moved her head to the side, exposing her neck. The dark jagged scar was stark against the caramel of her skin. I tried to read the expression in her eyes but I hit a brick wall. Did I ever really know her? How did she manage to hide her feminine side from me and her affair with Mandy. I was once able to read her but two years had eroded our connection. I didnt know the woman sitting on my carpet.

"It's a mess Ishmael. It's all a mess." She started to say.

"I never meant to hurt you. You were never supposed to get tangled in the mess. I love you."

I longed to hear those words for months that turned into years. I finally heard them and they didn't feel the way I needed them to. I had to tell her that we couldn't be. That our love was a curse. That I was cursed.

"Mwila-An. You can't love me. There is something you need to hear."

She had a blank look on her face as she digested everything. I expected her to shout. I expected madness. I got nothing. When I arrived at the end of the tangled mess, she took a deep breath and wiped her face with the palm of her right hand.

"I know." She began. "When Samantha stabbed me, my mother found my body. They say I died for two minutes. When I came to, she told me everything. What your father - our Father did all those years ago. Ms Allen mediated everything and gave me to my mother and father. No matter what the facts hold. Longa and Mr Situmbeko will never be my parents. What kind of messed up person would that make me?"

"I couldn't take it Ishmael. I just couldn't. Its depraved and disgusting but Gérard Mandanda was the only person I could confide in. He connected the dots and helped fake my death. So many times, I wanted to tell you the truth but I couldn't bare the implications. Gérard isnt so bad you know. He helped me accept the past and look forward to the future. A future with us as brother and sister. The plan was to meet you in Chisamba and come clean but Gérard caught you with Longa and everything fell apart."

"So you are the side chick that Longa complained about?"

"It's not like that. That woman is not my mother. Mrs Kapapula. That's my mother. She kept me when nobody wanted me." Mwila-An said. "I am not mad anymore. We are siblings Ishmael. I love you. I am in love with Gérard."

Samantha was right. The world was ending. The lines that part truth and fiction are thin. It didn't feel real. I sat next to her on the carpet and let the self loathing turn into anger and regret. None of this mess was my fault. I was paying heavily for the sins of my father. Because my father couldnt contain himself, here I was being forced to swallow the bitter truth. Bison really was a Situmbeko with faking her death and all.

I found a rolled joint under the couch and lit it. Mwila-An took it from me and placed it between her lips expertly. Nothing could shock me anymore. I had seen it all. We smoked the joint and let it draw us in to its hazy embrace. Lifted and lit I shut my eyes, waiting for the blessed herb to ease the pain of my reality. I was numb. It was beautiful. Mwila-An eased her body lower and lay her head on my lap. The scar on her neck. It was the rude reminder that all my nightmares were real. I shut my eyes and let the rhythm of her breathing soothe me.

The morning sun tore through the flimsy fabric of my curtains but that's not what woke me up. It was the scent of my father's musky perfume and the sound of his voice that roused me from my slumber. I opened my eyes and found him standing over Mwila-An and I. I couldn't hear him at first, he kept talking until anger shone in his eyes. Mwila-An stopped snoring and opened her eyes but still stayed laying on my lap.

I needed to focus.

"Ishmael you are twenty five years old! When will you ever grow up! I am tired of this. You have missed your flight again. Your mother won't have this." Saliva jumped out his mouth and landed on the soft carpet below us. The carpet was blue and tough, in the colonial flooring style my parents favoured.

"Your mother has cancelled your Kenyan holiday. Beg your boss for your job and gain some responsibility. You don't deserve a holiday."

Mwila-An sat up and rubbed her eyes. I always thought she looked younger when she woke up. She watched my father through half opened eyes until he walked away in a fit.

"Butah we have really messed up this time." She said. "I really shouldn't be lazying around and getting high before exams in my final year."

She rose from the carpet and started looking around for her vans. Thats when I noticed that the walls of my house in Chisamba had been turned into the walls of my bedroom in my parents house in Woodlands. But how? I stood up and the waves of what felt like hangover swept over me, almost knocking me out.

I followed Mwila-An out of my bedroom and found her in the kitchen nibbling on piece of left over chicken. I'd seen it all before.

"It's wild ek se! Your mum will kill you..." Mwila-An trailed off, highlighting all the ways my mother was going to kill me.

What the hell was going on...

I reached out and grabbed her, she was real. I shook her and turned her head to the side. No scar. I checked the other side, just to be sure. No scar.

"Ishmael uniyofya. Are you okay?"  There was fear in her eyes but she was soft again. She was Bison again.

What the hell.

"Nothing... nothing Butah." I said.

"Eh you're being weird. Its 2012 my nigga You cant be acting slow." She tossed the chicken bones in the bin and rinsed her fingers.

2012? No. It was 2016. It was 2016 for crying out loud!

Two contending realities existed in my head and I was paralysed by indecision. Was I supposed to continue down this path of dreamlike perfection or awake to my nightmare?

Grace took many forms. Time travel. Forgiveness. A deity handing me a new page and making me a new creation. Whatever it was - to me it was Grace.

I walked Mwila-An out and we walked together down the dusty streets of woodlands. The dust on my feet was warm from the sunlight. The sun scorched both my skin and it was a lovely kind of pain as we walked towards the sun. It was wonderful. It was real.

"Samantha hated walking in the sun with me." I said out loud.

"Who's that?"  Mwila-An said.

A van cruised by with jubilant cadres and a muscular man with the word 'Sata' painted on his chest was shouting party slogans out loud. The man looked very familiar, I could swear I had seen his Tag Heuer watch before.