The Ear the Eye and the Arm

‘Twice as large as any
of the others, it had a human face, but one so twisted with agony, it was
unbearable to look at. The mouth was rimmed with many teeth. They were too
small to have come from an adult human. The head was covered with scalps
stitched together to form a wig. The cheeks were streaked with a sticky
blackened substance. The eyes-----

-----were hollow. At
least for a moment. But Tendia had the feeling that somewhere the presence that
inhabited the mask was prowling. It was waiting for the moment when it would
take up residence. And then the eyes would open.

  The hands of the Masks reached out to him
from all sides and carried him to the middle of the room’

That was all the Tendai could
remember. When he woke up he was along in a small room packed with dust and
lots of tiny animals scurrying around.

               It was a
small place with lots of problems. The room had no windows or doors only a
collapsing roof with a small hole that he must have gotten stuffed into. He
could see outside, and it wasn’t a pleasant site. Many planes flew over head
with smoke coming out the back, the sign of a plane going down. He saw the sky,
a dark gray almost black color from smoke. Not only the string of smoke from
the planes but also the smoke from what must have been industrial sites.

               “Where
am I?” Tendai was wondering. “There aren’t any industrial sites in Harare.”

               As he
looked around, he noticed that Rita and Kuda were not with him. He gazed around
and found a small section of holes in the wall, an easy way to get out.

               He
walked over to the wall with the ledge and edged his foot into the first cut.
He kept stepping up until he got to the very top. He looked out the top to see
that he was at ground level. He saw big men, probably the Masks, lurking
outside of the hole. There were hundreds of these holes and he was sure that
Rita and Kuda were sure to be in some of them. He saw the Trashman was walking
around with the Masks, even they knew he couldn’t do any harm.

               Then
Tendai saw something lying outside of his hole next to one of the Masks feet,
his knife. He slowly inched himself out of the hole so he could grab it. He
made a swift move to grab it. He picked it up and dropped back down into his
hole. He had to find a way to get out of this place.

               He edged
his way back up to the top and looked out. He slowly saw Rita pull her head out
of a hole about 20 yards away. He showed her the knife. She nodded back as to
signal that she knew what he was going to do. She went back into her hole and
came out a few seconds later holding Kuda in her arms so that Tendai could see
him.

               Slowly
Tendai pulled himself out of the hole in a way that none of the masks could see
him. He flew on feet. He sprinted to Rita’s hole and jumped it.

               “Are you
doing OK?” Tendai asked Rita with concern.

               “Yeah,
but I don’t know about Kuda.” Rita answered.

               Tendai
looked down and saw that Kuda was at the bottom of the hole in fear. He was not
showing it but Tendai could tell he wasn’t in the best of shape.

               “We have
got to get out of here.” Tendai said.

               “But
how?” Rita asked.

               Mother
was in a few bushes near the holes that Tendai, Rita, and Kuda were in. She had
the gun by her side and was aiming at the guard around. Only 2 of them. She brought
the limo around the bushes next to the guard building.  Mother made a move and shot both of the guards
with the gun, the fainted for their 15 minutes. She grabbed the children and
ran to the limo.

               “Drive!”
She shouted.

               They
flew away into the sky back to the Matsika house. In the limo they talked about
everything that had happened and Mother listened to all of it without any
interruption.  The only thing she did was
hug them. Mother then knew that they needed to be out more learning skills that
are needed to survive. And that is when she made the promise to always try to
be a better parent.

               When
they got back to the Matsika house, they were greeted by father who told then
to give him the whole story. After they told the story, he made the same promise
that mother made. Both Father and Mother were only happy that they were back
and would never get their children in this situation ever again.