A Dark Energy

Rinos Mwanaka

Description

Don is the only child of a happy family full of love, but it does not last. At 6 years old Don�s parents are burned in a fire through arson, and suspects his father�s brother is the culprit. As the family fights over his father's wealth nobody wants anything to do with Don, particularly the Uncle whom he suspects of arson and ends up taking most of his father�s wealth. After a difficult upbringing in orphanages and living with an abusive old man Don starts working as an agent in Central Investigations Organisation, Zimbabwe�s security intelligence organisation. Despite this apparent success Don never deals with the existential dilemmas he has as a result of his childhood. He becomes a loner, he doesn't believe in love, marriage, or happiness... until he meets Lilian. Soon after he is called into the president�s office to cover up an extramarital affair. When a political rival of the president, the corrupt defence minister, �bones� gets wind of the cover up and unsuccessfully tries to blackmail Don something terrible happens and Don becomes thrown back into the darkness. Straddling literary genres this novel explores themes related to family, love, politics, life and existence. It is the story of a man pushed to breaking point and how that, inevitably, impacts society.

Informations

• Publié par: Mwanaka Media and Publishing
• Date de parution: 24 avril 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9780797496972
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

A Dark Energy

Tendai Rinos Mwanaka

A Dark Energy Tendai Rinos Mwanaka

A Dark Energy novel

Tendai Rinos Mwanaka

Mwanaka Media and Publishing Pvt Ltd, Chitungwiza Zimbabwe * Creativity, Wisdom and Beauty

Publisher: Mmap Mwanaka Media and Publishing Pvt Ltd 24 Svosve Road, Zengeza 1 Chitungwiza Zimbabwe [e-mail] https//mwanakamediaandpublishing.weebly.com Distributed in and outside N. America by African Books Collective [e-mail] www.africanbookscollective.com ISBN: 978-0-7974-9333-9 EAN: 9780797493339 © Tendai Rinos Mwanaka 2018 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or be stored in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher DISCLAIMER All views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views ofMmap.

Chapter 1 A s the two halves fell away from one another, he could hear Mosquito gargling a tune made from the scraps of his voice. Scrambled tones garbling the message; meaning was lost in the melange of sound. He got lost in the listening and felt the unusual cadences crackling with agitation. The violent intensity of it all amazed him, the feel of metal against human flesh. The phone had been ringing on and off for some time, though he had ignored it as just another found element to the music of the knife rippling through Mosquito's voice box, but the ringing had continued. Even though he had been ignoring the telephone, he knew he had to answer it. No one else was inside the house with him, so the responsibility fell on no one else but him. Annoyed, Don made his way into the living room to silence it once and for all. The atonal wails had been eating into his music, into him, into his shadow reverie. He got his hand around the handle and took it to the ear. His fingers were dark, brown knuckled bones, raw and tight, these were the hands that had been splotched with dribbles of Mosquito's blood. Before meeting phone to ear, Bones' voice boomed, rhyming with the what-what-what, into Don’s ears. "What are you trying to prove? What do you really want? Huh? What, Don...?" As if Bones doesn't know what I am doing?Don mused,is he really unaware of it?He had already told Bones, so he knew Bones was

1

scared. He knew he could simply have cut Bones' call, but somehow he felt he wanted to hear Bones talking. It made him feel important somehow, secure. Maybe, it was that Bones was still there and that he was also still here, listening, wobbled by chance, though weighed down by circumstances. Whatever. This upheaval remained a mystery to Don. "You know my offer still stands -a million- Don and you stop all this. Don't you think it's time we let bygones be bygones…?" Hahahaa! That's unbelievable. Don was not laughing as such. What? It seemed that Bones still thinks I am a kite on his string, he couldn't help musing;Bones thinks I will obey every tug of his heartless fingers. Beware Bones; the time has come when I will refuse you. But, he could only imitate Bones' statement. "Pwii pwii pwii pwii pwiigones."Such sugary-sweet forgetfulness! Yet Don knew; that's what Bones wanted. He knew, though, that he wasn't ready. After all, why should he be ready? To be lowered into the grave, then to be enclosed in the greying soils, and thus letting bygones be bygones. He will be a bygone too. Not now, not before I accomplish what I promised to Lillian. No, he hadn't told Lillian that, not really. He knew he didn't have to tell her. He had made that promise to himself. He knew if he made the mistake of telling Lillian what he had intended to do at the gravesites, even she would have dissuaded him, sweetening him out of it. She would have been sure to communicate that from beyond. So he hadn't told her; he hadn't told anyone. And, Bones continued with his prattles. "You know what Don?" Rhetorically, Bones asked himself, or Don, maybe both... Don didn't care. He hadn't cared a hoot when he cold-bloodedly sliced Mosquito.

2

"What?" Don answered Bones. Don was simply bored, after all, what was there to know?Lillian was dead; Mosquito was dead. And, it was when Don had cut Mosquito's windpipe that fear, horror and hate replaced disbelief in his eyes. A drawn-out fizz note buzzed like a mosquito out from his memory, came biting into his ears.Pig and Bones have to die, too.was all the truth That there was to know. "I have always thought we could have worked things out, but you were...you were so uncooperative, Don. All the same, I am so sorry. An event like that makes people very sad, Don." Such a sardonic take!couldn't help musing to himself. Don Mosquito hadn't believed him, either. He couldn't believe it himself when he told him he wanted to kill Mosquito the way people do to fattened chickens. Mosquito had given him this look as if he had thrown a rotten egg at the president.An event like that makes people very sad…hey.Bones was, even now, trying to fake an apology, or was that really sympathy? He didn't know which was with Bones. "I really am sorry about what happened. You know what, Don…I never wanted it to end up like that."What had really made him into such a peach?He couldn't say these words into the receiver. He knew Bones was a rotten one to the core. "I could have –in actual fact- we could have..."I really have to stop him.He wasn't in the mood to listen to Bones' sorry sorries for they were no longer helpful to the situation. "We could have..." Done what? Do what now!he exploded, "Hey. Stop this!" But Don thundered into the receiver. He felt his voice in the earpiece, as well as an ambient presence around the room, booming, livid...

3

Remember Don, this bastard couldn't care less whether someone dies or not. He only cares for his schemes to come to fruition, only for that. Why was he faking this sympathy, this caring, as if he really was sorry things had become that bad? He had everything to do with how and why the world had manifested itself in just this way. Really? "Just remember we have a score to settle, Bones. No matter what, I said, no matter what, Bones. I am going to get you. Do you hear me, Bones? I am going to get you." Bones had to listen well to these black lines. Lines said with such deep intensity, needled as black crows pecking at a paper thin skin to get at what lays beneath. "Bones, from now onwards, watch your step. I am right behind you. Any false step, any wrong footing, any minor mistake, and you are gone!" With a hoarse whisper into the receiver, Don hissed dangerously, like a viper. "You are gone. Gone to wherever Lillian is. You will follow Mosquito and it's not so long from today, Bones. It may be a day or so, but I will have peace. Maybe then, I'll forget all this. When that happens, then I'll let bygones be bygones. So until then, I have to have you like you got the only person I loved. Bones, I am this thing you thought you liked. I am transformed by your cruelty. I am darkened by your hands." Deep with persuasion, his voice vibrated through his tympanic membrane transforming into an electric virus flashing along to find a place in his neurons to infect Bones with the poison he had once incubated inside of him.

4