2007 overall winning story
Sozi's Box, by Ellen Banda-Aaku, Zambia
Overall winner, 2007 Commonwealth Short Story Competition
Dressed in black, we trample over mounds of fresh red soil as we move, like foraging army ants- only slower. The hot, dusty, air tickles the inside of my nose. Shuffling behind my parents, I step on the prints of my mother's robber sole. She's stooped and leaning heavily against my father. He's holding his bald head up, but I can see his long legs shaking through his trousers.
Muscles bulge in the arms of the men walking a few paces ahead of my parents and their black backs glisten with sweat. I wonder why. Sozi is not heavy. Perhaps it's the weight of the vanished, wooden box they're carrying, or the heap of white, sweet smelling flowers lying on top of it. This morning I sneaked into the living room to see Sozi. He was sleeping soundly in his new white suit. His face was creaseless and he wasn't drooling. A light blue cloth was tucked beside him. The old flannel he'd used to wipe his mouth for as far back as I can remember. He never let it out of his sight. It was washed at night and put beside him before he woke. My mother once tried to change it, but Sozi screamed as if his hand had been chopped off, so she gave it back. Sozi's frayed flannel was a part of him.
Sozi's my mother's first child. I was born three years after him.
I hear my father was so angry at my mother when she conceived me; he boycotted her quarters until I could sit up unsupported. I guess it's easy to boycott a wife when you have three. I think my father was angry because he feared my mother would produce another Sozi. A child with legs that remained folded like those of a new born baby even after he had lost his milk teeth. A boy who twisted his face and jumbled his words when he spoke, that only my mother and I took the time to understand him.
I'm surprised that today hundreds of people queued up to look at Sozi. People try hard not to look at Sozi, their eyes bounce off him onto me. Everywhere I go, with or without Sozi, I feel him in people's eyes, heavy on me like a water pot on my head. Today is different. Aunts and uncles drop to their knees so their moist red eyes are level with mone; they squeeze crumpled paper money into my palm. Some wag my tight plaits hoping for a smile. Others sigh, shake their heads at me and mutter; you poor child, only eight.
I keep my eyes on my dusty black shoes. I wish I was brave enough to tell them that I don't deserve their sympathy. That I misunderstood. I thought Sozi made everyone unhappy. When I lay beside my mother; too still and quiet to be asleep; I thought it was because Sozi made her unhappy. I wished Sozi was someone else's brother. Now I can't reverse my wish because I don't know how.
We gather around a deep hole in the ground. The church choir, in red gowns, sing softly whilst the men shovel soil onto Sozi's box, lying at the bottom of the hole. Discreetly, I squeeze the soft bulge hidden in the waistband of my black skirt. And I hope with all my heart that Sozi will forgive me for keeping an old, blue, frayed part of him with me.
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