short story by Menzi

Peace, Love and Prosper
Background:
This is an allegorical story concerning a family of triplets who are raised with equal opportunities yet find themselves drifting further from their expected destinies. The triplets don’t only suffer from the lack of their own names sakes but specific unforeseen circumstances also cause them to drift further apart from each other.
By the end of the story there are possibilities for redemption but it is all depending on each of their ability to accept each other as both flawed and potentially divine (gifted). There are some characters in the story who come to remind them of their parents who passed away early I their lives, but not before bestowing upon them their ‘telling’ names and a clue to finding and maintaining relationships filled with Love, Peace and Prosperity.




















The 1st STORY
The orphan-age
The clouds melt away portentously as the sun comes out swiftly like a groom at the sight of his bride. The day seems to be in a hurry to begin. But what could be so important today, that wasn’t so eagerly awaited yesterday? Prosper appears to ask himself as he looks out at the sky, beyond the drifting clouds. Her thin and tiny fingers with traces of smudged red nail polish on them are drumming against her fine wiry sideburns. She is a rather plump girl of six who doesn’t remember thinking about anything else but plain yogurt with a spoon of honey, and oh maybe a sign from her Mama. Is she alive, does she love her, and why does she have to live in this place?
Aside from the fact that the St Beatrice’s Home for Orphans is situated at the edge of a mining town, in the middle of nowhere significant, the wind in this place smells like turpentine in the mornings and the calm breeze of the afternoons often descends on them with thin wisps of ash. The sisters always tell the children that the thin grey ash is coming from the burning of sugarcane fields. Prosper know the difference, but keeps quiet for fear of catching another hiding. Knowing something and speaking out about it is not encouraged at St Beatrice’s, so in the almost two years that she’s been here; she learned the hard way that she should keep her uncomfortable peace.
Although she doesn’t have many friends, at least she is not alone in this tough old place; her brother Love is just all the way in the other-side by the boy’s dormitory. She loves her brother dearly even though he can be a bit erratic, always getting in trouble for fighting with the other boys and sometimes even the teachers. But the Sisters say he’s going to have to calm down next year when he begins attending the real school. They only get to see each other during breakfast, lunch and playtime which they always try to make the best of.
Prosper just cannot wait to begin proper school, she finds pre-school classes so boring and thinks what they teach is irrelevant. “For what-”, she thinks to herself would I need to herself “Do I need to know those silly English songs they make us sing all day, I want to learn how to sing like my Mama and how to make yogurt out of milk, to sow nice warm jerseys and to dance like a Zulu girl…?”
“You’re only six and already have such a hot head; I don’t know what you’ll ever pick up in school.” One of the Sisters would lament as she prepared them for bed. Prosper had to feign being sick for a whole week so that she could get the bed that had its head facing east, she didn’t know why but she simply loved the golden glow of the sunshine, it reminded her of home and vague reminiscences of her mothers stories.
Love was a nice little boy, tall, handsome with a dark chocolate complexion. Almost everything about his face looked like his sisters, except for the nostrils which appeared to always flare up and vibrate whenever he was piqued, which was often. But Love had not always been this aggressive little man; in fact he was everyone’s favourite among the triplets until his brother Peace was adopted by a family of Europeans. Being so close and suddenly and cruelly separated really bore down on Love’s head, he would just snap at anyone with the slightest provocation.
During their first year at the orphanage, the triplets were not separated as they kept everyone awake at night if ever they were forced to sleep on separate beds. The staff at St Beatrice’s would try their best to calm them down but nothing ever worked until they called in ‘specialists’ who first took away Prosper for only few days a week. Gradually the boys learned to be at peace with their beloved sister’s absence and they also begun to make friends, but no one could separate the two of them.
This orphanage was run on donations and funds from special grants but the bulk of the money came from their regular business of adoption. They were reputedly the best adoption institution in that area for distances. Couples and even whole families would come from all over the country to sometimes just look at the children playing on sitting in class, sometimes they be allowed short interviews or on ones with their choice little ones and then they’d go away with photographs with fancy filed profiles and sometimes brief bio’s of their selected children. This is how Peace won the hearts of the August European couple, the Greene’s.
Mrs Greene had been unable to conceive a child of her own, even though Mr Greene had had several in secret, being particularly fond of the corpulent local women who tended for the needs of their suburban homes. He did his best to hide his lecherous habits at first but time proved efficient in bringing everything to the light of day. Soon after the birth of his third bastard, his Mrs took him for a drive down to the township where to his pretentious shock; he was introduced to a cute little green eyed version of himself. But what came the real shock was that Mrs Greene had decided to adopt this bundle of joy from the rather shy shack dweller who did not waste any time accepting the offer. This disturbed Greene for a whole month while his wife was preparing the necessary papers, so much so that he decided to pay a visit to the African lady who happened to be his neighbours domestic servant.
“Prudence my dear.” Mr Greene gushed out letting go of some of his usual proud demeanour. “My dear…I don’t know where to begin, but are you sure you want to give us your baby, just that easily?”
Prudence, who sat on her hollowed out single bed holding the sniffling pinkish infant, was a beautiful caramel skinned woman in her late thirties with her extensions matted down under some ghastly panty-hose head-dress. Her corrugated iron home was furnished with some of the gifts that Greene had given her through out their three year secret affair, but she also had pictures of her own family, stacks of Garden and Home and Cosmopolitan magazines on her sideboard and her kitchen was two large bowls on top of tall steel water drums and a wooden surface that passed for a chopping board and a dish cabinet at the same time.
Greene barely looked around at all these furnishings, he couldn’t bear to, he was after all a man of exquisite taste, even being in here was causing him to wince and although there was a smell of lamb stew boiling in the pot, he seemed to redden and appeared breathless.
Prudence, rocked the like a loving mother in her large arms, she was wearing nothing but a pale pink pinafore from which her voluptuous breast hung out for the child to sup on. This seemed to add to Mr Greene’s lustful woes, he found himself trying hard to vanquish the thought of dashing the baby away and replacing it on its mothers breast.
“Robert, this is your baby too.” Said she after what seemed to Robert Greene, like a torturous lifetime. He reeled back into reality as if from a stupefying hunger. He said
“Excuse me, what did you say…?”
Tucking back her breast after the child’s burp, Prudence spoke looked him squarely in the eyes and said.
“I said this is your child Robert Greene, I don’t know what you’re fussing about, besides you told me you’d never come by here again.” She paused and appeared to be thinking hard, her forehead creased in an effortless frown.
“I mean, I don’t see how you can keep getting away with these things. I love this child, look at her, she’s beautiful and she doesn’t even have a name yet. No one in my family wants to see me again, no matter how much money you have offered us. I’ve thought about it hard, I have even started going to church.”
“Now, wait a minute, I thought you always went to church. Whenever I wanted to see you on Sundays, you said you were busy at the church…?”
“Well, since everything is all out now, I might as well tell you the truth too, of course I have a lover or should I say, had a lover since Frankie left me a few days after he found out I was seeing you. He first beat me up so bad I thought I was going to lose this child.”
Greene was now so red, his face seemed to exude white heat. He said. “You told me you were mugged by two tsotsies after work, I even paid for your hospital bills, how could you lie to me like this, I thought we had something special…I, I, I’m so –“
“Hurt. Yes, at least now you know how I feel, but at least the Lord has answered your prayers or maybe its mines, who knows, they say he works in mysterious ways. Your wife has come up with a miraculous plan and you should thank her, she’s a good woman and all she ever wanted was a big family which you have failed to give her, so you see, now is your chance heh ?”
Greene was so enraged and got and sat down again, not knowing what to say, how to feel and he had to restrain himself from cursing Prudence, he wanted to call her a bitch but he knew better than to do that, this woman could bring this whole shack down in her rage, so he decided to plead with her.
“But, but, what will my neighbours say, I’ve given you so much, my wife has even offered you a good job…how much money do you want?”
Prudence, patted the on her back and laid it softly on the bed before coming over to sit on Greenes shaking leg, she stroked his sweaty chin and kissed him on the eyebrowns and whispered. “Oh, Mr Greene, my darling, all I really want is my peace. Isn’t that what you also want, just a little peace so you can live your life exactly how you’ve planned to, how you – want to?”
Even though, he was so rattled and his mind was in total confusion, Mr Greene was suddenly aroused by the weight and flesh of this bold black woman who was stroking his ego while crushing his spirit, he found himself strangely enjoying it. But when Prudence felt him bulging underneath her thighs, she slowly got to her feet and said. :You poor soul, I don’t want you, or your money, just leave in peace, and you can take your green eyed precious with you too. All I need is peace.”