An Unexpected Guest

The instant Thandi noticed Kenneth at the gate, she ran up and embraced him which made Kenneth wince as his chest was still sensitive from the beating. When she heard him groan in pain, she released him from her grip, then took a step back and regarded him.

“Dear God, Ken, what happened to your face? Are you okay?”

He regarded her for a moment. Her braids looked like they had been caught in a wind turbine. Beneath her black eye was a bandage over half her left cheek. And she wore wrinkled sweatpants and an old hoodie.

“I accidentally ran into a fist repeatedly,” he replied, “And you?”

A flicker of awareness, then a wince, as she registered his appraisal of her unkempt appearance. Her eyes slid away from his to the safety of the ground below.

“Could we have this conversation from inside your apartment?” she managed, still averting his gaze.

In truth, he would rather not have any company at present, not even Thandi. Not looking and feeling like he did. A bit of silence and solitude was all he wanted right now. But he knew he couldn’t leave her out here alone.

“Oh, yeah, of course.... let me help you with your bag.”

The elevator was empty but for the pair of them. Kenneth regarded his coworker with his good eye.

She still clutched her bag, insisting she was fine to carry it. And she still had not spoken a word to him since he invited her up. And she still had not spoken a word to him since he invited her up. He felt guilty for feeling relieved about the silence.

"You can take a seat on one of the couches if you would like," said Kenneth as they entered his apartment, indicating the lounge area.

He had never brought a guest here before, and suddenly he felt insecure about the place. Somehow, another person being in it made it feel emptier than when he was alone.

Everything here was functional.

In the lounge sat three grey couches with no cushions. They surrounded a plain wooden coffee table which held no vase, and on the wall stood a second-hand television on an inornate television stand.

There was nothing of any sort in the room that would threaten to make this place feel homey.

All the doors and their handles were of the exact same kind and build. The brown wood and simple stainless-steel hardware visible on the front entry were mirrored on the door to the kitchen and on the third door—the hallway door. This last one obscured the view of the hall where two bedrooms were separated by a bathroom and a toilet, all of which had the exact same door and handle.

At least the apartment is clean.

He was more particular about cleanliness than the look of the apartment. And cleaning around the decorations always meant it would take more effort and time to maintain the apartment. It was a thought his apartment’s sheen mocked his own appearance.

Muddied and stained green from the grass from heel to neck, this apartment must have been the only thing he had the strength to keep tidy in his life at the moment.

As Thandi took a seat on the closest couch to the entrance, Kenneth went into the kitchen and began boiling the water already in the kettle.

“I know you like coffee, but I don’t ever buy it,” he said over the rumble of the electric kettle. “Would you like tea or water or…”

“Tea will do just fine, thanks. Do you have Rooibos?”

Kenneth pulled out the box in the kitchen cabinet with the Rooibos tea in it and waved it at Thandi, who mouthed a soft “thank you.”

After boiling enough water for two cups of tea, he brought the tea to the lounge area of his apartment and sat on the couch perpendicular to Thandi’s. She took a sip of the tea, and it almost seemed to morph her. Her shoulders, so hunched that they could nearly kiss her ears, unravelled slowly as she began to lean backwards onto the couch. Every sip was liquid calmness. After a decent amount of silent sipping of the Rooibos, Thandi finally spoke.

“Your apartment is almost exactly like I imagined it would be,” she said.

“And how is that exactly?”

“Dry. Very dry. Just like almost everything about you. Your sense of humour, your fashion sense. Just dry. When I walked in, I thought, ‘Wow, what a boring shade of yellow paint, it’s so like him.”

Kenneth grinned slightly.

“I didn’t paint the walls myself, you know.”

“But you never thought to paint it a different colour, though, right?”

“…No… but that’s only because I’m lazy.”

Thandi took a sip of the tea, as though she were drinking in what was said as well. 

“Okay, let’s say you could change the colour magically, with the wave of a wand. What would you change it to, Ken?”

Kenneth considered for a moment and, upon the realisation that he didn’t have a genuine answer, he exclaimed, “Goddammit” in frustration.

She laughed at that. A laugh timider than the one the dry man was used to.

Maybe it wasn’t just her right eye and lip that were injured?

The thought drained the temporary joy Kenneth felt at hearing that laugh and filled him with sorrow.

Another silence entered the room, and again it was Thandi who expelled it.

“Did you see the text I sent you on WhatsApp?” she asked.

“Um…, no, sorry. My phone got stolen earlier this morning, and I’ve not been spending a lot of time on my phone lately.”

“… I told you everything that happened in the text… why I’m here…I don’t think I have the strength to explain what happened in words. It would feel too real…”

She began to sob. Kenneth got up off his couch, sat on Thandi’s couch, and tried his best to comfort her. Her voice was muffled as she cried into his chest.

“I just need to stay here for the weekend, please? All my other friends are his friends too, and I just don’t want this to become a whole thing. I’ll be out of your hair by Monday, I just…”

“Him”, huh?

As Kenneth suspected, it must have been her fiancé who did this to her. The missing engagement ring on one of the fists that held onto Kenneth’s shirt was a confirmation of a harsh truth. He tried his best to mask his rage at the man when he spoke to Thandi.

“You can stay here as long as you need. I have a spare room I don’t use; I can set you up there… Thandi, I want you to know, I'll always be on your side.” 

Thandi raised her face out of his shirt as though to meet the promise. Glistening eyes stared into Kenneth’s own before she began to cry again more forcefully.

Kenneth could only hold her, it’s all he had the strength to do.

After Kenneth had helped her settle into the spare room, Thandi took him up on his offer to shower. As she showered, Kenneth scoured the kitchen for anything to cook but he found nothing he though Thandi might like in there. Remembering her love for Chinese food, Kenneth thought to order from a food delivery app.

Forgot that I don’t have a phone anymore.

He could always ask to use Thandi’s, but in the present circumstances it might look like he wants to look through her phone or something else untoward. Using his private laptop was also an option, but he would have to go through the effort of downloading the app and signing up again and filling out his bank account details…

It would be a lot better than serving her sausages and eggs for dinner.

After spending a considerable amount of time trying to remember passwords, Kenneth finally managed to place an order at Eastern Flavour. He could no longer hear the sound of water spraying from the bathroom, so Thandi must be in the spare room now.

“Order arrival at 17:30-17:41,” read the message on the app. The food would arrive in at least twenty minutes from now. Enough time for him to take his own shower and change his clothes.

God knows he needed both.

How Thandi had managed to bury her face in a shirt that smelled like the trash he had been cleaning up without throwing up was beyond him. And he had sat on the couch as filthy as he was—he sniffed the couches he had sat on to make sure they had not been permanently imbued with that stench.

Smells fine, no stains either.

They would eat in there tonight.

As Kenneth entered the hallway on his way to tell Thandi when dinner was going to be, another single knock came from the entrance door to his apartment. Just as he turned to respond to it—

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

Now it sounded more like an attempt to knock over the door than call him to it now.

“KENNETH MASHABA, YOU GET WHAT YOU DESERVE!”

The gunshots boomed from door and the sound of shattering of glass tingled in harmony. Kenneth ducked for his life behind the hallway walls. He heard a scream followed by the thud of a body falling to the ground coming from inside the spare room.

Thandi.

Was she hit?

No, there were no holes in the door. No holes in the hallway wall. The shots had missed her. She was safe for now. But just in case, Kenneth screamed, “Stay down!”

There was no indication that she’d heard him, the chorus of the gunshots and the breaking of items yelled much louder.

Then it stopped.

Again, a knock, followed by three more violent knocks.

Again, the same voice yelled his name, saying that he deserved this, followed by the sound of gunfire.

When the exact same cycle of sounds repeated a third time, Kenneth found the courage to peep outside the hallway door.

He found the kitchen and lounge in the exact same order he had left if in a few minutes ago. Nothing broken. No bullet holes.

Nothing.

He crawled into the kitchen to retrieve a knife. The clinking of cutlery was interrupted by the creak of a door opening. Kenneth rounded with knife in hand to so see that it was only Thandi opening the hallway door, standing halfway in and out of the lounge area.

The front door had not been opened as he expected.

Only a pink towel, clutched to her chest with her right hand, hid her nakedness. She scanned the room just as he had, before she locked eyes with Kenneth. She mouthed something, but he could not make it out. He responded by shooing her back behind the walls of the hallway. Kenneth was certain that the sounds of the gunshots, booming for the fifth time now, were from a speaker playing a looped audio file, placed just outside the door.

That did not necessarily mean they were safe though. There could still be a man using this as bait to lure him out of the apartment, into the hallway where anything could be waiting.

Someone from the Black Bands, maybe?

But these days it could be anyone. Maybe another Sam out to avenge for his dead or injured relative. Or another kid with a camera waiting to film his reaction. is suspicion that the person who planted the speaker was still there was confirmed a moment later. Through the opaque kitchen window, the silhouette of a man became visible.

Kenneth would need more than the knife he gripped so hard his knuckles turned white. But probation meant he could not legally own a gun.

After he pointed toward the darkened figure in the window as he mouthed for Thandi to hide herself, she finally relented, realisation darkening her face as she slowly backed into the hallway. When his attention returned to the window with the silhouette, it was gone.

He could have fled the scene, judging that his trap was unsuccessful in luring Kenneth out of his place. That was the most optimistic reading of the situation.

Another reason could be that he noticed that Kenneth saw him, and he ducked down, ready to ambush him once he stepped out.

Or he could be waiting in the shadows where the main hallway met the short corridor to Kenneth's apartment.

Kenneth crawled out of the kitchen and stood up, shoulder to the wall separating the kitchen door from the entrance, and knife ready in his left hand.

He took a deep breath, maybe the last one he would ever experience.

God, please let this actually be someone who means to harm me.

The cruel irony of the prayer made him grin ruefully. If the person behind the speaker wasn't armed and dangerous, he'd be in a different kind of trouble entirely. If it was another kid with a camera, playing a prank, and he accidentally stabbed or injured him in any way, it could mean revocation of his probation, and maybe another ten years added to his sentence.

The prospect of death was now more welcome than being recorded for social media.

Slowly, Kenneth unlocked the door. He turned the knife in his hand and held it so he could stab downwards. That was the best way to hold it if the man was in a crouching position.

In one motion, Kenneth swung open the door and rushed into the hallway of the fifteenth floor, prepared to maim or kill the silhouette.

His charge was halted as the silhouette materialised into a familiar person.

Kenneth’s neighbour, a greying man well into his middle years, was bent over, fiddling with a speaker on the floor. It was just Kenneth's luck that the neighbour chose that moment to finally switch the device off. He looked up to find Kenneth standing over him, knife in hand, fury on his face.

The old man stared back, bewildered.