At the prison, visitors became scarce after the third year and finally stopped altogether by the fourth. His parents never showed up from trial to imprisonment and with time, relocated to a faraway land. It was rumored that he had died at the prison. He set out to look for his wife. It was after he'd spent a few days and nights in the cold at the railway station and bus park that he found her. His child was not with her.
Ellaisaire was not excited at the arrival of her husband. Perhaps she had come to accept the rumor that he had died at the prison. After some days of Ellaisaire's stony reception, José decided to start looking for his friends.
Thinking about Ellaisaire's stony reception, Jose got up from his couch and walked to the center of the room where he now stood looking into the mirror.
This is the time when a sound barely audible came to ears from the doorway. At the same time, he espied a shadow. Ignoring these two, he indulged in what to his mind was more important; the person who looked back at him in the mirror.
A few seconds later, he was rudely interrupted by a not so gentle whoosh, bang, and crashing noise. Moving backward with his eyes still set on the mirror, he abruptly turned around to come face to face with a childhood friend called Dladla. In their early teens, Jose and Dladla had been accomplished football players. José played in the defense position while Dladla played in the forward position. The two were a formidable complimentary force. Jose earned himself the name Stukas, the small German Second World Blitzkrieg Warplane renowned for forays in British territory.
Dladla stretched out his hand. But it happened that Jose was still in a world of his own and therefore Dladla's hand remained suspended in the air.
Ellaisaire's the person whose shadow Jose had seen. She detoured the washroom when she saw Jose before the mirror. It was just as she had come out of the washroom that she saw him with this middle-aged man, whom she had known to have been a footballer, standing as if they were madmen. Her husband had invited a mad friend to their home. And their madness was catching up on them. This is how she described her countenance to her friend Winter.
"On my husband's face was what looked like a grin. But really, it was more of a snarl. Whereas his hands fell loosely by his side, his face was inclined a little to the left, and his back somewhat humped. His face indicated no pain, joy, grief, anger, or fear, but a little bit of all the aforementioned. His eyes were open but looking at them you would know for sure; he was not seeing anything."
This is also what Dladla had seen. And now he looked back at his friend with his hand half drawn.
With an alarming suddenness, Ellaisaire broke the stillness of the serene Park View Apartment neighborhood with an ear-piercing scream. At the same time, smote the soap dish with her palm, flushed the toilet that she had not used at all, and thereafter went to the bathroom where she now shook as one scared to death. After a few seconds, she opened the shower tap and let it run for some time.
Dladla turned around to decipher the strange development.
He asked, "What is going on here?"
Jose answered "nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Yes, nothing."
The two friends then left the house and as they were walking, Dladla asked, "Are you truly, okay?"
"Yes, am okay" answered Jose.
Armadillo asked, "Was that your wife?"
"Yes, I suppose" Jose answered. And without thinking about it added, "The world is spinning too fast for us and I am not sure we can go on like this."
Dladla continued, "As I walked into your house, I saw you before a mirror. I had barely stood there for two minutes when I heard someone screaming. This scream was followed by a flushing toilet and a running shower from the bathroom. No sooner had I acclimatized to that, than I heard some terrifying noise. He continued, "Are you two people, okay?"
Jose remembered the youthful escapades they made. There was a time when they were denied entry to a weekend party just because they did not have girlfriends. They devised a plan to spoil the party. For them to attain this, they ate eggs that had gone bad, then belched through the dimly lit village hut that was the venue to the party. That is how they roused the anger of party-goers and was not long before they were hastily banished from the vicinity of the party hall.
He said, "We were with kicks and sticks speedily dispelled."
Jose did not have many friends from his peer group. Dladla was all he had. They were both members of the school football team and also the science congress club.
He lived as a good boy who listened and kept his word no matter what. It was only natural that he should narrate to Armadillo their poorly attended wedding and subsequent marriage to his wife Ellaisaire. Then he was sent to jail. He told him he was looking to rebuild his family that was now, as he put it 'was tossed by wind this way and that way.
Dladla said, "Jose, I have heard you. What works for me might work for you. And we will use only what works for both of us. Follow me, worry not."
It was exactly 6:45 pm when Dladla and Jose left 'the waterhole'. Dladla had proved himself a firm shoulder to lean on.
Dladla was the man in whose company Jose's childhood dreams came to life.