That Was Not My Son

A story by MIKHA MWEETWA

Once, with my friends, I joked that the day that car wash would break down is the day I’d die. We laughed about it. It had never happened since I started taking my now beat-up 2011 Volkswagen Jetta there. Every Saturday afternoon for the last five years. Until today,  26 April 2025. An electrical failure with the water pump, they said.

I haven’t died. Yet. But the smell of the car clings to me— a tangible film on my skin. I can almost feel the dust motes woven deep into the carpet threads, the spilled whiskey on the front passenger carpet from Wednesday evening, and all manner of unpleasant oddments that have infiltrated every nook and cranny of the car. All that accumulated filth, crawling like a billion tiny legs over my skin, under my clothes. A violent shudder, deep and unbidden, surges through me. If I had a choice, I wouldn’t be here. Not in this car. Not in my own skin. 

Maybe I should have died.

I crank up the volume on the radio. I was born in the wrong era. A time when we listen to bubble-gum bullshit. But anything to distract my mind from the contamination in the car. My foot pushes deeper on the accelerator. The sun was sliding from its lofty perch in the mournfully prismatic sky when I left home in Chamba Valley over an hour ago. It’s 19:43 now, and the darkness over the Nansenga area has thickened like a funereal blanket underneath which shadows of trees and shrubs pursue each other in the opposite direction. The temperature has dropped too.

I’m certain it will rain any minute.

Rain always reminds me of when I was drunk with the promise of youth. When I lowered my trousers before life’s hungry mouth. And life, being the cocksucker it is, sucked me dry. Her name was Beatrice. Miss Mbembetu to the rest of the naïve Room 17 wankers at St. Edmunds.

I shake myself from that memory.

The road is eerily empty today. There must be a circular I missed somewhere. I grab the Styrofoam cup from the holder. The last of my ice has melted into the Jack Daniels. I take a greedy sip. Its warmth traces the path from my throat down to my gut. I close my eyes and feel it. There are many pleasures in life, but few rival this one. I step on the accelerator even more. Not quite pedal to the metal; I’m not trying to kill myself. I’m just trying to get to Mazabuka before it’s too late. To get out of this dirty car.

I empty my Styrofoam cup just as I’m about to cross the Nansenga Bridge. Probably time to ease up on the whiskey. 

“One last refill,” I say into the emptiness of the car, reaching into the back seat for the bottle.

A lot can happen in the few seconds you take your eyes off the road. A dog can stray onto the road. A drunk can stagger in front of your car. Or a drunk driver like me can veer into your lane. None of that happens, however.

What does happen is beyond my imagination.

I’m holding the Jack Daniels in my left hand, my right hand tightly gripping the steering wheel, my mouth agape, eyes glued to the apparition before me. Shrouded in a luminous, semi-opaque fog that slightly obfuscates my vision, a tall, hooded figure stands in the middle of the bridge. Its fluorescent robes flowing in magnificent frills down to the asphalt. I stare. Frozen. My car hurtling towards it.

I blink and it’s gone. As if it was never there.

I look around me. Out my side windows. Out the back windscreen. No sight of it. I pull my eyes forward, still breathing hysterically. I grab the bottle from the seat, almost spilling its precious contents with the shakes that have afflicted my hands now. I drink. Feeling the whiskey burn and soothe its way down. I press a button on the door panel, and my doors lock with a loud click. 

I take another deep breath. A song comes on the radio. More bubblegum bullshit. I can connect my phone and play proper music. My phone’s battery was at nine percent last I checked. I press the side button. It’s just an expensive brick now. I kill the radio.

I take another swig and try to refocus my mind.

My heart slowly settles back into its usual unobtrusive rhythmic beat. Still, I can hear myself breathe. Too loud. But I can hear myself think too. Just a hallucination, I try to convince myself. But I know what I saw. 19:57. 

The smell in the car grows even stronger. Maybe I shouldn’t be driving right now. I should have just cancelled this trip. But mum’s voice echoes in my ears just thinking about that.

“He’s locked himself in the bedroom and won’t come out,” she said last Saturday.

It was past midnight. I sat up from the bed in the spare bedroom. Reached for my glass on the side table. “Since when?”

“Are you drunk, Baushi Mazuba?” The shock and disappointment carried through her voice. Disgust even.

“What time did he lock himself in?”

She hesitated. “Around seventeen. He hasn’t even eaten. You know the way he likes to water the garden in the evening;  he didn’t come out. I’m worried that he might have hurt himself. Or even something worse.”

“You always say that. I’m sure he’s fine. He can’t—”

“You don’t see his meltdowns every time I tell him you’re not coming.” She paused. “Please try calling him. I heard a crashing sound from his room.”

“I tried, he didn’t answer. And now his phone is off.”

His phone was not off. It was broken. He’d hurled it at the wall. I had to borrow money from a friend, dragged myself to Mobile Monsters, and put the phone I bought on a taxi to Mazabuka at Downtown. All that through the hangover of a Sunday morning.

Up ahead, the Munali Hills loom. Gigantic shadowy heaps of earth. There is something unsettling about their silver-grey outline glowing against the moonlit backdrop. Haunting. Lightning flashes across the darkened sky followed by a crashing of thunder that sends me straight to my childhood nightmares. Headlights descend the slope. Three cars, maybe four. The first I’ve seen all night. I check my rearview. No ghosts. Yet, the knot in my chest doesn’t loosen.

As the last car passes, I see it again.

Right in front of me. Tall and luminous. More vivid than the last time. I can almost make out the outline of a familiar stance, a subtle tilt of its head. I squint my eyes, processing the familiarity. Then its long, stringy arm outstretches towards me. Long bony fingers fanning out from its cadaverous hand. 

I scream and swerve. My tyres skid on the wet gravel on the side of the road. I turn the car with the skid, heading straight for a tree, and the blackened ravine beyond. I yank the steering wheel left. The car obeys, but too much. The rain-soaked gravel spins the car back towards Lusaka. I steer left hard, screaming as I do, the car spins in circles on the same spot.

I manage to halt the car’s spiral. “Shit.” I hit my head on the wheel, sending the horn out into the dreadful night in short, quick bursts. I look around. No sign of the spectre. I grab my phone and put it down quickly. “Fuck.” 

Several deep breaths. My doors are unlocked. Didn’t I lock these doors? I press the lock button. Twice for good measure. Make that three. Each with increasing intensity.

A rain drop collides with my windscreen and explodes. Its impact with the screen is louder than ordinary. It makes me jump in my seat. Then a second one. A third. A fourth. And more until I can't count anymore. I take another deep breath. I close my eyes, listening to the rain on the roof of my car. Seeking calm. But it sounds like the rain on the asbestos roof of Beatrice’s house. Her fruity perfume teasing my senses. And the warmth between us threatening to burn us alive for our transgressions. 

Turns out Grade Eleven Geography is a lot more fascinating when your pretty, athletic teacher is lying naked on the bed next to you. Or when she’s squatting on top of you. Or when she’s on all fours with her head buried in the pillow, clutching her bloodred bedsheet into tight knots either side of her head. And the whole time, her sweet melodious voice calling out to both God and you. It gives you a whole different perspective on contour lines and relief features.

I shake myself from the memory. The rain is pouring in buckets now. I take a few deep breaths before shifting the car into drive. I hit the accelerator. The tyres spin in the gravel, made even more soggy by the pouring rain. The car shoots forward onto the road. Into the other lane, right in the path of an oncoming truck. Its horn blares, flashing its brightest lights, torturing my ears and eyes simultaneously. I swerve, screaming. Narrowly missing it as it whizzes past me.

My heart is throbbing. My hands trembling. Sweat breaking out in places I didn’t know I could sweat. The lonely and menacing darkness of the hills thickening. The truck has been swallowed by a curve behind me. I’m alone on the road again.

“That was close.” The voice comes from my left, right next to me.

I jump in my seat. The car swerves right into the other lane before I reel it back in. A fruity smell, of peaches and apricots that have gone sour, fills the car. Once beautiful, now vile. Like a distorted echo from a past I can’t seem to escape. 

I turn. Slowly. Beatrice is sitting in the passenger seat staring back at me. As I last saw her when I was sixteen. When she broke my heart. 

I turn back to the front of the car. “This is not happening. This is not real.”

“You should know that I had to leave.”

“I can’t hear you. You’re not here. It’s all in my head.” 

“I had no choice.”

“Bullshit. You always have a choice. I was only a child. Do you know what I had to go through after you left?”

“Is that why you've been trying to kill yourself with alcohol?” 

I turn to her to argue, but I hold myself. I look back on the road.

Silence passes between us for a few long seconds.

“You could have told me you were pregnant—”

“Might as well have stood on a hill and shouted to the whole world that I fucked my pupil.” She pauses. She picks up my whiskey and takes a big sip. “I’d have lost my job, and you could have been expelled – you know St Edmunds and their rules. I thought it would go away quietly. I was an adult, and I told everyone I didn’t know who the father was. I was more comfortable with people thinking I was a whore than a pupil fucker.”

Silence settles in between us. I keep my eyes on the road, thinking of my life had Beatrice not left Mazabuka when she did. What could have been. Would we have been caught? Would I have been expelled? Would we have stayed together to raise our son? 

I glance over at the passenger seat. She’s no longer there. Only the whiskey bottle on the seat. And my doors are unlocked. 

“I just want to get home!” I say. “Please, I just want to get to my son.” Screaming now. Pressing the car lock button furiously.

I lift the Jack Daniels bottle, more than half empty now. I roll down my window, letting in the bedlam of the night outside. Exploding raindrops shooting their watery fragments haphazardly into the car with the wind rushing in. They sting my exposed skin with their frigidity. The 2-litre turbocharged engine of the car in full throttle, the tyres scraping against the wet asphalt, the nocturnal insects clicking and buzzing, birds chirping and tweeting, and the pungent queen of the night riding on the wind. As a remnant instinct from my childhood, I lift my hands to cover my ears, my car veers left, and I quickly put my hands back on the steering wheel. I’m about to toss the bottle out, but I think against it. I don’t chuck trash out of moving cars. No responsible, fully evolved human should. And also Jack Daniels is not cheap. I roll up the window and toss the bottle onto the backseat.

Silence. I’m alone with the filthy car interior crawling and squirming on my skin again. The headlamps barely pierce the eerie darkness in the rain. My wipers toiling in futility on my windscreen. The smell in the car is growing more sickening. I shudder. 

I switch on the radio and change the station. Serenje Kalindula Band. “Pa Shindaila.” Better. I turn up the volume. My hands still trembling. My heart still throbbing.

“Dru, what’s going on? I’ve been trying to call you?” 

I jump and almost lose control of the car again. Chana, my wife, is sitting next to me on the passenger’s seat. 

You look at Chana once and you conclude she was born from money. Coloured, beautiful, private school English, university engineering degree, and international post graduate degree. Truth is she was born and grew up in Musonda compound in Kitwe.

“She’s not real. She’s not real. It’s all in my head.” I mumble, rapidly. 

“How much have you had to drink even?”

“Not much.” Not looking at her. She usually reads me with one look at my face.

“Not much, eh?” she says, holding up the bottle for me to see. Then she opens it and takes a big sip.

“You’re not supposed to—”

“Why? Afraid you’re going to have another retard like Mazuba. So be it, maybe you’ll pay more attention to us. To me.” She says, emptying the whiskey into her mouth.

I take a deep breath. I turn to her, and I’m met by the empty whiskey bottle alone on the passenger’s seat. 

I lift the bottle, stare at it a few times. 

“Chana would never say that. She’s never used that word. It’s all in my head.” I shake myself to refocus on the road. But Chana’s image persists in my mind.

“Ati why didn’t you travel to Mazabuka?” she said last Saturday. Her voice, usually light, was flat, almost brittle.

I looked up from my laptop.

She stood at the threshold to the dining room, leaning against the doorframe. Something told me she had been standing there longer, observing me. The bulge of her belly just starting to show through my grey t-shirt. She wore nothing else underneath, revealing the dragonfly tattoo on her right thigh. The exact tattoo I have on my left inner upper arm. We got them two years before we got married. 

She held a mug in her hands. “Because you could have carried your laptop and worked from there.” She slurped her hot beverage, the sound unnaturally loud in the quiet room.

“You know I can’t work when I’m there.”

“I forgot – Dru is not able to ignore Mazuba – like he does some of us.” She stood straight. “Anyway, I’m off to bed. And can you please sleep in the spare room? I don’t really feel like the smell of whiskey tonight.” She turned. “I’m used to sleeping alone on Saturday, anyway. Goodnight.”

I watched her all the way until she disappeared into the living room.

When I shake myself from that memory, the rain is still pouring in buckets. Visibility is down almost to zero even with the efforts of my wipers. I ease off the accelerator. But even through the downpour, I see it. Even more clearly than I did earlier.

Standing in the middle of the road as it did before. Its left long arm with its pallid bony hand and wraithlike fingers extended towards me. That familiarity in the way it stands slaps me across my face even harder than the last time. The bow-shaped legs, the tilt of its head. It’s there, I can see it clearly. It’s not a figment of my imagination. 

My foot pushes harder on the accelerator, pedal to the metal this time. My tyres are slipping on the wet tarmac. The speedometer says I’m pushing 200 kilometres an hour; I tear my eyes from it. The numbers will only make me cower away from this. It’s just the ghost and me. Its left hand still held out towards me, telling me to stop.

I can see its face now. Or the lack of a face. There’s a void. A black hole sucking me towards it. Towards what I fear is my mortal end.

As I get closer, its silhouette slowly ceases to be an unknown ghostly figure. Revealing one that’s familiar. Dressed in blue jeans and a bright yellow round-neck t-shirt. Mum hates that t-shirt. Largely because of the subtle shadowy print of a human skull at the front. His white trainers are anchored on the road as if growing out of the black surface. His right arm shielding his eyes from the harsh glare of my headlamps. His left hand, his strong hand, extended towards me. 

He looks up from the bend of his arm. 

I stare at Mazuba in front of me, open-mouthed and wide-eyed. Unable to scream. Or speak. Or move. Or stop the car. 

“Run him over, you know your life would be better if he’s not there.”

“Please don’t. She just hates our son.” Beatrice’s voice comes from the backseat.

“The one you called a retard when you dumped him at his grandparents’ door—” Chana is screaming.

“I had nowhere else to take him,” Beatrice says. Screaming and sniffing. “My husband refused to raise another man’s child. Especially,  a child with special needs—”

“A retard. That’s what you called him.”

“No!” I scream. “Get out of my head.” 

“You know I’m right, Dru. We can have a happy family, you, me, and our baby. Admit it, you’ve thought about how much happier your life would be without him.” 

“No!” I swerve left, desperately trying to miss Mazuba’s doppelganger, and crashing into the rocky wall of the hill. 

The impact isn't a crash of metal, but a sickening lurch in my gut, a sudden, blinding flash behind my eyes. Not of light, but of pure, white oblivion. As if my very soul has collided with itself. A gasp tears from my throat, raw and involuntary, tasting of copper and fear.

I’ve dreamed of falling many times. It’s a familiar terrifying sensation. But this time, it twists. Not a plummet, but a gliding, a sudden lightness as if I've shed a heavy load. The wind ripples through my clothes and sings in my ears as I float. The smell of tranquillity, of petrichor on a bright sunny day. But it carries a chilling echo of what just happened. 

I see my car on the side of the road now. The front seems to have merged with the rock into which I slammed. And sprawled awkwardly a few paces from the back of the car, is Mazuba.

Then it all goes black. 

“So, how’s he? Our son. What kind of person is he?” Beatrice's voice cuts through the darkness..

“He’s a genius. He sees things us mortals can’t – good luck beating him at video games.” My slight laughter echoes in the darkness. “Chess is his super power. He’s a district champion – but now he wants to go and compete at national level. About time, if you ask me.” 

“That’s great. Sounds like you have done a good job.”

“My parents have done most of the work.”

“Is he able to speak now?” she says.

“He uses a speech app on his phone. Works well for the most part.”

Then it’s chillingly quiet.

I open my eyes, tentatively. The fluorescent light is too bright.

“Hey, baby.” I hear her voice before I see Chana. Her face now hovers over me.

I scan the room through squinted eyes. The ceiling is plain and crisp. My gaze slides down to cream walls and settles on the family photos hanging there. Pictures telling the story of my life. My parents’ wedding photo. Me and my siblings as babies, and in school uniforms. Some of Mazuba’s since he was five. 

I jump from the couch. “Stay away from me.” I yell, pushing Chana away from me.  

She tumbles to the floor near the couch, almost hitting her head against the old coffee table. Instinctively, one hand flies to her bulging tummy. She takes a deep breath, looking around her. She sniffs.

“You made me run over Mazuba. You hate my son. You called him— a…” I trail off.

I can see her eyes watering, and her face contorting into something. She turns away from me as if hiding her pending tears. 

Mum rushes into the room. “My son – my son – Andrew, my son, look at me. Look at me.”

I turn to her, as Chana picks herself up from the floor.  

“That was not Chana you saw. And that’s not Mazuba you saw.”

“She was there. I saw her. Even Beatrice was there. She tried to defend our son.”

“Beatrice who’s never shown her face here in eleven years? Even just to check up on her son. Is…” She trails off. She takes a deep breath, puts her hands on my shoulders, looking up into my face. “That’s not Beatrice you saw.” She pauses, studying my face. Possibly gauging my reaction to her statement, before she adds, softly. Almost whispering. “Look at me. Look at me. We’ve been hearing that story for the past month. That was not your son you saw.”

I shake my head, repeatedly, covering my ears with my hands. “No, no, no.” I turn to Chana, who stands a safe distance from us. Tears pouring down her cheeks. I give the room another sweeping glance. The moon-coloured tiles on the floor. The cream-coloured leather sofa that has been here since my childhood. My gaze rests on mum again. “Where’s Mazuba? I want to see him.” 

“He’s outside,  watering the garden.” Dad enters the room and goes to sit on his couch. Most likely for his daily dose of documentaries on BBC. About politics. Or the impending apocalypse due to climate change. Death by global warming.

The world around me spins making me feel giddy as I make my way to the kitchen. 

“Where are you going?” Mum calls behind me. 

I ignore her as I make my way towards the door. My gait a little more assured now..

“Leave him. The air outside will do him good,” Dad says just as I open the door.

“I’m worried about him.” It’s mum, lowering her voice. 

I close the door, but I don’t leave the house.

“Maybe it’s time we considered—”

“I’m not committing my son to a mental institution.”

I’m hearing them from the kitchen. They are whispering. Conniving against me.

“It’s been a month—”

“He’s getting better, at least he lasted three days. Remember in the past he couldn’t even last a few hours.” 

There’s a brief silence.

“I just want my husband back,” Chana says, her voice trembling. She sniffs.  

I open the door and stumble out of the house. Almost tumbling down the three steps. Images playing in my head. Contrasting and warring against each other. As I stagger towards the garden, the cold air bites my exposed skin. I notice my clothes now. Red t-shirt and blue jeans. I was wearing a black t-shirt and black jeans in the car.

And the contradicting images continue playing in my mind. One seems to dominate the other. I’m in Chana’s car, empty whiskey bottle on the passenger seat. The imagery is blurry. Uncoordinated. I veer into the other lane. There’s an oncoming car. I hit into the hill, in the cacophony of blaring car horns and people screaming.   

I stop dead at the edge of the garden. “Oh my God. What have I done?” 

I remember everything. I didn’t use my car; it was too dirty. Chana offered her car and promised that she’d have my car washed before I returned from Mazabuka. The gravity of it all weighs down on me. My hands rise to my head. Pressing against my ears. Trying to shush the voices in my head. 

What happened to those people I heard screaming? Were they injured?  “Oh my God, oh my God. Fuck. Shit.”

I remember the delicious aroma of whiskey and the rich taste of it on my tongue. But that memory inspires a wrenching in my gut, pushing up its contents to my throat. I lower my head and allow my disgusting sick to pour out of me. I may have killed people. More vomit explodes out of me, pushing me to my knees, forcing me to surrender to it. The smell of it is vile, like bad eggs and spoilt milk. Its grainy bitterness lingering in my mouth.

“Are you okay, Dad?” The AI voice sounds far. Like a distant call.

I force out the remnants of my vomit in several quick spits before looking up at Mazuba, my body weak from retching.

He taps at the screen of his phone. “Are you feeling okay, Dad?’ He taps the screen again. “Vomiting can cause weakness due to dehydration, can I help you back into the house? You need to rest and hydrate.” 

I rub off the dust on my palms on the sides of my jeans. I extend my hand to him. Testing the waters, seeing his reaction. 

“Your hands are dirty.” 

“Damnit, Mazuba, I just want you to help me up.” 

He stands perfectly still, looking down at me like seeing me for the first time. Then he quickly turns and walks away. I watch him closely, with a knowing smile, as he comes back with the hose, directing the water jet at my hands. 

I chuckle and wash my hands.

When he helps me up to my feet, I hug him. Not a quick, perfunctory hug, but a tight, desperate embrace. His body, stiff at first, slowly relaxes into mine. All that matters in this moment is this warm, living presence in my arms. This is my son. Living, breathing, being awesomely weird, being himself. And I’m here. Finally, here. Present. Ready to move forward.

But. Out in the corner of my eye, I see it. Like a tall, luminous shadow, left hand pointing at me. I scream, letting go of Mazuba. I run towards the house, and trip, falling backwards. 

Everything goes black. 

“I wanted to avoid awkward sad goodbyes. I cared more for you than you imagined.” Beatrice’s voice booms in the darkness, leaving behind a subtle echo.

Then it’s chillingly quiet.

*

I blink. Several times. The road stretches ahead of me. Dark, cold and lonely. The sun was sliding from its lofty perch in the mournfully prismatic sky when I left home in Chamba Valley over an hour ago. It’s 19:43 now, and the darkness has thickened like a funereal blanket. The air in my car smells of dust and the spilled whiskey on the front passenger carpet from Wednesday evening. 

It’s like a tangible film clinging to my skin.

I’m certain it will rain any minute.