The walk to Gogo Nomusa's place felt heavier than usual, as if the dust on the road knew where I was going and wanted to cling to me.
By the time I reached her yard, I could already smell the smoke — strong impepho curling into the air in steady streams. Her home stood quiet, but not silent. The silence here was alive, carrying a weight you could feel in your bones.
She was waiting for me. Not sitting, not busy with her herbs — just standing in the doorway, her white cloth catching the afternoon light.
"Ngena, mfana wami," she said. Come in, my son.
Inside, the air was thick with the scent of burnt herbs and something sweeter beneath — a smell that pulled me straight into memory. Zinhle. The moment I breathed it in, I knew.
Gogo Nomusa was already watching me closely. "You brought something back from Johannesburg," she said.
I hesitated. "Yes, just like you asked?"
Her eyes didn't blink. "You did really good, bringing back Zinhle's aura and confirming that she had indeed gotten rid of that innocent soul means we can now start doing the work."
A shiver ran through me. I hadn't spoken Zinhle's name since I left the city. I'd buried her in my mind, along with the child we'd lost.
"This aura is significant," Gogo continued, her voice low but steady. "The curse choking humanity… it cannot be broken without it. That child you lost, if you cleanse and introduce them to the ancestors, they will become the bridge between the living and the dead."
I stared at her. "Introduce the child?"
She nodded. "You will call the spirit of your child into this land. You will speak their name into the fire and water. Only then will the ancestors fully open their ears to your cry for humanity."
I felt something twist in my chest. "Will the people get better?"
Gogo's expression darkened. "Yes the people are not fully alive. Spiritually, they are zombies — trapped in collective programming. For generations, they have been taught to think small, to fight each other, to worship their chains. This is the curse: a prison that renews itself with every child born here."
Her words settled on me like a weight I couldn't shrug off. I thought of the blank stares I'd seen in the streets, the way people repeated the same gossip like it was gospel, the senseless violence that erupted for no reason. It wasn't just poverty. It wasn't just anger. It was something deeper — and older.
"So how do we break it?" I asked.
"You must give the child a name, call them back, cleanse them, and stand before the ancestors with them by your side. You will then lead a cleansing for the whole world. But beware…" She leaned closer, her voice dropping to almost a whisper. "The curse will fight you. The spiritually undead will not let go without a war. They will come for you in dreams, in shadows, in the faces of people you once trusted."
The room seemed to grow darker as she spoke. The impepho smoke curled toward me like it was listening.
"Your role is not just to survive anymore," Gogo said finally. "kmele uvuse abalele." awaken those spiritually asleep.
I left her home with the smell of Zinhle still in my nose, her cry echoing faintly in my ears. Every step back through the township felt strange. People greeted me, smiled even, but their eyes… their eyes were empty.
They didn't know they were asleep.
And I had just been told it was my job to wake them up.