The sun was just peeping over the hills when Mandla stepped out of his small round hut, stretching his arms as if he wanted to pull the morning closer.

The air was fresh with the smell of damp earth, for rain had fallen in the night, leaving drops of water clinging to the grass like tiny beads of glass.

Goats bleated in the distance, and the rooster crowed a second time, declaring that the day had truly begun. Mandla, known for his hardworking hands and gentle heart, was preparing himself for another day of labor.

He tied his sandals, checked the small bundle of tools he always carried, and hummed a song his late father used to sing about strength and patience. That was when his neighbor, Nomvula, came rushing towards him with panic in her eyes and a folded leaflet in her hand.

“Mandla,”

She said, gasping for breath,

“look at this! They say you are dead.”

Mandla frowned as he took the leaflet, his calloused fingers trembling slightly. At first, he thought it was some mistake, maybe a notice about another man with his name, for Mandla was not uncommon. But when he opened it, his heart nearly stopped.

The paper carried a picture of him, wearing the brown jacket he had worn proudly at his cousin’s wedding the year before. Underneath the photograph, the words stared at him coldly: In Loving Memory of Mandla Maseko. It listed his year of birth and the year of death this very year, this very month.

His throat felt dry, his stomach churned, and a great heaviness fell upon him like a blanket woven from stones. The villagers who had followed Nomvula gathered closer, peering over his shoulder.

They whispered to one another, shaking their heads, clicking their tongues in disbelief. An old woman muttered,

“The mouth that says you are alive may also say you are dead, but paper does not lie.”

Another man crossed himself and walked away quickly, refusing to look Mandla in the eye, as though fearing he was looking upon a ghost.

Confusion boiled inside him, but Mandla was a man who did not run from problems. Instead of hiding, he tightened his sandals and said in a firm voice,

“I must see this with my own eyes.”

The program had listed the funeral as being held at a homestead near the river, less than an hour’s walk away. His legs felt heavy, but his will pushed him forward.

The villagers followed at a distance, whispering as they went. Some shook their heads in pity, others in fear, for they had never heard of a man walking to his own burial.

“He walks like a living man,” one said,
“but perhaps his spirit is already gone.”
“If the ancestors have called him, who are we to stop them?”

Another replied. Each step Mandla took seemed to echo louder in his ears, as if even the ground wanted to remind him of the strangeness of this journey.

When he reached the homestead, the sound of drums greeted him first, slow and heavy, like the heartbeat of the earth itself. The wailing of women filled the air, rising and falling like waves against rocks.

Men stood in groups, their faces solemn, their arms folded across their chests. Children clung to their mothers, their wide eyes peering curiously at the approaching figure of Mandla.

In the center of the yard, beneath a large white tent, a wooden coffin rested on a stand, draped in a sheet. Beside it stood a banner written in bold letters: Rest in Peace, Mandla Maseko.

His knees weakened, for the sight before him was like looking into a mirror of death. The photograph on the banner was his, the same confident smile, the same jacket, the same eyes that were now filled with dread as he stared.

He hesitated at the entrance of the tent, expecting that the moment he stepped in, the mourners would gasp, drop their plates of food, and scatter in disbelief.

He imagined his mother screaming his name, rushing to embrace him, and elders demanding to know what kind of witchcraft was at play. But when he walked into the gathering, the wailing continued as if nothing had changed.

Some eyes glanced his way, but they showed no surprise, no fear, no shock. Instead, the mourners nodded politely, some even greeted him softly,

“Sawubona, Mandla,”

As though greeting a man who was expected, a man who belonged. The world felt as if it had shifted sideways, leaving him unsteady and cold.

Then his eyes found his mother. She sat close to the coffin, dressed in black cloth, her head wrapped tightly with a scarf. Tears streaked her face, her hands shook as she dabbed at her eyes with a corner of her shawl.

Mandla’s heart broke at the sight, for he could not bear to see her weeping for him. Yet when her eyes lifted and fell upon him standing alive before her, she did not scream. She did not leap up in joy or horror.

Instead, she gave a slow nod, as if she had been waiting for this moment, as if his presence there was no surprise at all. And in that nod, Mandla felt something shift deep in his chest, a chill colder than the morning rain: perhaps he was not as alive as he thought.