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22/09/2025

PUBLISH'D AFRIKA MAGAZINE FACEBOOK SHORT STORY COMPETITION - SEPTEMBER 2025 LEG

TITLE: When We Were
Written by Lerato Ramalapa

Sweat clung to his skin as he quickened his pace, calling out to the fading shadow disappearing into the dark. No matter how close he thought he was, the figure always slipped further away like a memory that refused to be caught. It was strange how his past always stayed just ahead of him, never letting him catch it. He would sometimes wonder why he kept holding onto it, but the pain meant he was still breathing, and it was the only memory he was left with.
Chad jolted awake as his heart was beating so violently in his chest, he pushed himself out of bed, took a shower, and the sun was starting to come out at Bersig as he tossed his bag onto the back seat of his car and drove back to where it all began. He had an option to go see a therapist about his dreams, but Chad was an African man, raised by the words “Men don’t cry”. He didn’t want a stranger to peel away his dignity.
As he drove along those familiar roads, the autumn wind rattling his car windows, Chad felt the ache deepen with every passing kilometre, a constant reminder of why he had left. Now that he was returning, one question replayed endlessly in his mind, “What would he say?”
By three in the afternoon, he found himself in Houghton, standing before his brother’s home. He hesitated to knock, but he did and finally stepped inside the house. Chad didn’t have any problem with seeing his siblings, but he was afraid of how they would see him, a lesser man who hadn’t defended them when their parents threatened to shift the blame of money laundering onto their shoulders. A man who had walked away, but his sister’s warm embrace and his brother’s eager smile melted his fears. They had forgiven him long ago, and in their eyes, he was still family, still their brother.
For a moment, the weight lifted, and he allowed himself to breathe again. The familiar smell of Houghton reminded him of what he had left behind, but something was weighing down on him, and it resurfaced each time he sat in silence watching the sunset.
The next morning, Chad rose early and made his way to the restaurant, the restaurant that was once their family’s restaurant. But because of their parents’ betrayal and greed, they lost it all. Chad lost Maggie, too, the blue-eyed girl whose laughter once filled the air and whose smile could brighten his darkest days.
He lingered at the doorway, staring at the very spot where he first saw her. The first time they met, Maggie had mistakenly spilled juice on his jacket, as she was serving him with his friends, and as she was apologising, Chad couldn’t hear a word she said, and as he drove home that night, Maggie's face kept replaying in his head.
Slowly, he stepped inside and took a seat at the counter. The place felt familiar yet hollow, haunted by echoes of what used to be. He waited, hoping against hope that he might see Maggie. After thirty long minutes of silence, his phone rang.
Chad’s heart tightened as he answered the phone call. It was his father asking to see him. The last time he had seen his father was the day of his sentencing, when he finally went to prison for all the things he had done. Now, after all these years, his father wanted to see him. Why? Chad felt torn between anger, disbelief, and the unhealed scars of the past.
Facing his father wasn’t part of Chad’s plan. He had written him off the day he threatened his siblings and Maggie, his fiancée.
“You testify against me, my son, and you all go down with me, including Maggie, “his father had said when Chad begged him to tell the truth in court about the food poisoning, the tragedy that had claimed lives, including Maggie’s father.
The weight of it had crushed Chad. His parents’ actions had destroyed so much, the death of Maggie’s father, followed shortly by the passing of her mother, leaving Maggie alone. Chad couldn’t bring himself to see his father. He was the man who had ruined his life, the man whose choices had taken everything he loved.
The phone call ended abruptly in his hands. Without another thought, he left the restaurant, and the memories of Maggie and the past kept pressing heavily against his chest; he had to see her. That evening, Chad drove past Maggie’s home, torn between summoning the courage to get out of the car and knock on her door, but he couldn’t.
The next day, he returned to the restaurant, hoping to see her, but she was nowhere to be found. Where was Maggie?
It had been four years since he last spoke to her. The last time he saw her, they had gone out for dinner, and when Chad excused himself to the restroom, he returned to find the table empty; on it was a note that read “This is the end, Chad. Goodbye” with the engagement ring on top of the note. He spent the whole of that night driving the streets of Houghton, calling her name into the darkness, calling her cell phone that didn’t go through, searching her home, but she was gone. Months passed, and Chad’s search yielded nothing. Piece by piece, every fibre of him seemed to unravel; each glance in the mirror reflected a stranger, someone broken and lost.
Maggie was gone, and the blame weighed on him. His father, his family, their greed and betrayal, all had cost him the woman he loved. He fought with his siblings, with strangers, with anyone, hoping to unleash the fire of his own wound, and he eventually left Houghton.
Now that he was back, he had hoped she might be at the place where they once lived, but it had been years; how long can one stay away from their hometown?
Chad left the restaurant and drove to Maggie’s home. This time, he summoned the courage to get out of the car and knock, but he was met with unfamiliar faces. Maggie no longer lived there. She had vanished from Houghton, and his heart sank. How could one person disappear into thin air, leaving such emptiness behind?
Chad asked around and finally got Maggie’s address. That evening, he said goodbye to his siblings and drove to Bathurst, relieved to finally have the chance to see her again. He remembered their drives downtown to watch live concerts, their Friday strolls through the botanical gardens, lazy Sundays watching sunsets, and dreaming of a life together.
Once in Bathurst, Chad booked into a guesthouse and rested briefly before he could go see her. Thoughts and emotions collided in his mind. What would he say to her? “Hi Maggie” felt inadequate compared to the whirlwind of feelings he carried.
The next day during midday, dressed neatly in a long-sleeve shirt, dress pants, and sneakers, Chad drove to her house. It was a beautiful grey house, surrounded by trees and brown fallen leaves. Two swings and a colourful slide peeked through the thinning branches. He knocked, his heart racing and his palms sweating. A man answered the door, greeting him politely. With a trembling voice, Chad managed to say:
“I’m looking for someone named Maggie.”
“And who are you?” the man asked.
“I’m an old friend of Maggie's.”
The man invited him inside the living room and called out to Maggie. Moments later, Maggie appeared. The reunion he had longed for was now happening. Chad rose and stepped forward, his eyes drinking in her face, the face he had wished to see for all these years. He reached out his hand and touched her cheek, and whispered, “It’s you.”
Tears welled as he embraced her; he had finally found her. The man excused himself to tend to the children, leaving them alone.
“Chad… what are you doing here?” Maggie asked as she broke off the embrace. Her voice held no warmth, but Chad’s own voice trembled as he asked why she had left him.
“I didn’t want to hate you,” she said quietly. “But your family… everything they did ruined my life. I had to go away.”
Chad’s chest tightened as the truth hit him. Maggie was no longer his. She had married, built a family, and found happiness without him. His longing, his grief, the years of yearning, longing, they had all ended here, in the bittersweet reality of her life without him.
He swallowed the lump in his throat as tears blurred his vision. Words failed him, and his dignity was all he had left. With a heavy heart, he stepped back, letting go of the hope he had carried for so long. Maggie had moved on, and there was no place for him in her life anymore.
Driving away from Bathurst, the wind brushing his face, Chad felt the ache of loss, sharp and unrelenting, yet beneath it, a quiet stir of release began to form, a recognition that he could no longer live in the shadows of what once was. Memories of her laughter, her gentle touch, and the curve of her smile all stayed with him.
He had loved, and he had lost. It had always been Maggie. How could he let go of the only love he had ever known, the one whose face lingered in every crowd, whose laugh echoed in every moment of silence? Every soul he met carried a fleeting shadow of her, yet none could ever compare. And so, he held on to the ache, cradling it like a fragile ember, painful, yet the only remnant of a love that had defined him.
He had found the love of his life, but he owed karma and paid the full price.

22/09/2025

PUBLISH'D AFRIKA MAGAZINE FACEBOOK SHORT STORY COMPETITION - SEPTEMBER 2025 LEG

TITLE: So What Now?
Written by Harrison Ncube

They let me out on a Thursday.
The prison gates didn’t swing open like in the movies. No choir singing. No slow motion. Just the dry crunch of gravel under my takkies, the heat of the Johannesburg sun licking my bald head, and the parole officer’s half-hearted pat on the back.
“Don’t come back,” he muttered, as if I ever wanted to.
Ten years. Ten full years. For a murder I didn’t commit. For the stabbing of a man I never even knew. Witness said they saw me. CCTV said otherwise. But the law—no, the system—it chose to believe the worst of me. A poor Venda man from Makonde who married above his class.
I was 29. Just married to Tshegofatso. A Sotho girl with a sharp tongue and a body that made even the priests sin quietly. We had only just started trying for a child. We were learning from each other. We had plans.
And then...
A body. A trial. A sentence. Life in prison, they said. But here I am. Ten years later. Out on parole for good behaviour, with no money, no job, no name.
I didn’t know where else to go. So I went home.
Midrand had changed.
New estates. New gates. New people. But the street name was the same. Lecha Street. I knew it like I knew the beat of my own heart. That third house from the stop sign, the one with the lemon tree by the gate. That was my house. Or… used to be.
I stood there for a minute. Just breathing. My hands are shaking a bit. A part of me still thought she’d open the door and smile. That Tshegofatso would scream, cry, and run into my arms. Tell me it was all a nightmare.
Instead, the gate opened electronically from the inside. Out walked a man. Younger than me. Clean fade, gold chain, shorts, and vest. Holding a hosepipe, watering my garden.
He saw me. Frowned.
“Can I help you?”
I swallowed something dry in my throat. “Where’s Tshegofatso?”
He stepped closer. “Who wants to know?”
“I’m her husband.”
He squinted. Laughed. A short, unsure chuckle. “Nah, broer. You’re lost. I’m her man. You must be confused.”
I stepped forward. “Open the door. Let me talk to her.”
“Not gonna happen, chief.”
Then the door opened.
And there she was. My wife. Tshegofatso. Ten years older. Softer. But still her. Still beautiful. Still fire in her eyes. Her mouth fell open when she saw me. Like she’d seen a ghost. She dropped her car keys.
“Kabelo?”
I didn’t answer.
She looked at the man. “Mpho… go inside.”
He looked confused. “You know this guy?”
She ignored him. Stepped out. Closer. Close enough for me to smell her perfume. It wasn’t the one I knew.
“Kabelo,” she whispered again. “They said you were serving life. What... how?”
“I’m out. Parole.”
She didn’t hug me. She didn’t even touch me. Ten years, and she just stood there. Like I was an invoice she forgot to pay.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
That cut deep. Deep like prison shanks in the shower.
“This is my house.”
Her laugh was bitter. “Was. Ten years ago.”
“I never signed divorce papers.”
“You were going to die in prison, Kabelo! What was I supposed to do? Wait? Grow old alone? Raise a baby by myself?”
“Baby?”
The word tasted foreign in my mouth.
She froze. S**t. She hadn’t meant to say it.
“You had a child?”
Tshegofatso looked at the door, where Mpho now stood holding the hand of a boy. A boy with my ears. My nose. My damn walk.
“Who is that?” I asked.
“My son,” she said too fast.
“OUR son?”
Silence.
Mpho’s face twisted. “Wait… what’s going on here?”
“Tell him!” I snapped.
She looked at Mpho. “He’s Kabelo. My… my ex. From before.”
“Before what?” Mpho asked.
“Before you. Before everything.”
The boy, confused, clung to Mpho. “Papa?” he asked.
That broke me. Right there.
Ten years behind bars. No visits. No letters. Nothing. Meanwhile, my son was learning to call another man Papa.
I turned around. Started walking.
Tshegofatso ran after me. “Kabelo, wait!”
I spun. “You let me rot in there. You told me it was over. You didn’t even give me the chance to prove I was innocent.”
“You confessed!”
“I was forced to. You think SAPS treats men like me fair?”
“I was scared!” she cried. “I was pregnant, alone. I hated you for what they said you did. I couldn’t… I couldn’t face you.”
“So you ran to Mpho?”
She didn’t answer.
“Did you tell him?”
“No.”
“Does he know that’s not his son?”
She shook her head.
I laughed. “So what now?”
She was crying. Silent tears.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I didn’t expect you to come back.”
“I wasn’t dead.”
“You were to me.”
We stood there in silence. The boy peeked at me from behind Mpho. I couldn’t stop staring. Ten years. Ten years I’ll never get back. His first steps. First words. First day of school.
Gone.
Stolen.
I wanted to scream. To throw bricks. To drag Mpho out of my house and burn it all down. But I didn’t. Because the boy was watching. And it wasn’t his fault......
That night, the streets felt colder than prison. I sat on the pavement across from what used to be my home. Tshegofatso’s home. Our home. The lights inside glowed like a wound that wouldn’t close. Every time I blinked, I saw the boy’s face. My face. Mpho’s hand on his shoulder like he owned something he didn’t even know wasn’t his.
Just as I was about to leave, Tshegofatso opened the gate. She didn’t say anything. She just looked at me, her face tight, make-up smudged at the corners like it was holding back a flood. Then she stepped aside.
“Come inside.”
I hesitated. My pride wanted me to tell her to go to hell. But my feet had other plans. My bones were tired. My heart even more.
I walked in. The house smelled different. Vanilla and something flowery. Not the scent I remembered. Her laugh no longer echoed in the walls like it used to. The paint was newer. So was the furniture. But the tiles? Same cracked ones by the kitchen. Same wooden floor that creaked in the passage. Some ghosts never leave.
Mpho sat on the couch, arms folded, eyes like knives.
“He’s not staying here,” he said flatly.
Tshegofatso didn’t even flinch. “Just for tonight.”
He looked at her like he didn’t recognise her.
“This is my house,” she said softly. “And legally, he’s still my husband.”
That hit him.
“And you just... decide that on your own?”
“He has nowhere to go.”
Mpho stood, jaw clenched. “He’s not a stray, Tshego. He's a convicted—”
“I was convicted,” I cut in, my voice calm but heavy. “And now I’m out. And this is still my house. And that boy... is my blood.”
Silence.
Mpho looked between us, then stormed down the passage, slamming the bedroom door.
She rubbed her temples. “You can sleep in the guest room.”
“Same one your mother used to hate?” I asked.
She smiled, just a little. “Yeah. That one.”
I didn’t sleep. I lay there staring at the ceiling. Listening to the muffled arguing in the bedroom. Mpho’s voice, loud and angry. Hers, quieter but firm. I didn’t hear it all, but I caught one line: “You lied to me, Tshego. About everything.”
In the morning, the boy padded into the kitchen while I sat at the table, nursing a mug of black coffee. No sugar. Just like prison.
He stared at me. I stared back.
“You look like my school principal,” he finally said.
I chuckled. “Is that good or bad?”
He shrugged. “He shouts a lot.”
I nodded slowly. “Do I look like your papa, too?”
He frowned. “No. My papa is Mpho.”
That stung.
But I smiled. “Right. Sorry.”
He tilted his head. “Are you my uncle?”
I didn’t answer.
Tshegofatso walked in just then, saving me. Her hair was tied up in a bun. She wore old sweats. The same ones I used to steal from her.
“Musa,” she said gently, “this is... Uncle Kabelo. He’s visiting.”
“From where?”
She hesitated. “From... far. Very far.”
The boy seemed satisfied with that. Kids believe anything if it comes from someone they trust. He ran off to the lounge.
I stared at her.
“Uncle?” I asked.
She looked guilty. “What was I supposed to say?”
“The truth.”
“That you’re a man he’s never met? That I lied about his father? That I gave up on his real dad while he was in prison?” She rubbed her arms. “I was trying to protect him.”
I shook my head. “No. You were trying to protect yourself.”
She didn’t argue. A few moments passed.
“You’re not gonna stay here long,” she said.
“How long is long?”
“I don’t know. Just... not forever.”
I nodded.
“Fine.” Then I looked her dead in the eyes. “But I’m not leaving without my son knowing the truth.”
She looked away. And just like that, the war began.
The guesthouse smelled like dust and old promises.
She handed me a soft, lavender-scented, and our fingers touched for a second. Too long. She pulled back like she’d been shocked. I didn’t flinch. I wanted her to feel it. That discomfort. That guilt.
She sat across from me, perched on the edge of the bed like a guilty teenager waiting to confess to her parents. Eyes down. Knees clutched. Breath shallow.
“I wasn’t supposed to see you again,” she said finally, her voice breaking like weak glass.
“I figured.”
I sat stiffly on the old armchair in the corner, arms crossed, heart thumping louder than I liked. The prison clothes they gave me on the way out still clung to me like bad memories. The guesthouse looked familiar—the same paint, the same scent, but it wasn’t home. Not anymore.
She looked up. “I need to explain. I owe you that.”
“You do,” I said, not out of kindness. Just facts.
She sighed like the truth was a heavy suitcase she had to drag across gravel. “When they arrested you… they told me everything. The victim. The weapon. The confession. I was pregnant, Kabelo. I had just found out. Two weeks. I thought it was the stress making me sick.”
The word “pregnant” hit me like fists used to in prison. Back then, you brace. Now, I couldn’t.
“You never told me,” I said, the room tilting slightly.
“I couldn’t. You were gone. They said life. That you confessed. I thought the man I loved was dead. Or worse… a killer.”
“So you gave up on me.”
She looked away. “I didn’t know how to fight.”
“No,” I spat. “You didn’t want to fight.”
She started crying. Silent tears. The kind that screams without sound.
“And then?” I pressed. “Then you met him?”
“Mpho was… kind,” she said. “He helped me. I was scared. Alone. I didn’t tell him about the baby at first. I told him I was just heartbroken. He believed me.”
“So what changed?”
“I panicked,” she said, voice cracking. “I told him I was pregnant. That it was his.”
I stood up. The chair squeaked behind me. “You lied.”
“I was drowning!”
“And you let me rot. Ten years. No letters. No visits. Nothing.”
“I hated you, Kabelo. I hated what I thought you’d done. I needed to survive.”
I paced, my fists clenched. If the walls could scream, they’d be louder than me.
“I want a divorce,” I said. “First thing, Monday. I’ll go clean my name. Get my truth out. Then I’ll sign whatever needs signing.”
“You’re not the only one hurting,” she whispered.
I turned to her. “Don’t. Don’t you dare make this about you.”
Just then, a creak outside the door.
I opened it and there he was.
Mpho. Frozen. Like a child caught stealing sugar.
“How long were you standing there?” I asked.
He looked at her. Then me. Then her again.
“Long enough,” he said.
She stood. “Mpho, I can expl—”
He cut her off. “Don’t. Just don’t.”
“Mpho…”
“You lied to me. You lied to all of us. To me. To him. To Musa.”
The name stung. Musa. Our son.
He stepped back, shaking his head. “I’m done. I’m leaving.”
“Mpho...”
“No,” he said firmly. “You told me this house was built on pain. I didn’t realise I was the bandage.”
He looked at me.
“She made me believe I was a father,” he said, voice trembling. “But I guess I was just the placeholder.”
And then he left. Just like that. I turned to her.
“I’ll be back in the morning,” I said. “And I’ll fight. Not for you. But for him.”
“Kabelo, please...”
“I want sole custody. You took ten years from me. I’m taking ten back.”
She slumped onto the bed, her face buried in her hands.
And I walked out. Into the dark Johannesburg night, with one question echoing in my head like a church bell on Sunday: So what now?

22/09/2025

PUBLISH'D AFRIKA MAGAZINE FACEBOOK SHORT STORY COMPETITION - SEPTEMBER 2025 LEG
Title: The Day I Decided Not to Die Poor
Written by Mduduzi Sikhosana

I used to think life changed in big, dramatic moments—a lottery win, a job offer, some miracle landing in your lap. I didn’t know it could happen quietly, on a Tuesday afternoon, with no music playing, no fireworks. Just me, sitting in the back of a grocery store during my lunch break, staring at the wall like it owed me answers.
The store smelled like stale bread and cleaning detergent. I’d just spent the morning stacking tins of baked beans and smiling at customers who didn’t even look at my face. My hands were dry from the boxes. My feet hurt. My mind was loud—loud with questions I couldn’t answer: Is this it? Is this what my life is supposed to be?
I’m not stupid. I know there are worse jobs. I know people have harder lives. But when you’re twenty-something, still living in your parents’ house, still counting coins at the till for bread, still borrowing from tomorrow to survive today, it doesn’t feel like “better” is on the horizon. It feels like the horizon keeps walking away from you.
I pulled out my phone. Opened my banking app. Stared at the numbers. R147.62. Payday was nine days away. I laughed—that short, sharp laugh you make when you’re so deep in the hole, you might as well treat it like a joke.
The break room door opened. Thabiso walked in, wiping sweat off his forehead. He’s been working at the store for ten years. “What’s funny?” he asked, chucking his lunch onto the table.
“My account,” I said. He nodded slowly, as if that explained everything. “It’s always the account.”
He pulled a plastic container of pap and stew from his bag. The steam fogged up his glasses.
“You know what I realised?” he said between bites. “If you’re not careful, the years will pass here. And you’ll wake up and you’re me.”
I wanted to ask, what’s wrong with being you? But I didn’t. I could see it in his eyes—the tiredness, the resignation. This job was not a steppingstone for him. It was the stone. And he’d been standing on it for a decade.
That conversation haunted me all week. Every customer’s voice, every barcode I scanned, every mop I pushed, all I heard was Thabiso’s words. The years will pass here. One night, I lay in bed scrolling through my phone. I watched videos of people who’d made it—started businesses, travelled, wore clothes that looked expensive even through a cracked screen. I don’t know why I tortured myself like that. Maybe I wanted to feel something. Instead, I just felt smaller.
And then I saw this clip of a guy—not famous, not rich-looking, just a regular oke talking into his phone—saying: “If you don’t change your life, it will stay the same. Sounds stupid, right? But think about it. You can hate your situation and still never do anything about it.” That hit me like a punch. Because that was me. I hated my situation, but what was I doing? Complaining. Dreaming. Scrolling. Nothing.
That Sunday, I woke up early and sat outside. The street was quiet, except for the distant sound of a taxi ho**er. My parents were still sleeping. I took out a notebook. Wrote at the top: “What would it take to never live like this again?”
I didn’t write dreams—no mansions, no sports cars, no private jets. I wrote survival goals: no debt, my own place, money to fix my mother’s roof. Goals that felt almost embarrassing to admit because they were so small compared to the world’s definition of “success.” But to me, they were freedom.
I started with one small thing. I stopped buying takeaways after work. I brought bread from home. The extra R300 a month wasn’t much, but it was something. I sold old sneakers I didn’t wear anymore. I read about people making money online—not scams, but real skills. I didn’t know where to start, so I just started.
The first month, I made R250 selling designs for football jerseys on a freelancing site. I remember holding my phone and smiling like I’d won the Lotto. R250 wouldn’t even fill my tank, but it was proof—proof that there was a way out that didn’t involve begging for promotions from managers who didn’t know my name.
But it wasn’t smooth. There were nights I felt like quitting. Nights I stared at my laptop, exhausted from work, wondering if I was stupid to believe I could change. My parents didn’t get it—they’d grown up in a world where a job was a blessing you never questioned.
“You’re chasing dreams,” my father said one night at dinner, “but dreams don’t pay the lights.”
I wanted to tell him that’s exactly why I was chasing them. But instead, I just nodded.
Over the months, the extra R250 became R800, then R1,200. I saved most of it, even when it hurt. I started seeing numbers in my bank account that didn’t make me laugh bitterly. Then one day, the store manager asked if I wanted to go full-time.
“More hours, more pay,” he said.
I thought about it for exactly three seconds before saying, “No.”
He looked confused. Most people in my position would have grabbed the offer. But I knew that “more hours” meant less time to build my way out. And I wasn’t going to give this store more of my life than it had already taken.
The turning point came quietly, the same way it began. I was in the back room again, on lunch break. I opened my banking app. This time, I didn’t see R147.62. I saw R12,356.80. I stared at it for a long time. That money wasn’t from the store. It was from me—from the hours I’d stolen back, the discipline I’d forced on myself, the belief I’d built day by day.
I thought about Thabiso. About how easy it would have been to stay on that stone forever. And I thought about the guy in the video—“If you don’t change your life, it will stay the same.”
He was right. I closed the app, finished my sandwich, and went back to work. But this time, I didn’t feel trapped. I felt like someone counting down the days. Because now, I knew.
I wasn’t going to die poor.

22/09/2025

PUBLISH'D AFRIKA MAGAZINE FACEBOOK SHORT STORY COMPETITION - SEPTEMBER 2025 LEG

TITLE: The City She Wore
Written by P**e S. Mokgadinyane

"Ke yona Jozi e?" P**eng asked the passenger next to her.
"Not exactly," she answered. "This is Midrand."
"We will be in Johannesburg anything between 20 and 25 minutes," she continued.
The taxi had travelled long enough for P**eng to think they had arrived at the city of lights. The lights here were sufficient to evoke a sense of the city she longed for. A city where the distance between her here and there awaited.
With only a duffel bag and a handbag with a purse without a bank card, sans the R53 she was hoping would get her to Mashudu's flat. Mashudu had said his flat was a walking distance of the MTN taxi rank. But P**eng didn’t want to risk it. As a newbie in what she’d heard was the busiest city in the whole of South Africa, she intended to e-hail to the flat.
It’s safer that way, she said to herself.
Mashudu’s flat smelled like old incense and new ambition. The curtains were sheer, letting in a light that felt borrowed: soft, filtered, not quite Jozi’s full glare. P**eng sat on the edge of the sleeper couch, her duffel bag at her feet, watching Mashudu pace between voice notes and outfit changes.
“You’ll find your rhythm,” Mashudu said, tossing a scarf over her shoulder. “Jozi doesn’t wait, but it does reward.”
P**eng nodded, though her fingers gripped her phone like a lifeline. She hadn’t come to be styled. She’d come to see. That night, she barely slept. The city hummed outside like a promise she hadn’t yet earned. By morning, she was out the door, camera app open, heart ajar, chasing something she couldn’t name yet.
The Girl in the Oversized Jacket
The sun was beginning its slow descent behind Jozi’s jagged skyline, casting a golden haze across Braamfontein that felt too perfect to waste. P**eng had spent three hours on the curb of a busy street, her smartphone clutched in both hands like a prayer. She’d walked past storefront mannequins with limbs that didn’t reflect her life, and style bloggers snapping selfies with borrowed swagger.
Then she saw her.
A little girl, maybe seven, waiting outside a tuck shop with a juice box and a stare that rivalled the skyline. She wore an oversized burnt-orange corduroy jacket, sleeves dragging almost to her knees, cinched around the waist with a plastic shoelace. Her shoes didn’t match. Her hair was braided into twin galaxy buns with bright green ribbons. The colours clashed but the confidence didn’t.
P**eng dropped to a squat, tilted her phone up slightly, and clicked.
The image was more than aesthetic. It was contradiction, charisma, and Johannesburg itself wrapped in second-hand ambition. The backdrop—a graffitied wall with peeling paint spelling “Still Here.” The child didn’t smile. She posed like she knew she’d be seen.
P**eng posted the image with the caption: Not dressed to impress. Just dressed to exist. .
Then she looked back up but the girl was gone. Just like Jozi. Here for a heartbeat. Gone in a blink.
Meeting Thandi
P**eng stood in the foyer of the tiny Newtown studio, palms damp inside her jacket pockets. The walls were covered in black-and-white portraits. Not of models but of people P**eng would call “ordinary,” yet the way they were captured made them mythic. One showed a man with tribal earrings standing barefoot in a rain puddle; another a woman mid-laugh, head wrapped in Ankara, eyes flashing like strobe lights.
She was admiring a print of a boy eating mango with both hands when she heard the voice.
“You’ve got a good eye. But don’t ever let the city teach you to look away before you’ve captured truth.”
P**eng turned sharply. Thandi Mokoena stood at the studio doorway, arms crossed over a Stoned Cherrie DRUM T-shirt soft with wear. Her long, thick dreadlocks gleaming with the scent of clove oil. She looked younger than expected. Her eyes had the weight of someone who’d photographed heartbreak.
P**eng swallowed. “I didn’t know if you’d really show.”
Thandi chuckled. “I don’t follow hashtags for fun. . That’s not just a caption. That’s a lens.”
P**eng looked down, heat rising to her cheeks. “It was just a phone shot…”
Thandi raised a hand. “Stop. That girl in the jacket? That was composition—narrative. I’ve worked with photographers who own R100,000 cameras and still can’t catch a moment like that.”
P**eng stared. She felt her lungs stretch for something deeper than breath.
Thandi reached into her vintage leather sling bag and pulled out a weathered film camera. Its body was scuffed; its lens smudged with memory. She placed it in P**eng’s hand gently, like passing a crown.
“It’s second-hand,” she said. “Manual everything. No retakes. Just trust.”
P**eng blinked. “Is this mine?”
Thandi smiled. “It’s yours for now. If you want to be a real photographer, you start here. Let’s see what Jozi looks like through your lens. With real glass and real patience.”
P**eng turned the camera over in her hands, unsure where to begin. The dials felt stubborn, the weight uneven.
“It’s heavier than I thought,” she murmured.
Thandi sat down on the edge of the couch, her dreadlocks spilling over one shoulder like ink. “So is truth,” she said again, softer this time. “But it teaches you to hold things differently.”
P**eng fumbled with the lens cap, then the ISO dial. “Where’s the autofocus?”
Thandi chuckled. “There isn’t. You focus. You breathe. You decide.”
She leaned back, arms draped over the couch, her DRUM tee catching the light like a relic. “Start with me,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
P**eng raised the camera, awkward at first. Her elbows flared too wide, her grip too tight. The viewfinder felt like a tunnel.
“Relax your shoulders,” Thandi coached. “Let the camera rest in your hands. It’s not a weapon.”
P**eng adjusted, inhaled. The frame shifted. Thandi’s face came into focus: soft, defiant, familiar.
“Now,” Thandi said, “don’t just look. See.”
P**eng clicked the shutter. The sound was quiet, but it echoed.
She looked through the lens and saw more than posture and light. Thandi’s face held stories—creases that weren’t age, but memory. Her eyes didn’t ask to be understood; they dared you to misunderstand and stay anyway. There was a kind of defiance in her stillness, like she knew the world would try to crop her out, and she posed to be uncropped.
P**eng felt the shutter click in her chest. This wasn’t just a photo. It was a reckoning. Thandi wasn’t waiting to be captured—she was waiting to be seen.
First Shoot – Through Real Glass
P**eng stood at the edge of Constitution Hill, the camera cradled in her palms like a fragile truth. The city stretched below her. Concrete veins pulsing with taxis, hawkers, and the ghosts of struggle songs silently whispering: we carry the rhythm of resistance, even when the music has stopped. She adjusted the strap around her neck, the weight unfamiliar, anchoring.
She turned the dial. Clicked the lens into place. The world didn’t change—but her way of seeing it did.
Her first subject was a street vendor peeling oranges with a blade that looked older than democracy. His hands moved with ritual precision, slicing rind from fruit like he was un******ng memory. P**eng crouched low, framing the shot. The vendor didn’t pose. He simply continued, eyes locked on the task, the sun catching the juice mid-air.
Click.
She moved through the city like a quiet storm. No longer chasing moments but inviting them. A boy skateboarding down a cracked pavement, his shadow stretching longer than his frame. A woman in a church dress haggling over tomatoes, her voice rising like gospel. A man asleep on a bench, mouth slightly open, dreams leaking out.
Each shot was a question. Each frame, a prayer.
P**eng paused outside a mural of Winnie Mandela, her face painted in bold strokes, eyes fierce and forgiving. She raised the camera, then lowered it. Some things weren’t meant to be captured. Some things were meant to be carried.
She sat on the curb, reviewing the shots. Her fingers trembled. Not from nerves, but from knowing. This wasn’t just documentation. It was translation. The city had always spoken. Now, she was learning its dialect.
She dropped the roll at the lab. No caption. Just trust.
Days later, Thandi’s message buzzed through: “You didn’t just shoot. You listened. Keep going.”
P**eng smiled, the camera warm against her chest. She didn’t know where this path led, but for the first time, she felt aligned. Not with perfection. But with presence.
Lessons in Light and Grit
The air at Noord Taxi Rank was thick: petrol fumes, shouted destinations, the scent of fried vetkoek curling through the chaos. P**eng stood beside Thandi, camera in hand, heart thudding like a drumline. She was still learning to see. Not just with her eyes, but with her gut.
Thandi pointed toward a woman balancing crates on her head, her stride regal, her gaze fixed ahead like she was walking memory into the market.
“Don’t just shoot movement,” Thandi said, voice low but firm. “Shoot intention.”
P**eng hesitated. The woman wasn’t posing. She was living.
Thandi nudged her gently. “You’re not stealing. You’re witnessing.”
P**eng lifted the camera. The woman turned mid-step, eyes meeting the lens with quiet defiance.
Click. A silent nod passed between them.
Later, on a rooftop in Maboneng, the city bled gold across the skyline. P**eng framed a couple dancing to a street saxophonist below, their joy unfiltered, their rhythm contagious.
Thandi peered over her shoulder and shook her head. “Too pretty. What’s the tension?”
P**eng frowned. “Can’t joy be truth?”
Thandi softened. “Yes. But make it earned.”
“In other words, don’t just paint joy. Show us what it cost. Let us feel the journey to it,” she continued.
P**eng adjusted the angle, zoomed in, not on the dancers, but on the saxophonist’s worn shoes, the chipped paint behind him, the cracks in the concrete that held the music.
Click. Joy, with context.
Inside the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation, dust floated like memory. Thandi led her through rows of faded prints: protest marches, barefoot children, women with raised fists and eyes like fire.
“These were shot on film,” Thandi said. “No retakes. Just trust.”
P**eng leaned in, studying the grain, the blur, the rawness that made each image feel like a heartbeat.
Thandi handed her a roll of black-and-white film. “Try it. Feel the weight of permanence.”
P**eng nodded, reverent.
In a park in Soweto, she captured a boy chasing a broken kite, his laughter slicing through the wind. She showed Thandi the shot, proud of its lightness.
Thandi studied it. “It’s beautiful. But you cropped out the broken fence.”
P**eng frowned. “I wanted to protect the moment.”
Thandi’s voice was gentle but firm. “Truth isn’t always tidy. Let the city speak, even when it stutters.”
P**eng reconsidered. She raised her camera again. This time framing the boy, the kite, and the jagged fence behind him.
Click.
One evening, they walked through Hillbrow at dusk, cameras down, silence between them like a shared language. The city hummed: neon signs flickering, children playing in alleys, gospel leaking from open windows.
P**eng whispered, “Sometimes I feel like Jozi wears me.”
Thandi smiled, her locks catching the last light. “Then you’re doing it right.”
P**eng’s First Solo Exhibition – “Still Here”
The Atrium in Keyes Art Mile buzzed with reverent noise—like a hymn made of footsteps and questions. P**eng led a walkabout, her voice threading through Jozi’s breath: a boy mid-laugh, his missing tooth framed like a badge; a grandmother selling mielies, her hands folded like prayer; a girl in an oversized jacket, staring down the lens like she owned the street. The walls, once bare, now pulsed with memory—urban, intimate, unflinching.
The exhibition title: Still Here: a nod to the graffiti wall, to survival, to presence.
P**eng stood near the entrance, her DSLR slung across her chest like a relic. She wore a burnt orange blazer, a subtle homage to the girl who started it all. Her palms were damp, but her spine was straight.
Thandi arrived first, dreadlocks cascading like a crown. She didn’t say much. Just hugged P**eng tight and whispered, “You didn’t just shoot Jozi. You translated her.”
Then came the crowd.
Writers. Photographers. Taxi drivers. Aunties in church hats.
And Mashudu, tall, quiet, eyes soft with pride. He wore a green shoelace around his wrist. P**eng noticed. Her breath caught.
People moved slowly through the gallery, pausing, reflecting, some wiping away tears. A child pointed at a photo and said, “That’s me!” Her mother gasped. P**eng smiled.

After-Party – Rooftop Reverie
The rooftop of 54 on Bath shimmered with fairy lights and laughter. Music floated: old school kwaito, jazz, amapiano, and deep house. Cousins danced. Friends toasted. Her parents sat proudly, her mother wearing a headwrap that matched the sunset.
P**eng clinked her glass, stepped onto a crate, and cleared her throat. The crowd hushed. From the rooftop garden, jacaranda blossoms peeked over the edge, like Jozi herself leaning in to listen.
Speech: If You Wear the City on Your Shoulders
“Good evening, everyone. I never imagined this moment. Definitely not like this. Not with so many of you here, wearing your stories, your scars, your joy like art.
This exhibition is called ‘Still Here’ because Jozi doesn’t whisper. She roars. She disappears and reappears. She breaks you, then teaches you how to rebuild with grit and grace.
I want to thank my parents for letting me chase shadows with a camera and never asking me to be anything but curious.
To my cousins and friends—you’ve been my mirrors, my hype team, my editors when I doubted myself.
To Thandi Mokoena, my mentor, myth, magician. You handed me a camera like it was a compass. You taught me that truth isn’t always pretty, but it’s always worth capturing. You didn’t just teach me photography; you taught me reverence.
And Mashudu…”
P**eng pauses, eyes locking with his.
“…you reminded me that existence is enough. That being seen—really seen—is the beginning of healing. You wore the city like a second skin, and through you, I learned to wear mine with pride. So tonight, I raise my glass to all of you. If you wear the city on your shoulders, wear it boldly. Wear it broken. Wear it beautiful. Because Jozi is not just a place. She’s a pulse. And we—we are still here.”
Applause. Laughter. A few tears.
Mashudu walks over, wraps her in a hug. Thandi nods from the corner, arms folded, smiling like a proud storm.
And above them, Jozi hums: alive, worn, radiant.

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