Six, 2 December

Honest, noble, simple

Dec 02, 2024

Dronikus, a novel set on a burning planet called Earth.

He arises from the dead

As sensation returned, Zola became aware of the softness of a pillow under his head. He felt pain in every bone, every organ, and every fibre of his body. He lay on his stomach; his skin, where it still stuck to his body, was lacerated and raw.

His eyes flickered open. It was dark but for a faint glow from what looked like a window. He could hear sounds of many kinds, some soft and others loud, some nearby, some further away – television, people talking and shouting and laughing, machines, cars, doors slamming, children crying. He slipped back into deep sleep.

When he next awoke, through the narrow slits of his eyelids, he saw it was light. He was in a room and two figures were bending over him, talking in muted tones. Zola managed to grunt.

‘Ah!’ exclaimed a woman’s voice.

‘Shhh…’ counselled the other voice, a man.

‘No, he must eat.’

‘Let him sleep some more.’

A hand gently touched his head. ‘I have some soup for you.’

Zola sank back into the darkness.

He had been rescued by a group of young men who were lounging about on the riverbank. They had seen Zola’s body come rising from the turbulent depths of the tunnel and pulled him from the water. Jonas, the son of the woman on whose kitchen floor he now lay, had drained the water from his gullet and blown life-saving air into his lungs.

‘He arises from the dead.’

Jonas entered the kitchen, grinning, happy to see Zola awake. ‘How are you, my friend?’

He was stocky and dark skinned. His hair was shaved close to the skull and he carried a few scars, giving a slightly menacing first impression. However, his face was soft and his eyes always smiling. He sat himself on a chair next to the recumbent Zola, who looked up at him, weak, still hardly able to talk.

Zola had taken the soup provided over the days by Hana, Jonas’s mother. His strength was returning. He lay on a mattress on the painted cement floor of a basic iron and timber shack. The room was both a kitchen and a living area. It was neat and well established, showing years of care and service: an easy chair in the corner, picture calendars on the wall, framed photographs on a shelf, a ‘smart’ tea set on a painted dresser under a doily, kitchen implements neatly arranged on hooks, lace curtains on the non-matching windows. A door led to what looked like a bedroom and a second door, the one through which Jonas had come, probably led to the outdoors. Zola had never been in a house such as this. Everything about it felt reassuring and safe. It was honest and noble in its simplicity, much like Jonas and Hana themselves. She was square of build like her son, with the distinctive physical attributes of the mountain people. Unlike her son, she didn’t smile much and talked quietly, with the accent of the mountains.

Jonas spoke in the harsher, more direct tones of the city. ‘You one lucky son of a mother, y’know?’ Jonas shook his head and laughed. ‘You came through Devil’s Kitchen and here you are, alive and kicking.’

Zola smiled. ‘Thank you,’ he said hardly above a whisper. ‘Thank you.’

‘The clothes I was wearing when I jumped in after you, I just threw them in the trash bin. That water stinks worse than ever. My mother washed you, huh? And your hair. You smelled very bad.’ He made a retching sound.

Zola nodded, his eyes closed.

‘Where you leave your clothes? Up at the canal bend? Many people used to swim up there and get swept away. Is that what happened?’

Zola nodded again.

‘You came through. Not many come through.’ Then after a pause: ‘What’s your name, friend?’

‘Zola.’

‘Zola?’ Jonas waited for a surname. None came. ‘Where you from Zola? You a gangster on the run?’ he laughed. ‘Nah, you look like a cool guy, good like.’ He reached into his pocket and brought out his Eyeto and moved to take a photograph of Zola. Zola feebly raised his hand to cover his face.

‘Leave him now, Jo.’ Hana came across. ‘He must rest.’

‘Ok, ok.’ He put the Eyeto away. To his mother he said: ‘You got a beer?’

‘Help yourself. You staying for dinner?’

‘Nah. Gotta work.’

Over days Hana nursed Zola. She cleaned and dressed his wounds to ward off infection from the fetid waters. She applied unsavoury-smelling potions that reeked almost as much as the filthy canal. As his body recovered so too did his mind. These were the first people with whom he had been in normal human contact in many years. Their modesty moved him; that they should not only save a strange naked man drifting in the river, but wish to heal him, and give him of what little they had. He and Leilu had often spoken about ‘real human values’: unselfishness, honesty, and mutual respect. And it was rare to find these in his social circle, particularly in his own family. But here were people who seemed to live by these norms, generously, unselfconsciously. He had not experienced this before, having spent no time in the milieu of ‘ordinary’ people.

He found it difficult to converse about the ‘normal world’ from which he had been absent for almost two decades. Hana spoke while he listened, unable to contribute much to any conversation. She assumed that this was due to the shock of what he had been through, and she was more than happy to talk about her own life.

Not much had changed in the last years, she said. Life was still a struggle, money and food were hard to come by and her neighbours in the shack settlement were good people, if too noisy at times. But as they spoke it became clear that there had been change: many more people were cramming into the city, food was a lot scarcer with much less variety, the rains were a lot heavier and a daily occurrence now, and it was hot, very hot, not like before, she said.

Only when Zola asked her if there were many dronikus about here did her temper flare. ‘It’s not right that the government spending so much money on machines, so causing many peoples into losing their job. Only some people making the money.’ Zola nodded. She continued: ‘Jonas had been a policeman, a good policeman. And then they brought the rators and he had to go. What good, huh? What good a qualified man working a rubbish nightshift job now? Huh?’

Jonas was increasingly friendly towards Zola, despite Zola’s general taciturn and guarded manner. He tried to get Zola to reveal more about himself but with no success. ‘You will be the “mystery man” for us, forever, Mr Zola,’ he said, laughing. And, standing across the kitchen, putting on an announcer’s voice: ‘Mr Zola, he came from the Devil’s Kitchen and he left for where? For Heaven? We do not know. Maybe we’ll never know.’

After a few more days Zola said he was well enough to leave, that he was going to find a relative in the suburbs of the city.

‘No, but the dronikus!’ said Hana, immediately alarmed.

‘She right. Dronikus,’ said Jonas. ‘Tomorrow, I will come with you. After my shift. It’s too dangerous.’

‘You are so good, you and your mother. I can’t thank you enough for what you have done for me.’

‘You would do the same. You are a fine mystery man, Mr Zola.’

They shook hands and Jonas pulled him into a clasp, careful not to press too hard on his healing wounds. Hana nodded at him but quickly turned and busied herself at the stove; she had grown fond of her patient.

That evening, when Jonas had left for work and Hana had retired to her room and her television, Zola slipped out, taking a large cloth sun hat from the peg behind the door.

Hey, what's that sound?

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