Harare Review of Books

Congratulations to Rutendo Chichaya! She wins a USD150 Amazon voucher, courtesy of—and with thanks to—Zola Ndlovu and Tinashe Tafirenyika.

Here’s Labyrinth, with comments from judges following below.

‘Tsek!’ the girl shouts in my direction as I drop the takeaway bag and giggle my way off. Well, rest in peace to our supper. Only one of us could have it anyway.

I was fifteen when I started smoking Flame Lilies. You look like you care, so I’ll indulge you.

Umkhomo-Fourth Street is my base. My friends and I are lazy, so we call it Fourth Street. I own a makeshift bed at the Corner of Fourth Street and Jatropha Avenue, home. My hustle includes pickpocketing, grabbing jewellery, and, of course, my favourite, snatching wigs. The salon ladies buy my wigs at a lucrative rate. I can spot a good Peruvian wig from afar! It’s not always about money. Sometimes, the best hustle is to barter trade with the hairdressers for the Mukuku yarn I use to thread my hair into mabhanzi. I may be poor and homeless, but my hair stays neat. I know you think it’s sad and wonder what someone like me is doing here. UMa’ died from acute respiratory distress when I was ten. A couple of years later, I had to leave home after uBaba left to search for other worlds with enough oxygen for us and more habitable than this one. Don’t believe all the fluff you see here. This world is dying after those before us, and some among us messed up the ecosystem. UBaba often said the nightside of Venus was promising; maybe that’s where he is, setting the tone for colonization. He had to leave me with a scorned stepmother-girlfriend-fiancé. I can’t even explain. It’s complicated. Everyone called UBaba a genius, but no one knows if he is alive or when he’ll return.

I was born with an electric compass on my forehead, and the infrared light in my mother’s eyes found its place in mine, so uBaba and uMa named me Jekanyika. I am twenty-two. The longing for my parents has now frozen in my heart, and not even the sun’s burning rage can thaw away the ice that runs through my veins, no matter how much light my name says I can give the world or paths it encourages me to explore. Honestly, I wish I could pack up and leave. No matter how much I tried, no road led me to uBaba. I got tired and stopped trying, and the only way to uMa’ is through death. I’ve met people like you who look at me with pity, some who even knew me before all this. I look at them as if they are strangers, but still, the pain wins. It sits in my throat when I come across people in the streets who look at me worryingly, saying they expected better from me, and I can’t respond.

‘Akasticker.’ ‘Akabatwa.’ Those words are difficult to hear, but they are familiar. My furry triangular and naturally cupped ears always wilt when someone says this. It stings. I am stuck in a rut, and pain has held me in its arms since I was a child. I am a prisoner held in temporary highs that give unfulfilled promises of alleviation.

I know you initially laughed, but today was a difficult day. I was nearly caught grabbing a stranger’s plastic takeaway bag at the Food Court near the footbridge. Ignore the plastic. We are still using it even after all the damage that we’ve done. I’ve learned to be quick with my feet. The compass helps. Yoh! I ran for my life but had to leave the quarter chicken and chips somewhere along the chase. I am such a terrible multitasker.

‘Tsek!’ I can still hear the girl’s disgust and annoyance ringing in my ears.

I might go to bed hungry tonight, but at least I will smoke some Flame Lilies. I am used to the hunger, too. There are nights when I haven’t been able to sleep and had to listen to my heart breaking. Hunger is a constant lullaby to my sporadic periods of sleep. Eventually, I always fall asleep, even if it’s for a short time, because I trust the nightmares keep me up longer. This is why Flame Lilies are vital to me. They make me feel like I am dancing on gold, and the hunger slips away into the abyss. Still, nothing lasts forever.

I blow some smoke into the air, polluting what is supposedly clean air, hoping that as I exhale, the pain and toxins also leave my body: real pain and toxins in exchange for chemical toxins. I laugh with the group of people who have become family. We are a group of six gathered around the City Council gold bins smoking. The bins are littered around like figurines, which the Council is proud of because the bins are never full, just a deep and unending well of waste. We can’t search for food in the gold bins. We fear they will swallow us—Chenai (Chenso to us), Kindregards, Venevayo, Dedani, Vonani, and myself. I take the longest to smoke. My survival depends upon it, and in these streets, you learn to be selfish.

Our streets are made of diamonds. Before uMa’ died, she used to tell me tales about the people who existed before us. When our nation had beautiful trees and space, right before, people started living in clusters, and shopping malls mushroomed at every stone-throw. For a time, the land was defiled. You see, we humans are a virus. Legend has it that long ago, those before us behaved like scorned rodents and gluttonously mined diamonds in the Eastern Highlands. The diamonds were sold overseas, members of the Hurumend lined their pockets, and the pitiful stock left was reserved for the roads so tourists would stop complaining about the bumpy, life-threatening drives. Can you believe this diamond carpet was once adorned with potholes? Unbelievable! Here we are with roads and pavements that preciously glisten. They cannot be removed. We tried to scrap them with our claws, once when we’d spent three days without food. We nearly bled to death from the scrapping. Since we live in the streets, they call us the diamond kids.

Flame Lilies are best smoked before the city that never sleeps gets busy early in the morning and in the evenings when it gets dark. But only when the vendors have packed their wares and left the streets. Even with the light in my eyes, I cannot be found stumbling on someone’s tomatoes and having to pay for them. That’s just another ‘Tsek!’ and chase waiting to happen. I have nothing to give.

Vonani sets up in the mornings and Venevayo in the evenings. That is the natural order of things. Dedani oversees the procurement side by scavenging for old tubular light bulbs, which he cleans, fits a plastic tube for the sucking opening, and there you have it, a smoking pipe! Chenso and I ensure that our money for contributions is ready when needed. That’s all we have to do. I don’t know what Chenso does during the day. I don’t ask. She’s still too new to get close to. It’s been three months since she joined us. All I know is that we are all here on time when it’s time to smoke.

Kindregards is the middleman; he is friends with Dziva, our Flame Lily dealer from DZ. The divine regal red powder is our consolation. It didn’t start with the lilies. Our ancestors had their own glassy, icy crystal substance. After a long struggle, Hurumend successfully banned the use and production of dombo. UBaba used to say that the substance was not the enemy. Of course, banning it was a step in the right direction, but the success was cosmetic. He was right. After so many decades, there’s still poverty. There are no jobs, and we are drowning in the flood of woes. Well, the threads have unravelled again. Flame Lilies work just as fine for us, even better, because they were once considered poisonous and endangered. That poison-not-poison takes me and many others on an inexplicable high. On a good day, we get the powder that is mixed with anti-psychotic pills from Utano Hospital. Kindregards knows a struggling pharmacist who works there and is hustling to sell them to people like us.

On some nights, I avoid it, but I can’t bear the bleeding from scratching myself with my claws. Our woes are bottomless, from police raids that want to keep us and the vendors out of the streets, ‘to make the streets clean,’ to the hunger that hits when we are not high, but mostly the melancholy: a reality that threatens to kill me one day. I want to forget that there was a life before the streets, and I want to be in another world, even if it’s temporary. Besides, what harm can Flame Lilies do to a staggering grave and a corrupted mind?

‘Jekz, do you ever think of going back home?’ Chenso asks. I am startled by the shared and unfiltered silence. I don’t know what to say.

‘This is home,’ I lazily respond, biting my nails, which have suffered more than enough from the biting.

I am not like Aquila, a visitor here; he often goes back home but always returns to the streets. His family are the prayer warriors of this world, and his demons lose to them sometimes. We don’t count him as part of the squad. You need to pick a side.

‘But don’t you miss your mother, father, siblings, or something? Some longing.’

‘Yoh Chenso, please, nxa! How many times must I tell you I don’t have parents!’ I snap and smoke again.

‘I long for this pain to go away. I long for death, shaa.’ I say as an afterthought.

‘Abomination! Don’t you want better, to be more? As for me, I am leaving this place as soon as I can. You shall see, I’ll rise into the clouds and live there where there is no hunger and pain!’ She says, crossing her index and middle fingers at me.

I take one last pull and walk to my corner to rest on my makeshift bed. Laying here, I never thought it would be Chenai asking me those questions about wanting more, Chenso? The Chenai who arrived just yesterday is questioning my life! She is spitting in my face, telling me I have no ambition. Well, I do. I have the dream to transcend and transition to the afterlife into my mother’s arms or whatever happens when people die. At least she has the will and is holding on to some hope that she will leave the streets. She needs it.

I am of the streets, and that’s just how it is. I tried one day, you know, to kill myself. Everything looked blurry that day, and I just wanted to end it. I failed because Venevayo saved me, and now he feels like I am eternally indebted to him, my ‘saviour.’ I didn’t want to be saved. uMa’ told me that when she and her friends were growing up, and they wanted the thrill of a self-initiated imminent death, they went and lay in the railway tracks. Only to rise when they heard the train horn getting closer. All those rails are covered in diamonds now. Anyway, I suspect Venevayo hasn’t told anyone about it. Otherwise, I would be the laughingstock of the squad right now. Kindregards is the resident clown, and I don’t want to take his spot. The biggest joke is how he is deeply in love with Chenso, and obviously, she doesn’t spare a minute for his nonsense.

I won’t lie; I have thought about it before, but it’s just disrespectful that Chenso thought she could ask me that. I am older, and I was here first. We casually look at each other and giggle. The Flame Lilies are starting to work, ticklish, giving me wings to fly to my high and the heart to forgive Chenso.

It’s been three months since Chenso rattled my feathers, but lately, I have been thinking about whether this is the way to continue to live. Do you know that yesterday, the council police rounded up over fifty diamond kids? We watched them gather our kin to be dumped somewhere out of sight. It gets tiring to be hiding in urine-infested alleyways and ditches. Maybe Chenso was right. It’s like we are a blemish that needs to be promptly removed before we bar the city’s goodwill and pursuit of the return of the Sunshine City by 2075. I know. Stop giggling. It’s not funny that in 2025, the then-Hurumend failed even after all that running around.

The city smells rotten of pollution, and the sight is jarring outside the diamond streets and gold bins. I am not saying we are blameless, but the truth is, there are gallons of cans of worms that, if opened, will make everyone realize that we are a minor threat. But for the Hurumend, ‘clean up’ campaigns are non-negotiable. If it is not houses being demolished, then it is homeless people being rounded up from the streets to camps, the modern-day reserves.

Don’t get me into the rounding up of the money changers or the sex workers in the streets. At least for the sex workers and money changers, they have a bit to spare, sometimes enough to find a way to wiggle out. As for us, we do not have any dollars lying around idle somewhere or sufficient to spare to bribe our way out of being treated ruthlessly. I am not saying that it is right, but you know damn well that that’s the way it goes here. It’s the modus operandi: you bribe your way out of inconvenience, in cash or kind. That’s just how it has always been.

‘Pass me the pipe, Venevayo,’ I say, reaching out for the only thing that seems to understand me. All I know is how to downplay the pain, which should be enough. Small mercies.

‘So no one has seen Chenso in a week, guys. She has probably returned to her family,’ Master says as I blow out a thick cloud of smoke. Exhale and laugh, so I laugh.

‘She will be back just like Aquila. They always do.’ I say, exhaling some more and laughing less because it doesn’t sound like Chenso. Her eyes are set on entering the clouds, not her wretched family. I straighten my yellow dress. It covers what needs to be covered. My thighs are exposed, but so is my life.

I crouch in this alleyway, my knees on the ground, grazed by lithium ore. Forty-two years ago, our elders were also banned from selling lithium because only a few realized its worth and sold it overseas again. If you try to steal the lithium, it returns to the gods, so we stare at it adorning the land. I haven’t slept in three days. It’s been two weeks since Chenso disappeared. I am sad and afraid. The pain is in my blood, unashamedly flowing, cementing itself in my bones, and the darkness wells up in my eyes. Where is Chenso? There is no sunshine for people like me, people of no fixed abode who build houses wherever they can.

It’s dusk when a bag of clothes catches my roving eye, and I rummage further in the alleyway and go to the gold bins. The light in my eye brightens in darkness, and I thank the gods for the compass. I see rotting legs in the alleyway behind the bins and in the company of flies, green bombers. This is a long way from where I hustle. I wandered today because I needed space to breathe and hope far away from my friends’ despair. I feel like familiarity breeds complicity, so I created a new route. I rummage in the bins. My dirty hands know value, so I look for something valuable. Anything. Chenai.

As I get closer to the gold bins, my hope sinks to my stomach, and I feel a pain that has no name when I see her naked and rotting like a carcass left in the wild after the animals have had their share. Chenso has a mutilated body, her claws missing, and her eyes bloody and gathered for by flies. Chenso, who had hope, who wanted more, and who would be better. She swore she would, but she did not make it out alive. The sight makes me want to vomit. A slice of nostalgia in my mouth reminds me of how I found uMa lifeless in her bedroom. Where do I begin, and how do I tell you about this pain?

It all feels prosaic. A known and nameless pain, fresh on my skin. I found her by mistake, her dreams rotting inside her and her body parts missing. The confusion of seeing someone I once knew lying still grips me. It should have been me. I am the one who wants to die, not our Chenso, who snapped and clicked her fingers in a declaration that she would defy the odds. Not Chenso, who tried to get out, but a centuries-old system would not let her.

Can you see Chenso or what’s left of her? Can you say something? I am waiting with bated breath. When I break the news to the squad tonight, I need more than just Flame Lilies to keep me awake. I found her. Her dreams rotting inside her, and her body parts missing. Pain holds me in its hands again, cradling me from one bundle of grief to another. This life is unicursal. I am constantly finding myself back at the same point again where pain resides. I surrender with my claws rising and my lungs gasping for air. Even with a compass and light, I have not found a way to escape pain.

Judges’ comments

Zola Ndlovu

Excellently written story. I would have loved more SF elements.

Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki

I found the Labyrinth hauntingly and tragically beautiful. The writing was strong and heady too.

Dr Peter J. Maurits

Labyrinth is a skillfully crafted narrative that delves into the daily struggles of a twenty-two-year-old street kid devoid of substantial prospects, barely scraping together the means for survival. Enduring days without food, he senses that the persistent hunger might one day prove fatal. The storyline unfolds in a mostly linear fashion, offering readers a glimpse into the protagonist’s life and the challenges faced by him and his companions. The use of substances becomes a temporary escape from both hunger and pain. Despite the linear nature of Labyrinth, there is a lack of progression or development. The ‘diamond kids,’ as they are labeled, find no escape from their predicament except in a police van. The lone dreamer within their group is punished for aspiring to return to a better life, and meets a tragic end in the apotheosis of the story, her body mutilated.

Labyrinth, an unconventional tale, touches upon themes of poverty, inequality, and even a climate crisis, and is set in a future where the diamond kids possess claws instead of hands, and have implants. The narrative refrains from providing explanations for these elements, allowing readers to accept them as inherent to the story. In fact, there is no discernible plot, dramatic twists, or a traditional climax, even when the friend is discovered dead at the conclusion. The portrayal of poverty and the friend’s demise lacks spectacle.

Remarkably, the story captivates despite predominantly relying on internal narration. This approach immerses readers in the haziness of substance use and the burdensome weight of life on the characters’ shoulders. Despite limited exposition, occasional flashbacks, and a lack of significant events, the narrative remains compelling. Labyrinth skillfully achieves much with minimal means, earning its place as the standout story in the competition.

Sista Zai Zanda

I love the reference to Flame Lilies, space travel and space colonisation, projecting us into a far distant future while the street kid narrative keeps us rooted in the familiar. Overall, your world building and setting are very believable.

• Your main protagonist(s) must be Zimbabwean.

Masterful characterisation. The main protagonist was written in a way that allows multiple characters to exist in the text but keeps the focus on main the protagonist, which evokes empathy and holds the reader’s attention.

• Your story must contain speculative fiction elements. Feel free to imagine as wildly as possible.

Again, world-building and setting are well executed along with characterisation.

I enjoyed the dystopic writing, you do this very well. If it interests you, I would love to read more from you that works with utopia as well or combines both. Overall a very compelling read. Congratulations!