I couldn’t move.
Not a finger.
Not a toe.
Not even my lips.
But I could hear everything.
And that was the worst part.
The room was quiet, but not peaceful. It carried a heavy silence—the kind that sits on your chest and refuses to move. I lay there, staring at nothing, trapped inside a body that no longer listened to me.
Then I heard it.
A sound so soft… yet so painful.
My mother crying.
At first, I thought I was imagining it. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me again. But then it came again—deeper this time. Real. Broken.
She was weeping.
“Ngwanaka…” she whispered.
That name.
That name took me back to when I was just a boy. When life was simple. When her voice didn’t carry pain like this.
I wanted to turn my head.
I wanted to look at her.
I wanted to tell her, “Ma, I’m
