Aftermath
1347 Words
After some time, my mother invited Joyce and Angela inside to sit and talk. But Sibusiso didn’t move me right away.
I stayed in the chair… outside… under the fading light.
And when their footsteps disappeared into the house, the silence swallowed me whole.
I broke.
Maybe it was the sight of my daughter.
Maybe it was the pain waking up nerves that had been numb for weeks.
Maybe it was the weight of the life I hadn’t lived yet.
But the moment they walked inside, something inside me snapped.
The tears came without warning.
Not quiet ones.
Not controllable ones.
Tears that shook my entire body as if my spirit was trying to escape through them.
I cried in silence — the loudest silence I had ever known — because even my voice was gone.
My chest heaved. My breath stumbled. My heart hammered painfully behind my ribs.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to ask God why.
I wanted to ask myself how I ended up trapped in a body that refused to obey me.
But all I could do was sit there… breaking down in the open air.
My right leg stiffened painfully. My right hand curled tighter. My head drooped forward, heavy and burning with pressure.
I felt like I was slipping again — not into death, but into a darkness even deeper than that night.
A darkness inside the mind.
The kind that whispers:
You’ll never walk again.
You’ll never hold your daughter.
You’re a burden now.
Your life is over.
The thoughts hit harder than any physical wound.
I wanted to rise from the chair.
To follow my family into the house.
To show them I was still a man, still a father, still alive inside this broken skin.
But my legs were dead weight.
My hand was a stone.
My throat was locked shut.
And I cried harder.
I cried because strength felt too far away.
I cried because hope hurt more than fear.
I cried because my daughter had awakened a part of me I thought was gone — but the body I lived in was too damaged to reach back.
For a long time, I didn’t notice Sibusiso standing behind me.
His large shadow fell over my shoulders.
He didn’t speak.
Didn’t move.
Just stood there — giving me space to fall apart.
Only when my shaking slowed did he finally kneel beside me, his voice low, steady, and sure.
“Innocent,” he said softly.
“Let it out. You’ve been holding this pain alone for too long.”
I couldn’t respond, but he continued, his words gentle as a hand on a wound:
“Crying doesn’t make you weak, mfowethu… it means you’re still alive.”
He wiped the tears from my cheek with the back of his massive hand, then rested that same hand on my shoulder.
“You saw your daughter today,” he said.
“That alone is a victory.”
But I shook my head weakly, tears falling again.
He understood.
He always did.
“You’re scared you’ll never be the man she needs,” he whispered.
“But listen to me… the fact that you’re still breathing after everything — that makes you more of a father than you know.”
He lifted me from the chair and carried me inside.
My body felt heavier than I remembered, as if sorrow had weight.
As if guilt had bones.
Inside the house, Angela ran toward me again, excited, unaware of the storm raging inside my chest. She touched my cheek once more — and again, my hand twitched, a tiny spark of life.
But this time, it wasn’t enough to comfort me.
Instead, the twitch felt like a cruel reminder:
Movement without control,
Hope without certainty,
Life without living.
And as Sibusiso lowered me onto the couch, I realized something terrifying:
Seeing my daughter didn’t just give me strength…
It also gave me something to lose.
The stakes are higher now.
The fear was deeper.
The fight was no longer about survival —
It was about becoming someone she could recognize again.
And the journey to that man…
was beginning.
That night the house felt too quiet.
Joyce and Angela had left. My mother had gone to her room. Even Sibusiso, strong as he was, looked drained and stepped outside to breathe.
And for the first time since waking up in that hospital… I was alone.
My body felt strange — heavy, tight, unsettled — like something inside me was winding itself up too hard.
I could feel it before it happened. My shoulder twitching. My fingers curling. My breath turning shallow. My heartbeat is becoming sharp and uneven.
My body… was remembering something my mind had buried.
At first, it was just a stiffness. A slow creeping tension from my neck down to my spine.
Then the world shifted.
A wet sound echoed in my memory. Footsteps. Shouts. The moment everything went dark.
My vision was blurred. My head dropped forward. And I felt myself slipping again — not into sleep, but into that terrifying space where the brain misfires and the body reacts like it’s still under attack.
A seizure.
I felt it coming before it hit.
My breath locked. My muscles clenched. My right leg kicked out without control. My hand bent inward violently.
I wanted to call for help. Wanted to scream. Wanted to fight it.
But my throat refused to open.
All I managed was a broken gasp.
And then—
My body snapped. My back arched so hard I nearly rolled off the couch. My jaw locked. My eyes watered without blinking.
It felt like being trapped inside a burning cage.
A faint sound made its way out of me — not a word, not even a cry — but a strangled groan.
And somehow… even that tiny sound was loud enough for someone to hear.
The door burst open.
My mother rushed in first, eyes wide with terror. “Somandla! Innocent! Innocent!”
But I couldn’t respond. My body shook faster. Harsher.
Then Sibusiso stormed inside, dropping his phone, rushing to my side.
“Move the table! Get the pillow!” he shouted.
My mother panicked, scrambling around.
The whole room became chaos.
My body jerked uncontrollably. My head pulled back. My hand clamped painfully against my chest.
It felt like drowning inside my own skin.
“Hold him,” my mother cried.
“No!” Sibusiso snapped. “Don’t hold him down — you can hurt him.”
He lifted my head carefully, sliding a pillow under it, so I wouldn’t hit the floor.
“Breathe, mfowethu,” he whispered urgently. “I know you can’t hear me… but breathe.”
His voice was the only anchor in the storm.
Seconds stretched like minutes.
My mother prayed loudly, hands shaking. Her voice trembled between fear and helplessness:
“Nkosi yam… not my child… not again…”
And then—
Just as violently as it had begun…
The shaking slowed. My limbs loosened. My breath returned in short, desperate gasps. Sweat soaked my shirt.
Everything inside me felt drained. As if the seizure had stolen every piece of energy, every bit of strength I had gained.
My eyes blinked weakly.
I could hear again. I could feel again. But I couldn’t speak.
It was like my body had fought a battle my mind never signed up for.
Sibusiso placed his huge hand on my chest to steady me.
“Stay with us,” he said softly. “You’re not going anywhere.”
My mother wiped my forehead with trembling hands.
“You scared us,” she whispered. “Oh, Innocent… you scared us.”
And as I lay there, exhausted, shaking from the inside out… a single thought came to me:
My recovery wasn’t just physical. My body still remembered the trauma even when I tried to forget it. The fight wasn’t over — it was only getting deeper.
The attack that nearly ended my life had left invisible wounds… and they were waking up.
- Writer
