I remember ...

Clearing up my former bedroom of its paraphernalia I am reminded of different times of my life. More recently, the paintings I did whilst in hospital with severe depression in Switzerland. Some of the art looks slightly trippy with swirls of iridescent colour, similar to the disarray of chemicals in my mind. Others are starkly devoid of colour, reflecting the raw aching pain within that simply would not leave. Many show my indecision of whether to stay in Switzerland or return to Zimbabwe and the uncertainty I faced regarding Zimbabwe’s future and my return.

Dusting off my insect collection from when I took the entomology course in Cape Town, I am transported away to happier days, running around campus and in the Cedarburg with a butterfly net bug hunting. There is the elusive spider wasp, with its cellophane-like wings, then the punk-like disco-ball beetles, with their tufts of yellow or orange hairs on their carapace. Those were Elysian Fields for my soul and was a time when I was content with life.

I remember sitting in the chapel at school, trying to make sense of the fact that Lisa was gone. Paging through a nun’s bible and hymn book, looking for an answer, for solace, for reason. I did not find it that day. The song The Rose always takes me back to that day and your funeral as Chenai sang it to you and to our aching souls. Jacaranda season is another reminder. I imagine Lisa walking along the purple carpeted path through the playground and out the Herbert Chitepo Street Gate, where it is said she hailed a taxi to take her home to where she shot herself dead.