The Torch Chapter 16-Our Depressing Pasts

Abby was like all aspiring humanitarians: a willing partic.i.p.ant, but yet not usually qualified. She had not done sciences subjects for A' level and planned on bridging into medicine via nursing, a conquest that only a few individuals could actually materialise. She was also one to have many failing relations.h.i.+ps due to her demeanour and demanding work schedule. As time stretched on, she grew to hate her career choice and wore her heart on her sleeve, but this apathetic tone towards her work was publicly shown. It was her own internal trial that she had to overcome on her own, never to be shared to her superiors.

The security guard, baba Tawana, was a man who had a simple mind and had a not so inspiring upbringing. He was born to an impoverished family that lived in the Rus.h.i.+nga village district and his high school education ended at its infancy, due to the scarcity of finances to further his education as the route to his tragic tale. Like most rural boys who would end up stripped of their right to education, he began to till the land, embracing a mundane agricultural existence until he moved into town. The city promised many opportunities, but being unqualified had many disadvantages let alone those who didn't complete their high school education. In this instance, baba Tawana ended up lodging at someone's house, exchanging labour skills as the means to get pay and accommodation. The whole process eventually lost its vigour and made the boy now turned man seek other means of employment. The rigorous security guard experiences started off from a low note and went on to the security of banks, private property and now hospitals. He was a village pansy in the great city that never slept, and his rural semantics made it less comfortable to converse with him in the English language.

Hilary was a sportsman who was impaired by a genetic heart palpitation condition, which usually knocked him out when he would over exert himself. He was agnostic and his family had travelled across the globe, diversifying his childhood and showing him all facets of life in various places. He tended to be egotistic, sn.o.bbish and particular. His palpitations had risen during a basketball match and had sent him to Baines Clinic. He was talented piece of work, but hereditary wasn't one to exempt the gifted.

Emma as a child had a tragic and sad upbringing. Her parents experienced the height of domestic violence at its core and this made the family dynamics complicated. To make matters worse, she lived in a neighbourhood were most of the children in it were affluent. The family drama worsened over the years; her father's misuse of money and surprise discovery of step-siblings turned her youth into a whirlwind of restlessness. The stresses were always real to her and her peers couldn't entirely understand the differing of her social standing due to such circ.u.mstances, but what drove her to the edge was the death of her older sister. Her sister had managed to go through the troubling obstacles of her family life and had made into university, completing 2 years and waiting for attachment. Her death came in the form of a dreadful accident, ending her life and starting the decline of her sister. The death had not only taken away from her a role model, but someone she could connect with at a personal level over things only she understood. This emotional scaring of such a young girl at a youthful age was the point at which she began to become aggressive, erratic, and depressed. She shut out many people who she couldn't relate to and began to change drastically. Her friends began to alienate her and her isolation and deviance led to her feeling lonely and not being able to come to terms with the reality that siblings died. Her vulnerability made her prey to boys who would pretend to want a serious relations.h.i.+p with her, but only wanted a piece of her a.s.s. The fairy tale vision of how love was supposed to be was thus perverted by each encounter she had with the opposite s.e.x. She ended up feeling sad whenever the romance in real life didn't play out as well as the novelty of literary fiction. This led her to think boys her age were immature, and she decided to find solace in older men, who were called 'blessers' among the youth of the day. The s.e.xual encounters with these married men who had daughters who were just the same age as her, were blissful and yet detrimental times for the young girl. Having been glossed by fine gifts from a working salaried man, made the girl delusional. At times, she even dreamed of her lover leaving his family for her. Affairs came with that kind of novelty, a novelty that was equally destructive and intoxicating. When her appeal as a young girl swept away by love did not convince her lover to leave his family for her, a break up soon came and hurt the young girl.

The man decided to terminate the relations.h.i.+p, but Emma was not going to accept such a raw end to her fantasy. Emma wanted to threaten the man by telling the man's wife about their moments of pa.s.sion, but the man threatened to kill her. Emma's disillusionment about what her lover decided to do was something that maimed her face with much distress. The man indeed a.s.saulted Emma, bruising her beautiful face and fracturing her leg, but luckily, just in time, her father who had found her activities to be highly off and suspicious had begun tailing her daughter. Her father found this lover and upon finding him brutalising his daughter, he got a hold of the man and murdered him. Emma had lost her lover to her father. Emma was also pregnant with the man's child and the father to her child had died. This scandal resulted in it being reported on the Herald newspapers. It was two strikes for the child: causing her father to be imprisoned for the murder of her abuser and bringing a fatherless child into the world. She became the talk of her family and the talk of the school. The stigma and attention she got from the whole affair made things even worse. She later conceived a healthy baby, the only positive thing that came out of her drama. Being a teen mom, the stigma of being a minx who had affairs with married men and having her father imprisoned, were all she got, but regardless of that, her mother gave her support. Her mother was angry about her daughter's recklessness, but over looked it to support her. After a while, Emma left her current school and went to a different one to avoid the judgmental eyes of her peers. She had been a screw up but now was the time for her to get organised. However, the guilt about her having her lover killed, causing a publicised scandal that affected her lover's family were all vices she had to deal with. Some of her relatives blamed her for her foolishness and morbid thoughts began to populate her mind. She began to think about suicide attempts, cutting her wrists and taking psychedelic drugs to cope with her stress. This landed her straight into the hospital where she began to be detoxed by doctors and also getting counselling. When Nicholai stated that everyone beyond his light had died, she thought about her mother and child. She didn't want to believe it, but as much it hurt her to accept it, she had no reason to disbelieve Nicholai. The infinite darkness had done a number on her and it essentially reminded her of what it meant like to be alone.

These were their stories, differing circ.u.mstances and different backgrounds that summed up the individuals in the ward. The infinite darkness had come into their world. Little did they know that once Nicholai had woken up the turmoil of the night would become even worse, bringing in more sadness into their lives. However, one thing lingered in both Dr. Rondozai and Tafadzwa's minds. If Zeal were really the saviours of the world then how the h.e.l.l did they fail to prevent the apocalypse?