Tuesday morning
Affie walks into class with her arm wrapped in a white cloth. A bruise darkens her cheekbone. Cuts run across her palms. Her shirt is wrinkled and her short hair sticks up.
“Julie,” she says, waving as sunlight falls across her desk. “So, what did I miss?” She pulls a chair beside me and sinks into it.
I point at her and tap my forearm.
She lifts her arm slightly. “Oh, this? I fell out of a tree.” She grins. “Don’t give me that look. I’m fine, Julie. I just wanted to see what it felt like up there, looking down.”
I open my mouth.
Nothing comes out, only a scrape of breath.
When I was ten, I caught a cold that left me coughing for weeks. The strain damaged my vocal cords. At first, the doctor said it would come back, my voice, I mean. That I just needed rest, patience.
It never did.
Since then, my hands have done all my speaking.
I flip to a marked page in my maths textbook and lay it open on Affie’s desk.
Wednesday morning
Affie’s seat is empty. My eyes keep drifting to the doorway as the whiteboard fills with physics diagrams and pens scratch.
By lunch, a pressure settles in my chest. I keep thinking about the bandage, the bruise, the way she smiled like it didn’t hurt.
When the bell rings, I shove my books into my bag and hurry into the hallway.
She once told me, in that quiet voice she used when she wasn’t sure she should be speaking at all, about the morning she found her dad on the bathroom floor. His body was curled against the tiles, pill bottles tipped across the cabinet. She froze in the doorway, unsure whether to step closer or shout for her mom.
I can’t shake the image as I take our shortcut through the woods. The path crunches underfoot until it opens onto the old yellow bridge arching over the river.
And there she is, in her school uniform, poised on the edge.
“Come any closer and I’ll jump!” Her voice trembles as her fingers hook around the rusted railing.
My backpack slips from my shoulder and hits the ground. I raise my hands.
Across the wooden deck, her school shoes sit against the railing. Beyond the bars, her toes curl over the outer edge of the bridge.
I shuffle forward. A board creaks and I freeze.
She stares straight into my eyes. “I told you not to come any closer!” Her arms flail, and she teeters on the edge.
I bite the inside of my cheek. Tears blur my sight. I swipe them away and edge forward again.
The boards groan beneath me as my hands close around the railing. I swing one leg onto the lower bar. The top rail digs into my thigh as I climb. My fingers slip. I tighten my grip.
Her voice cracks. “Don’t you dare.”
Wind presses against my back. For a second I wobble. Then I haul myself over and balance on the edge beside her.
We lock eyes.
The river rushes below, smashing against jagged rocks and exploding into white spray. I inch along the edge, fingers clutching the cold metal bar. As I shift my weight forward, my shoe skids on a damp patch of moss. I lurch forward, scraping my palm along the railing.
She vaults over the bars and lands on the deck. Her hand shoots out and clamps around my arm. My ribs slam against the railing. Each pull jolts me, but she keeps dragging until I tumble onto the wooden planks. My back hits hard. I lie splayed.
Neither of us moves.
Then I point at her: You told me you were fine. My hands move from my chest outward. I jab a finger toward her: You always say that. I’m fine, Julie. It’s alright, Julie. You’re exaggerating, Julie.
She stands over me. For a moment, I think she’ll laugh it off. But the silence stretches.
I push myself upright and grab my backpack. She slides her feet into her shoes without a word.
We leave the bridge behind, following the path under the trees until the river fades and the buzz of the street returns. Her house appears. I stop outside the gate, hands tightening on my straps, watching her back disappear through the doorway. Only when the door clicks shut do I turn away.
Thursday, 3 a.m.
Mom walks into my room in white pyjamas with blue stripes.
“Have you heard from Affie?” she asks. “Her mother just texted. Affie’s not home.”
I sit at the edge of my bed and shake my head.
No… no… she wouldn’t.
By the time Mom and I reach the riverbank, blue beams sweep through branches and slide across the water.
A high-pitched sound pierces my ears. My throat burns. Somewhere in the distance, someone screams Affie’s name. It takes me a moment to realise the sound is coming from me.
The river answers with the slow slap of water against the rocks.
I pick up a stone and flick it toward the river. It skips once, twice, then disappears.
For a minute, I see her, sitting on the rock near the bank, elbows on her knees like she’s been waiting.
She turns her head.
“What if the world stopped?”
My throat tightens.
“Everyone would die.”
“Okay,” she says. “Then let’s say the Earth starts rotating backwards. Trees shrink into seeds. We become kids again. Could we go back to normal?”
Behind her, blue lights jitter across the water. A beam snags on something in the reeds. Someone splashes forward, pushing through the shallows.
The rock is empty.
A flashlight steadies on a shape caught where the current bends. Her clothes are heavy with water. One arm drifts with the slow pull of the river.
The voices stop.
Lwazi David Phakathi writes in Pretoria, South Africa. His work centres on themes of identity and dreams.
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