Intro: Strange fruit letters to my un born

He is internally bleeding to death on the floor of cold holding cell from the injuries he received after a vicious phone book beating provoked by a long and strained racial conflicted relationship with a certain police officers which finally crossed the line, it had previously being mostly humours  banter and empty threats up until then a nonviolent battle that was started by the clash of opinions’, the police officers racial slurs and socio economic profiling versus his quick wit intelligence and un repentantly humorous emasculating tongue. His mind and spirit travel to the Ether to avoid his physical pain of dying slowly where he is confronted by “Azreil” angel of death to whom he makes a request knowing his last rites as a Christian.

 Ta asks to send his loved ones good bye letters in the form of dreams, unfortunately Azreil cannot grant this right so he transfers him to Saint Peter who handles such divines matter. Peter needs a justification for such a request and so Ta our victim tries to justify the request by saying “strange fruit is what brought me here, it’s what I am,  I just want to leave some normal fruit ?” and so he takes  us back to the start of his life in post-colonial Zimbabwe a time of so called integration, a time when inter racial relationships that we take for granted today were a taboo approached with caution and distrust, it was also a time when children were seen and not heard . A time before Facebook and twitter where people just did not say whatever they wanted without thinking of the ramifications of their words “what happened in the house stayed in the house”. A time when Children did not speak back to their parents or else they would face the wrath of a leather strap or worse . We are taken into a world of two young lovers and the “wolf pack” where their innocence struggles to breathe and is seemingly being stripped from them painfully  and slowly, he is African and he has lost his father young and struggles on the path to masculinity as well as the natural challenges of going through puberty and the complexities that arise from his home environment as his mother attempts to find the right way to raise them alone  as well as the complex process of  integration going  at school. Detta is white and she has also lost her mother to breast cancer, her guide to her femininity she faces the same challenges as he does accept that after her mother’s death her father has become emotionally vacant and withdrawn, they are drawn to each other’s brokenness seemingly unaware of each other’s race, very aware of I am a boy and you’re a girl and this strange feeling they have for each other. At only 12 years old they trying to deal with not only their past’s, puberty, and present but the issue of identity created by the new independent Zimbabwe and people constantly imposing their values and opinions on them that contradict the feelings they have for each other, and so they struggle with their parents “do as I say not as I do” attitudes. They hold onto each as they wade through the fog of change as they try and figure out what traditions to hold onto and leave what new things to embrace and leave while dealing with the fear of the walk into the unknown with the knowledge that time never moves backward. They face 3 realities how they see the world, how people in world see things and what’s really going on minus the bull shit in between. Along the journey they joined by the “wolf pack” a brotherhood of friends who confide in each to retain their sanity from their home lives, a family away from family.

Funny a times  and painfully honest  looking at issues people would rather sweep under the rug out of shame escapism or the simple fact  that to confront the issue would force them (the adults ) to take a very good look in the mirror.  The Strange fruit is simply the bi products of the situations they are forced to adapt to and evolve around and how it affects their adult lives in the latter years. They are the strange fruit and if you look in the mirror maybe just maybe you are to?

Ps: This book is not a biography but it is based on real life events, some I experienced myself and some passed on to me by counterpart’s family and friends.