Something in me says if Oom Tami were still living with us, this would be the time to ask him questions, to make certain enquiries. He had what looked like a know-it-all large frame for answers to all questions, though his insides were unknown. If Bra Steve were still around, he would be the one to ask. So, I walk down our street in search of answers.

A few paces in my walk, someone or something walks behind me. I look back. There is no one behind. I walk again. I walk on. A spot of heat enters my back and heats me between my shoulders. I stop to look behind again. This time I see something. It is the inside of the Room-of-my-Birth with its table at the centre and its chairs. There is the bed that rests on empty paint containers along the wall that separates us from the neighbours, and the chest of drawers, its portable mirror and its vase and the white rose. Here am I on the street and here is the Room-of-my-Birth pursuing me. Am I imagining all this? Only I can understand this. Why should I worry about others, in fact, it is the Room-of-my-Birth. So, I walk on.

The Mayor who took Auntie Anna's house is sitting on the veranda in Mathew's place. He has no guitar. He is just a sitting mayor who has no clue about anything.

As he meets my eyes, he rises and bends forward and hides his face behind the wall of the veranda. He is on his legs, and all I see are buttocks that are stuck on a chair and a chair that is flying in the air, moving towards the door and disappearing into Auntie Anna's house.

I walk on. Gogo's son is outside polishing his church shoes. He lifts his arm and shoots his clenched fist in the air. He is greeting me, a child in the long line of the children who grew in the hands of his mother. I smile, greet back and walk on. The frog-eyed policeman is not outside his house. He is hiding behind the curtain, I am sure.

I pass Green Grass with its dark smell of life.