Petunia
By Lerato Mahlangu, first published in FIYAH
A boy discovers the truth about his chronic hallucinations.
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Plot Summary
In the bath, the boy thinks about getting art supplies, whether he can still make it as an artist, and how his mother is doing. He wishes he could fall in love and move into a place of his own. Afterward, his mother tells him to leave the house, as she has guests and lays out fine china on the dinner table for them. However, he soon starts to hallucinate. The water around him turns green, and he loses his hearing.
The boy wakes up in his bed, to the sound of music outside. His mother, beside him, makes him a sandwich and tells him to get dressed. He asks about the festival and says he wants to go this year, but his mother forbids him, fearing that his hallucinations will cause trouble outside. Instead, his mother tells him that she’ll take him to church tomorrow, where the archbishop will heal him. He wishes he could enjoy the festivities with everyone outside, though he remembers how, a long time ago when he attended, at age sixteen, he hallucinated and woke up in the emergency room. Now, at twenty-five, his hallucinations have worsened. His life seems off-track.
At night, the boy is kept up by sleep paralysis. The birds outside seem to talk to him. The morning after, at breakfast, he asks his mother again if he can go to the festival. She tells him she’ll take him to church. He asks if there’s a specialist or medication he can have, but she says church is the best solution. He goes to bed and stays in his room out of resentment. On Sunday, he goes to church and lines up before the archbishop for a miracle. Everyone celebrates his healing power. For two weeks, the boy has no hallucinations, and he even finishes a few paintings. He wonders if he should keep going to church.
When the boy tends to the garden outside, the birds once again seem to talk to him. However, he realizes that they’re really talking and it isn’t a hallucination. They ask him to follow, and he does. They say he’s the chosen one and must collect scraps for his great grandmother, who materializes before him. When he wakes up in his garden again, he starts foraging for materials outside, on the streets, and starts weaving them together in his bedroom, though he’s unsuccessful at first, as he has no experience. Eventually, his mother is worried at how isolated he has become, in his bedroom, though he still goes to church every Sunday.
One Sunday, the boy sits with his great grandmother and learns from her style of threading and stitching. His hallucinations only get more vivid from then on out. He asks his great grand mother, one day, what the costume is for. She says it’s an ancestral piece that represents the spirit of his lineage. She promises he can wear it at the festival, which is about to end soon. She says he has been with him ever since his birth. From then on, he continues going to church and sitting with his great grand mother.
Eventually, the boy finishes the dress, though his mother comes in one day and asks him what it is. He tells her it’s an ancestral piece that his great grandmother told him to make. She doesn’t believe him, saying that it’s actually a demon, disguised as her, making him do his dirty work. Quickly, she brings in gasoline and burns it outside. His mother then suffers a fever, which he knows is his great grandmother’s doing. While he tends to her, he repairs the dress until it’s even better than how it used to be. His great grandmother, marveling at it, tells him that he’s ready.
On the day of the festival, the boy puts on his dress and goes out to town. A wind picks up, carrying him high above everyone else as they beat drums and sing. After the dance in the sky, he wakes up the next day and joins his mother for breakfast. He tells her that his hallucinations are finally under control, though he doesn’t tell her why. He knows that the hallucinations have been signs from his grandmother all along.
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