17/07/2025
Title of the Book: In Time
Chapter One: Before the Storm
Lusaka, Northern Rhodesia 1963
Billiard had a smile that could fold a storm, a quiet gentleness in his eyes like ripples on a still lake. People often mistook his silence for shyness, but it was not that. He simply listened more than he spoke. And when he listened, it was with the attention of a man who knew the value of memory.
He met Annastasia in the warm corridors of Kamwala High School, where the scent of dust and hope lingered between classes. She had the kind of beauty that stories forget to capturedeep and subtle, the way twilight can be more stunning than daylight if you know how to watch. Her skin was the rich hue of roasted cocoa beans, and her laugh danced like sunlight through baobab leaves.
Their love started as a whispera quiet exchange of glances, the occasional stolen conversation behind school blocks, and late-night texts beneath mosquito nets and flickering bulbs. Billiard knew from the moment she called him "Billi" in a soft, teasing tone that something rare had happened to him. She wasnt just another crush. She was a chapter that would write itself into his soul.
Five years they dated, a love as pure as untouched water in a clay pot. He never laid a hand on her body in lust, though his heart beat furiously in her presence. Annastasia, shy and pensive, had made her stance clear: she would wait. Not because of religion or pressure, but because she wanted her first time to be meaningful. Billiard had nodded solemnly.
"Then Ill wait too," he had whispered, tracing circles into her palm.
She worried, often, about the temptation around himother girls, the lies that sometimes slithered through boyhood friendships. But Billiard, to the frustration of even his closest peers, held a sacred respect for her.
And then came universityThe University of East African Baraton, a cathedral of intellect nestled in the misty hills of Kenya. There, Billiard bloomed academically, surrounded by minds that shimmered with ambition and girls whose beauty flowed like rivers in rainy season. But none of them were Annastasia. None had the fragile strength in their gaze, the voice that could calm his storms. He remained loyal, earning whispers of disbelief and respect in equal measure.
Their communication remained stronglate-night calls, online chats filled with longing and patience. He sometimes imagined their wedding under mango trees, Annastasia in white, glowing like morning dew.
And then graduation came.
She arrived, gliding off the bus like an angel descending into his moment of triumph. Dressed in a white lace dress that caught the sunlight like a net, she looked like every version of love he had ever dreamed. He held her that night, not with lust, but awe.
It was time.
They planned the perfect weekenda picnic in Siavonga by the edge of Lake Kariba. Annastasia loved white; she said it made her feel like the sky before a rainbow. So, Billiard brought white beddings, white lilies, white plates. He brought wine, laughter, and all the love five years could carry.
But fate is a cruel mistress.
On the very morning of their rendezvous, his mother collapsed at home and was rushed to the University Teaching Hospital. Billiard, torn between duty and desire, made the impossible choice.
"Im sorry, my love. I cant leave her," he said over the phone, his voice thick as rainclouds.
Annastasia, already in Siavonga, had drunk just enough wine to melt her fears. Her heart ached with confusion. Was it rejection? Abandonment? Had he changed?
Alone, tipsy, and vulnerable, she wandered into a local club just to dull the ache. She didnt mean to. But something inside her cracked open, like a dam too long burdened.
When Billiard arrived the next morning, he brought roses and forgiveness.
But the bed was already red.
Not with roses. With betrayal.
The white linens were stained with blood. His blood. Her first had not been his.
She cried. He screamed. They sat in silence. No words were enough. She said he abandoned her. He called her names he had never believed he could say.
She vanished a week later.
Months passed. He heard whispers of her pregnancy, then her plan to travel to America on a scholarship. Then came the cold news of her abortion.
And her death.
Two weeks later, Billiard buried his mother.
Three days after that, he took a rope and ended his own life under the same mango tree where he had once imagined their wedding.
Chapter Two: The Echoes After the Celebration
sixty Years Later Kawambwa, Zambia
The rains had just come, and Kawambwa smelt like soil and memory. In a quiet compound, a boy named Jeremiah was born. He came out screaming like thunder in a drum, his fists clenched tightly as though remembering something he could not name.
As he grew, people said he had the eyes of a prophet. He was brilliantsharp, curious, and eerily mature. He soared through Ng’ona Primary, outshining peers and attracting both pride and envy. By Grade 8, the corruption of ci******es and cheap beer at Kawambwa Boys made his mother restless. She whisked him away to St. Clements in Mansa, where his soul could remain anchored.
He remembered dreams. A girl with cocoa skin. A white dress. Blood.
He didnt know what they meant.
Not yet.
In Time
The day Jeremiah graduated was the kind of day poets dream of. South Africa’s skies stretched clear, and the University of Capetown was cloaked in a breeze that seemed to hum old Luck Dube’s songs. Jeremiah, draped in his black gown, looked over the sea of graduates but only searched for one face —Mayas.
And when he saw herstanding beneath a jacaranda tree, wearing a flowing maroon dress, her dark skin glowing like moonlit mahoganyhis breath left him. She smiled, a smile that knew everything and forgave everything, and at that moment, nothing else mattered. Cameras clicked. Families laughed. But for Jeremiah and Maya, the world paused in reverence.
A New Beginning and Unspoken Fears
After the celebrations, they spent the evening walking hand-in-hand through South Africas quieter suburbs. Maya had traveled by bus from Zambia, across borders and strange towns, just to witness his triumph. That meant something to himno, it meant everything.
But beneath the warmth of their reunion, something delicate had shifted.
Youve changed, she whispered as they watched the moon from a guesthouse balcony.
How? he asked, genuinely puzzled.
You talk less like youve learned to keep secrets.
Jeremiah smiled faintly. Maybe Ive just learned to carry the weight.
She didnt press further. Maybe she was scared of the answers. Maybe he was scared of telling the truththat university had changed him. Not with cheating or betrayal, but with questions. Questions about love, about identity, about whether two people molded in their teenage years could survive the storms of adulthood.
Still, he loved her. Deeply. Desperately. But the world after university is not built for pure loveit is built for survival.
Long Distance Love
Jeremiah returned to Zambia months later. But something was different. Jobs were scarce. Opportunities were ghosts. He tried to get a place in Lusaka, while Maya enrolled at Mulungushi University to study social work in Kabwe. Their calls became shorter. Messages went unanswered longer. Love letters were replaced with WhatsApp seen ticks and delayed replies.
……sometimes she would complain that he phoned her a lot
Yet, even in silence, their love pulsedlike a soft drumbeat in the background of a noisy room.
One day, Jeremiah boarded a bus from Lusaka to Kabwe, unannounced. When he arrived at her boarding house, the guard at the gate refused to let him in.
Shes not here, the man said.
What do you mean not here?
She left. She said she was going to Chisamba family emergency.
That was the first time a shadow crossed Jeremiahss heart.
He sat under a mango tree near the gate, wondering if love had timelines. If perhaps, like flowers, love bloomed once, and then slowly withered under the scorching sun of neglect.
The Man She Didn't Tell Him About
Months later, Jeremiah heard from a friend that Maya was often seen around town with a young police officer stationed in Chibombo. His heart sank, not in rage, but in quiet sorrow. He didn't believe it at firstnot his Maya. Not the girl who once cried because he looked at another woman too long. Not his Maya whom he was yet to make love to……..
But love, like rivers, takes strange turns.
When he finally confronted her, she denied everything. And yet, her eyes didn't.
Do you still love me? he asked, his voice soft as the wind.
She hesitated. I I dont know what love means anymore.
Jeremiah didnt cry. He just looked at her the way a soldier looks at a battlefield after a lost wargrief-stricken but too tired for tears.
I waited, he said. Even when I didnt know what I was waiting for.
She looked down. Im sorry.
It wasnt betrayal that hurt him most. It was the slow fading. The way something once vibrant and sacred turned into silence, distance, and uncertainty.
But the Universe Wasnt Done
Weeks turned into months. Jeremiah buried himself in work. He began teaching part-time at a secondary school in Ndola. He met new people. Laughed again. He even started writingshort stories about love and loss.
And yet, every time he passed by a girl in a maroon dress, or smelled cocoa butter in a crowded room, or heard the distant sound of Celine Dion playing in a taxi, he was transported back to her. To Maya.
Sometimes, love doesnt end with a bangit ends with memories refusing to fade.
Chapter Three: The Spirit Remembers
Jeremiah had always thought the human heart broke onceand then hardened, like pottery fired in a kiln. But after Maya drifted away from his life, it wasnt hardness that took hold of him. It was hollowness. Days felt like half-dreams. Nights stretched into haunted silences. And in between, time became an enemymocking him with its endless ticking.
But something else started happening too.
It began subtly. A dream here, a shadow there. He would be sitting at his desk correcting essays when a scentsomething like cinnamon and charcoalwould drift across the room, even though no one was there. Once, while walking through the Ndola Museum alone, he caught a glimpse of a woman in a yellow chitenge skirt standing behind him in a display glass. When he turned, there was no one.
But in the reflection she was still there. Looking just like Maya. Only older. Sadder. And holding a baby.
The First Dream
The real shift began with a dream that came one night in mid-July.
In it, Jeremiah stood barefoot in the middle of an open field, covered in golden grass that danced with the wind. The sun was setting, and the sky glowed like burning honey. In the distance, he saw her-Maya. Only she was dressed in something from another time. A blue wrap dress embroidered with beads and copper patterns. Her hair was plaited in ancient rows, and on her forehead was a symbola spiral circle enclosed in a crescent moon.
She didnt speak. But her eyes held him like a song he couldnt quite remember.
Where are we? he asked.
She smiled sadly. In-between.
In-between what?
Lives.
Before he could speak again, she walked toward him and placed a small clay amulet in his hand. It was warmtoo warm. It pulsed like it had a heartbeat.
Find me, she whispered. Not in this life. But in the one after.
Jeremiah woke up gasping, drenched in sweat. But in his fist, clenched so tightly his knuckles had turned white, was a piece of brown thread.
He didnt remember ever owning it.
The Visit to the Seer
Days passed. The dream haunted him.
He told no one, but his silence grew heavier. One day, during a teacher's workshop in Kitwe, he wandered away during lunch break and ended up in a quiet street, where an old woman sat beneath a sign painted in fading red: MaNgozi Spirit Healer & Dream Interpreter.
He laughed at first. It felt silly. But somethingsome pull he couldnt explaindrew him in.
The old woman didnt ask his name. She looked into his eyes and said, Youve seen her, havent you?
Jeremiah froze. Who?
The woman who waits for you in-between lifetimes.
He sat.
MaNgozi didnt speak much. She held his palms, closed her eyes, and whispered in Bemba, Lozi, and another tongue he didnt recognize. Then she placed a small mirror in his hand.
Your souls have danced before, she said. You two have loved, lost, died, and returned many times.
Jeremiah stared at her.
You dont believe me. But you will. When the wind brings her scent again, and a child speaks her name without knowing it.
He left shaken. Laughing to himself. What nonsense, he thought. Except when he returned to his guesthouse that night, the little girl selling fritters by the roadside looked up at him and said, Uncle Jeremiah, where is Anna?
“Anna? he asked.
Yes. The girl with sad eyes, she said. She was crying behind you.
He didnt sleep that night.
Echoes in the Classroom
Weeks passed. Jeremiah resumed work. Life continued, but reality felt thinner nowlike gauze. The boundary between the seen and unseen had stretched.
One day, while teaching a Form Two class about Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet, he heard a girl whisper, Love never dies, even if we do.
He looked up. It was a quiet girl named Namakau. She stared out the window, not aware she had spoken aloud.
What did you say? he asked.
I I didnt say anything, sir.
And yet hed heard it. Clear as thunder.
Later that evening, he found her crying behind the library.
Are you okay? he asked gently.
She shook her head. Sometimes I dream things that havent happened yet. Or maybe they already happened. I dont know.
He sat beside her, unsure why his hands trembled.
I saw you, she said suddenly. In a dream. Wearing a blue shirt, standing in a field. And a woman gave you a necklace.
Jeremiahs heart stopped.
How do you know that?
She shrugged. Its like I was watching a movie through someone elses eyes.
That night, he started journaling everythingdreams, signs, names, even passing phrases. He started calling it The Repetition Diary.
The Return of Maya
One bright Thursday afternoon, as the second term neared its close, Jeremiah sat grading papers when his phone rang. An unknown number.
Hello?
Silence. Then a soft intake of breath.
“Jeremiah? the voice whispered.
His heart knew before his mind did.
“Maya
She sighed. I didnt think youd answer.
I almost didnt.
A pause.
Im in Lusaka, she said. I wanted to see you. If thats okay.
Why now?
Because Im tired of pretending Im okay.
He said nothing for a long time. But eventually, he agreed.
They met at Manda Hill, in the quiet outdoor gardens. She looked older. Not agedbut matured by grief and time. Her eyes still held the same fire, but now it flickered behind walls.
I messed up, she said. But I never stopped dreaming about you.
Why didnt you fight for us? he asked.
I thought I had to let go to grow. But the more I grew, the more I shrank.
They spoke for hours. Like old songs finding their melodies again.
And just as the sun began to dip, she whispered something that shook him:
Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I see us as children. Running through maize fields. But its not this life. Its somewhere older. Stranger.
Jeremiah looked at her. Do you believe in reincarnation?
She nodded. I didnt. Until you.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the thread from the dream. She gasped.
I have the other piece, she whispered. At home.
They stared at each other, suddenly understanding that what had been broken had always meant to return. But this reunion was not romanticnot yet. It was spiritual. Their bond had transcended time, and perhaps now, time had decided to repay them.
The Spiral of Fate
From that day, dreams returned more frequently. Sometimes they were in ancient kingdoms. Sometimes in slave caravans. Sometimes in Indian temples or rural Scottish hills. But always together.
Maya started sketching the faces she saw in her dreams. One showed Jeremiah in warrior armor. Another, as a monk. And in each, she was theresometimes his lover, sometimes a healer, sometimes a stranger whose eyes always recognized him.
They took these sketches to MaNgozi again. The old woman looked at them and wept.
You are not the first version of yourselves. But maybe you will be the last.
What do you mean? Jeremiah asked.
If you love well in this life you may never have to return.
And for the first time, Jeremiah understood that this wasnt just about second chances. It was about liberation. Their love was a soul contract stretched across centuries. Each life a new trial. Each death, a reset.
But if they could love nowtruly, selflesslymaybe they would break the loop.
Chapter Four: The Choice of the Soul
Jeremiah never thought love would ask him to choose between forever and freedom.
After his reunion with Maya, their bond deepenednot into romance immediately, but into a strange, sacred friendship. The kind that defied the worlds logic. They began spending weekends togethernot in hotels or restaurantsbut in quiet libraries, old ruins, riverbanks, and beneath trees with names older than Zambia itself.
Their conversations were no longer just about their pastthey were about their pasts. They compared dreams like puzzle pieces. In one, Maya saw herself drowning in a river, a man calling her name from the bank. In Jeremiahs matching dream, he was that mandiving in, too late, screaming.
The Past Returns
By September, they both began waking up with scars they couldnt explain. One morning, Maya found a faint birthmark on her lower back shaped like a spiral sunthe exact same shape from Jeremiahs first dream. It hadnt been there before. On Jeremiahs palm, a line began to darken, curving unnaturally like a hook, resembling an ancient symbol theyd seen in one of MaNgozis books.
The seer confirmed their fears.
You are remembering too much, she said. Your past lives are bleeding into this one. Its a sign.
A sign of what? Jeremiah asked.
MaNgozi touched both their foreheads and whispered in Lozi: It means you are nearing your final test.
The Final Test
They returned to her again after a particularly disturbing dream. In it, both were burned at the stake in a medieval town, accused of witchcraft. The townspeople chanted, and yet neither screamed. As the flames rose, they held hands. Their bodies burned, but their eyes remained open, looking at one another.
It is the life where your love first cursed you, MaNgozi said.
Cursed us? Maya asked, voice trembling.
Yes. You made a vow to find each other in every lifetime even if it meant dying again and again.
Cant we break the curse? Jeremiah asked.
MaNgozi nodded slowly. You can. But not by staying together. Not this time.
The room fell into silence.
You must learn to love without possession. To let go. Only then will your souls rest.
Jeremiah turned to Maya. So were meant to find each other, only to lose each other again?
No, MaNgozi said. Youre meant to choose. Reunite and risk repeating the cycle or part ways, and earn your freedom.
It felt like a cruel joke.
Earthly Trials
As if fate was listening, their external lives began to shift.
Maya received an offer to pursue a two-year Masters of Social Psychology in South Africa. Fully funded. Prestigious. But she hadnt applied.
Jeremiah received an invitation to participate in a writing residency in Tanzaniafocused on spiritual narratives and memory.
Both programs started the same week.
They sat under a fig tree one Saturday evening, in a secluded park in Kabwe, trying to pretend the world wasnt splitting them in two again.
We could say no, Jeremiah offered, hesitant.
And do what? Stay here and watch ourselves rot in comfort? Maya said bitterly.
Youre afraid.
Yes. But not of going Im afraid of losing this.
He looked at her, then the fig tree, then the crimson horizon. We already lost it once.
She stood, dusted her skirt. Then maybe its time we learn how to love without needing to hold.
That night, they sat in silence. No kisses. No promises. Just fingers interlocked on the edge of goodbye.
The Memory Cave
Before they left, they took a final tripto a cave in Siavonga that MaNgozi had pointed them toward. She called it The Memory Cave. She said it held echoes of all lives past.
They arrived just after dawn, carrying candles, journals, and quiet hope.
Inside the cave, everything was still. The silence was so thick it buzzed. They walked hand in hand deeper until they reached a chamber where cave paintings decorated the walls.
There, Maya found a familiar figure drawn in ochrea woman with braided hair, sitting beside a warrior holding a spiral amulet.
Ive seen this before, she whispered.
Jeremiah stared at the warrior. It was him. Or it had been.
They sat in silence, placed their hands on the wall, and suddenlylike thunder cracking through their skullsthey fell back into vision.
A Vision of Their First Life
In a time before maps, in a kingdom near a great river, he was a guard. She, a priestess of the moon goddess. Their love was forbidden. But in the silence of the temple gardens, they had touched souls. When discovered, she was ordered to take a vow of silence for life, and he was exiled.
They met in secret once more. She gave him a copper spiral and said, Find me in every time. He made her a vow under the eclipse.
But they were caught. Executed at dawn. Together.
Their last sight in that life: each others eyes.
They awoke in the cave hours latertears streaked down their faces. But no sadness remained. Only peace.
Weve done this so many times, Maya whispered.
And maybe this is the time we stop, Jeremiah said.
She nodded. I want you to go to Tanzania.
And I want you to go to South Africa.
They kissed, not as lovers clingingbut as souls parting with gratitude.
One Year Later
The years passed like the slow blooming of spring.
Maya thrived in South Africaher research “access to health insurance” gained recognition. She traveled, healed, taught.
Jeremiah wrote. Published. Became known as the ghost author of reincarnated love. His book, The Spirit Remembers, was nominated for an African literary prize.
They kept in touch, rarely. But always gently. No jealousy. No regret.
And one day, exactly two years to the day they entered the cave, Jeremiah received a brown envelope with no return address.
Inside was a photo of a copper spiral and a note:
“We passed the test.”
If we meet again let it be without need. Just presence. Just light.
He smiled, folded the note, and placed it in his journal titled The Repetition Diary. Then he walked outside into the Tanzanian sun.
And for the first time in many lifetimes he felt free.
Chapter Five: The Life Between Lives
When the soul releases its final breathwhen the tether between flesh and spirit frays beyond repairwhat happens next is not fire or darkness or even peace.
What happens is remembering.
For Jeremiah and Maya, death had never been a stranger. They had lived and died a thousand times in one anothers arms. But thisthis was the first time they had lived beyond the pattern. The first time their love had broken the loop.
Now, untethered, their souls wandered through a realm with no time. No gravity. No direction.
Just memory.
The Grey Fields
Jeremiah became aware of himself slowly, like rising from underwater.
He stood in a vast plain of greyneither cloud nor earth beneath him. It wasnt cold, but the absence of warmth was noticeable, like a room after a fire has gone out. There was no sky. No stars. Only a soft, endless mist humming like distant violins.
He looked down.
He had no body, not reallybut a shape. A memory of form. A silhouette wrapped in light.
A voice came, not from around him, but from within.
You are not dead. You are remembered.
He turned.
Maya was there.
She too glowed softly; her outline painted in lavender hues. Her eyes were larger than before, cleareras though vision was not about sight anymore, but essence.
He didnt speak. Neither did she. They simply were.
In this space, they did not need language. Emotion moved between them like windjoy, gratitude, awe and then, a quiet sadness.
Is this it? he askednot aloud, but soul to soul.
Not quite, she replied. This is the bridge.
The Hall of Remembrance
They walkednot with feet, but with intentiontoward a distant structure emerging through the grey. It was neither building nor temple, but something more ancient: The Hall of Remembrance.
The walls shimmered with storiesmoving murals made of memory. As they entered, the air (or something like it) thickened with vibration. They heard whispersnot of fear, but of recognition.
A being stood at the center. Genderless. Radiant. Wrapped in gold threads of time.
Welcome, it said. You have arrived at the Interstice. Where souls choose.
Jeremiah stepped forward. Choose what?
The being nodded. Where to go. Or whether to go at all.
It gestured, and a wall opened into cascading imagesJeremiahs lifetimes flashed before him:
A hunter in precolonial Namibia, dying from a lions claw.
A Portuguese sailor drowning off the Mozambican coast.
A South Asian merchant in Zanzibar falling in love with a local healerMayaburned together in colonial flames.
A British clerk in Northern Rhodesia marrying a black woman in defiance of law, executed by firing squad.
A masters student laying his head on a cute social work student at Goma lakes
Each life blinked like candlelight.
And then came the one just lived.
You chose love, over and over, the being said. Until you chose release.
The Soul Ledger
Maya was led into a separate chamberthough separation in this realm was symbolic, not spatial.
Here, a table formed from light emerged, and atop it, a soul ledger glowed. Pages filled with radiant ink unfolded, recording every act of kindness, betrayal, truth, silence, courage, and fear she had ever expressed across lifetimes.
She weptnot from guilt or pride, but from seeing the symmetry of it all.
One entry caught her attention:
Life 87 Betrayed love out of fear. Took anothers hand. Left a soul grieving. Died full of regret.
And yet, beside it:
Life 90 Returned. Made amends. Gave virginity to her true lover. Freed yourself.
A voice behind her whispered:
Each wound you gave, you later healed. That is all that is asked of a soul.
She turned and saw a younger version of herselfperhaps the first Anastasiaher eyes full of fire and innocence.
Are you me?
I was, the girl smiled. Now you are.
The Choice
Meanwhile, Jeremiah was offered a simple question by the golden being.
Do you wish to return?
He hesitated.
To what?
Another life. Another cycle. As a writer, a warrior, a stranger, a father. Alone or with another. Or perhaps to become a guide.
He looked into the void and saw the Earth far below, spinning, alive with noise and beauty and madness.
What of her?
She will be given the same choice.
He thought of everything theyd enduredburnings, executions, separations, silence. He thought of their final parting, the letter she had sent, the way her handwriting curved like it always had, no matter the life.
He closed his eyes.
No. I want to serve. Not return.
The being nodded. Then you shall become a Witness.
Mayas Decision
In her chamber, Maya stood before a window of stardust, through which she could see souls choosing their next birthsinfants, elders, prophets, farmers, twins, even comets.
A voice asked:
And you?
She smiled.
I dont need to go back.
Then what shall you become?
She looked at a mother holding a crying child on Earth, alone, burdened.
Let me be the hand she doesnt see but always feels. Let me become hope.
The Transformation
And so, it began.
Jeremiahs soul ascended into the Order of Witnessessouls who hover at the edges of lives, nudging others toward love, redemption, truth. He would live in flashes of inspiration, in the last line of poems, in sudden courage before hard choices.
Maya became a Keeper of Hopemanifesting in lullabies, whispered reassurances, the soft strength of women rising after devastation. She would be the presence in empty rooms that said, You can still rise.
Their final meeting was not in words.
It was in fusion.
They met at the highest point of the in-between, were light and memory dance together. There, they folded into each othernot as lovers, not even as friends, but as cosmic resonance.
Two notes from different instruments, played in perfect unison.
Epilogue