It began, as these things often do, with a quiet certainty that life had slipped—gently but unmistakably—into the realm of the absurd.
I had always imagined that if I were to live in a simulation, it would be something sleek, almost cinematic in its precision—like The Matrix, where meaning hides beneath code and destiny wears a leather coat. But no. Mine was of a different persuasion entirely. Mine was what I can only describe as “that’s life, Mwatu”—a village soap opera stitched together with small betrayals, improbable fears, and the occasional washing of laptops under a running tap.
You must understand the prelude to fully grasp the weight of this morning.
My former househelp had left—gracefully, even triumphantly—to pursue a mobile money vending venture. There was something admirable in that departure, something that felt almost like progress. I told myself it was a promotion, and I believed it. Yet, as we all know, every story of ascent leaves behind a quiet residue—of those who must reorganize their lives around the absence. And so I did what any man in quiet denial would do: I replaced him. i’ve previous shared my attempts at replacing him “The Gate, the boy and the gaslighting “
Donacien.
A name that rhymed too neatly with Donath, as though the universe itself had grown lazy in its writing. It felt scripted, almost careless—like a novelist rushing through secondary characters. And still, I accepted it.
Yesterday had been his initiation. Donath, in a final act of reluctant mentorship, walked him through the rituals of the household: the dogs’ feeding patterns, the procurement of dog food, the delicate choreography of chores. It was, by all accounts, a successful transition. I even allowed myself the indulgence of satisfaction. Perhaps, I thought, stability had returned.
But satisfaction, as a pessimist would argue, is often the prelude to a deeper disturbance.
This morning, I woke into a silence that felt… wrong.
The perimeter lights were still on, glowing faintly against the indifference of daylight. The dogs had not been fed. The kitchen bore the quiet accusation of unwashed dishes. There was no breakfast—no sign, even, of intention. It was as though the house itself had been paused mid-breath.
I went to the boys’ quarters.
Empty.
At first, concern came dressed as reason. Perhaps he had stepped out. Perhaps there was an explanation waiting patiently somewhere. But reason is a fragile thing when confronted with absence. I called him—his phone was off. I checked the cameras.
4:50 a.m.
There he was, walking out of the gate. A backpack slung over his shoulder, not hurried, not hesitant—just… leaving. There is something unsettling about the calmness of departure, as though the act itself requires no justification.
I returned to his room. It did not take long to see the truth: his clothes were gone. His belongings—gone. This was not a man stepping out. This was a man who had already decided.
And so the mind, eager to fill its own voids, began its work.
Had he been in trouble? Had something frightened him? Was there some unseen drama unfolding beyond my knowledge?
I reached out to the friend who had recommended him—because, in these matters, one always reaches for a witness, someone to confirm that reality has not completely abandoned you.
While waiting, I performed the small humiliations of independence: making my own breakfast, tending to chores I had outsourced long ago. It felt strangely intimate, like reacquainting oneself with a forgotten version of self.
Then the call came.
“Check your TV screen.”
I paused.
What a peculiar instruction, I thought. What could a television—already half-dead, its left side fading into a dull line—have to do with a missing man?
And then the explanation arrived, almost apologetically.
Donacien had told someone—through a chain of confidences—that he feared he had broken the TV. He had been advised, sensibly, to tell the truth. But truth, in his imagination, had consequences too severe to bear.
He feared arrest.
Arrest.
I stood there, somewhere between amusement and disbelief, wondering what version of me existed in his mind—a tyrant so unreasonable that a faulty television, already broken for a month, could become grounds for imprisonment.
It was then, in that small, quiet moment, that the absurdity settled fully into my bones.
Because how do you argue with a fear that exists entirely outside your reality? How do you correct a narrative you did not know was being written?
The TV, of course, had been broken long before Donacien arrived—a faint line on the left, like a scar I had learned to ignore. It had not mattered enough to fix. It certainly did not matter enough to flee.
And yet, to him, it was everything.
So now Donacien is gone. His phone remains off, as though silence itself were a shield. And I am left here, standing in the quiet aftermath, too tired to begin the search for yet another replacement, too aware that the next chapter may already be writing itself somewhere beyond my control.
Which is why I return, stubbornly, to my earlier conclusion:
This cannot be ordinary life.
No—this is something else entirely.
A simulation, perhaps. But not the polished, philosophical kind. No, this is the rough draft version—the one where logic frays at the edges, where characters exit without warning, and where a broken television becomes the catalyst for disappearance.
Straight up nakawunde vibes.
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And just when I thought the story had exhausted its capacity for irony—when I had neatly folded it into a conclusion about simulations and absurd fears—life, with its peculiar sense of timing, leaned in once more.
On second thought… as I was about to submit this post, something shifted.
It began innocently enough, with the small, almost unconscious instinct to reach for familiarity. My phone charger—the one that never leaves the side of my bed—was not there. I paused. Looked again. The kind of second look that is less about seeing and more about hoping.
Nothing.
Then, a slower unraveling.
Two of my perfume bottles—gone. Not misplaced, not hidden beneath the usual clutter of carelessness—but gone in a way that felt deliberate. Intentional. As though they had participated in the same quiet exit I had witnessed earlier at 4:50 a.m.
And then—the watches.
Two missing.
It is a strange thing, the way realization does not arrive all at once, but in fragments—each piece heavier than the last, each one rearranging the story you thought you understood. What had, moments ago, been an almost comical tale of misplaced fear now began to darken at the edges, taking on a different weight, a different truth.
And I found myself asking, not with panic but with a kind of tired curiosity:
Have I been robbed?
Or is this still part of the same absurd script—this ongoing performance where meaning is always just slightly out of reach, where every answer only births a new, more unsettling question?
Because now, the simulation feels less like a joke.
And more like a test.