Free Ntshona by Matthew A Robinson Page A

stay calm so that we don’t stand out,” explained Lon before taking a deep breath, “this sounds stupid, but cover your face with your hair”.
    “What?”
    “Just cover your face with your hair so it can’t be seen, then keep your head down and walk”.
    “But that will make us stand out too! It will look suspicious if we’re trying to hide our faces,” said Eve.
    “Put it this way, would you rather look suspicious and have a chance of getting away from here, or would you rather look like someone they might be searching for and get arrested?”
    “Okay,” said Eve as she compliantly moved her hair across her face, leaving a gap wide enough to see through with one eye.
    Lon did the same.
    They both dropped their heads and again began to walk in the direction opposite the parliament buildings, to where there was less surveillance. Due to their hair disguising their faces they lost all their peripheral vision, something quite worrying for the two as they were no longer totally aware of their surroundings.
    Eve’s hair was very thick in comparison to Lon’s, which made it more difficult for her to see, so Lon continued to guide her, not by grasping her wrist this time, but rather with his hand on her upper back, something he considered to be more natural and which would attract less attention. They managed to make their way to a group of pedestrians thick enough to blend in with for a short while, however, they were walking in the wrong direction. There was nothing Lon and Eve could do but follow them completely off the course they were on.
    “Are we going the right way?” asked Eve.
    “No,” replied Lon, “the quickest way is to go around the parliament buildings the opposite way. At this rate we’re gonna lose a lot of time”.
    But this was all they could do in light of the revelation that they too might be caught and killed by an unknown entity, one that may well be linked to the police and the government.
    Eventually, after several minutes of accidental bumping and nudging of their fellow walkers, the two found themselves not in the line of sight of anybody or anything in the area of the parliament complex, but again in among the shadows of tall office buildings in a very long street where the pedestrian traffic was greater.
    “I think we’re safer now,” said Lon. “It’s times like this that I’m glad I have long hair”.
    “But there are security cameras everywhere,” said Eve, still worried, in a shaky voice.
    Lon too was still worried; feeling was only starting to return to his limbs, and despite his forehead being damp with sweat, his body felt cold. He was still frightened, yet was trying hard not to appear so. “Somehow we’ve managed not to get caught so far,” he said in a trembling voice, not unlike that of Eve. “If the cameras are on the lookout for our faces, then we’ve been extremely lucky”.
    “So, what? Do we continue sticking to the crowds?” Asked Eve.
    “We have to, even back alleys have security cameras, and seeing as there aren’t usually many people there, we’d be easy to spot,” said Lon. “But keep your face covered”.
    Because a substantial part of the city was built in a grid system, it was not exceedingly difficult to find a path back to where Lon and Eve needed to go, however, the length of each street affected the length of the journey. They were running rather late.
    Lon kept an eye on his palm screen map while they walked. He was trying to calculate how long it would take them to reach their destination based on slightly different routes. He eventually chose one, and decided the two need ed to cross the road in order to turn a corner. “We should cross at the next crossing,” he said.
    There was no response.
    He looked away from his palm screen to see where Eve was, presuming she was a foot or two behind him. He saw that she had detached from the crowd and stopped for some reason a few metres ago. She was looking up at somebody much taller than