Going home to the hut whose door is unhinged, the wails of which tear into the weary day or night every time someone walks in or goes out. Going home to tell his mother that Nduku, the lovely pole that stood holding the hut of his manhood in place, the girl-wife who, in the untamed wilderness, beckoned his heart... to tell his mother that she had... she was... she is...

“Damn words!” he suddenly shouted, making the woman sitting next to him jerk

Mbui has to take a bus home. He has to take a message to his mother; the one woman he adores and dreads in equal measure. Saddened by the burden in his heart, the journey becomes for him the reliving of his life. He traverses the poverty, suffering, betrayal, hatred, joys and loves of his life. The creaking of the door to his mother's hut shatters his hallucinations and punctuates the stories told by the people who live in the ridges across River Kaiti. This is a moving tale of a young man who is too old for his years and who has no choice but to grow up all of a sudden.