It was the last night of the year, and Marshall’s parents’ house in Harare hummed with the kind of heat only a Zimbabwean summer could conjure. The year was 2012. Rodwell, Marshall, Beloved, Bafana, Bruce and I, six boys turned men, still sticky with the residue of our primary school mischief, crowded around an open braai stand in the backyard. It was a modest spread, admittedly. The grill sagged under the weight of expectations rather than the abundance of meat. Still, my garlic and pepper marinade clung to the few chicken wings and strips of beef we had, defiantly fragrant in the air.

We clinked bottles of Coca-Cola; labels slick with condensation, and made a vow that night. Perhaps we believed the simple act of sharing a meal beneath a velvet sky would bind us forever. We swore this would remain our ritual, squinting through smoke, the future in our mouths. We plotted epic road trips, first to Victoria Falls, then onwards to Maputo, eventually driving “anywhere the tar ends.” Our voices tangled into a sweet, cacophonous dream of endless motion. Overhead, a lone peach tree seemed to wave its leaves in agreement, as if nature itself was rooting for our impossible young-man fantasies.

We were a constellation of contradictions, each friend a different star whose light formed our collective glow. Rodwell, the contrarian, argued for Zanu-PF with an almost biblical fervour, then whispered doubts to me after his third beer. Marshall was, and remains, one of the brightest minds I have ever known, and his parents’ comfortable home was our sanctuary for free Satellite TV and the occasional quick snack from the peach tree. Beloved had a knack for understanding women, or at least that’s what he claimed, and possessed a street-smart edge the rest of us admired. Bruce, who solved calculus problems for fun at 15 and swore he’d “out think Einstein,” now worked in insurance, a world away from the equations he once loved.

Then there was Bafana: quiet, watchful, and always gently plucking his mbira as though it were fused to his fingers. He adored John Legend’s music, an irony, given that he couldn’t sing to save his own life and bore an uncanny resemblance to the star, albeit from the dusty streets of a Harare suburb. In fact, he performed “Ordinary People” at a local talent show once, and we all teased him for believing he could out-sing the original. Yet, behind that quiet humility, Bafana had an entrepreneurial spark that the rest of us lacked, he forever had dreams bigger than our suburb’s dusty streets.

And me? I was the self-appointed chef, desperate to stretch half a kilo of meat into a feast fit for kings. I also relished a good argument, Bruce once declared I could “convince a vulture to veganism” if given enough time. Most evenings, just before dusk, we would all wander the streets of our neighbourhood. We almost always ended up at Beloved’s house, sitting on a low kerb by the roadside, legs stretched into the gutter, as if the very act of gathering could freeze time. In that suspended reality, we were kings of nothing but rulers of the now.

Time, however, has a curious way of fracturing our assumed permanence. Rodwell moved to South Africa to attend university, crossing the Limpopo with a heart full of ambitions. Bafana followed, disappearing into Durban’s sprawl with his mbira and a suitcase full of ambition. Beloved joined the Air Force as a flight engineer, something none of us had predicted from the streetwise teenager we once knew. Marshall moved to Australia, taking his brilliant mind halfway across the globe.

For years, we tried. We resurrected the WhatsApp group every December “This year, let’s reunite!” but someone always cancelled. We morphed into guest stars in each other’s lives, cameo appearances for birthdays or over social media. Suddenly, some of us were married, others divorced. Some had children, while others swore off marriage altogether or remained single out of choice, chance, or a mixture of the two. Careers, parenthood, and mortgages demanded a toll we never budgeted for. Someone, I forget who, once commented that funerals had become our accidental reunions. It sounded bleak but was heartbreakingly true. Life piled up. The group chat filled with gaps in months of silence punctuated by a forwarded meme. I am now acutely aware that we’ve reached the age where we start burying our friends and loved ones. It’s grim, but such is the way of life.

It struck me years later, on a still night in New York’s Catskills mountains. Snow muffled the world outside my window, and I scrolled through old memories in my head. I hadn’t so much lost my friends I’d lost the world that made us possible. Back then, our bond thrived on unclaimed time and the luxury of proximity, where every evening presented itself as an invitation to dream. Adulthood, however, replanted each of us in separate gardens, with distinct climates, soils, and watering schedules. Some friendships thrived in that new environment, growing into deeper connections that adapted to long distance calls and carefully planned visits. Others wilted, not out of neglect or malice, but simply because the conditions that nurtured them, the idle afternoons, the shared hunger for something, no longer existed.

Even so, as the years progressed, there were sparks of our old camaraderie. Now and then, my phone would buzz at 11 p.m. with a text from Marshall: “Zvirisei mdara? Happy birthday, and before you get too proud, remember you’re only seven days older than me!” That offhand greeting typed across oceans and time zones now means a lot. Then came that random weekend in Durban when I visited Bafana, who took me around his bustling city with the pride of a local host. We walked the Golden Mile beach, letting the warm Indian Ocean tickle our toes, reminiscing about how we used to swear we’d see every ocean in the world together. Another time, I found myself with Beloved at a tiny shanty braai spot, the sort of place where each hand competes with flies while trying to devour a piece of sizzling meat and sadza. We laughed, and for a second, I recognised the glint of teenage mischief in his eyes.

These moments, though ephemeral, now glow brighter in my memory precisely because of their rarity. I’ve grown to appreciate the hush between such reunions, recognising that a friendship doesn’t require constant evidence to remain real. Like an old, well-worn Weinbrenner shoe, our bond fits even if it has been relegated to the back of the cupboard for months.

Harare still exerts a gravitational pull on us, no matter where life has scattered us. I recall returning one November during the jacaranda bloom, those purple petals carpeting the streets with a delicate hush. There was an odd nostalgia in seeing our old school. The roads seemed narrower, the houses smaller, and the once-enormous yard at Marshall’s place looked modest in a way I’d never noticed before.

Yet something about that comforting smell of dust and blossoms, the faint aroma of roasting maize from a roadside vendor, made me feel 19 again. In those small sensory details, I could almost hear the clink of Coke bottles and the crackle of the braai. I could almost see my younger self brimming with the arrogance of youth, convinced that tomorrow was so far away.

Over time, I found that sharing these memories and small updates was enough to keep the embers alive. Did we transform into the versions of ourselves we once envisioned? Perhaps not exactly. Life’s storms knocked us about, forging new dreams and discarding old illusions. Some soared to professional heights we never dreamed possible, others took longer routes, stumbling along unexpected paths.

Each of us still carries pieces of the old group identity, Rodwell’s contrarian edge, Marshall’s intellect, Beloved’s boldness, Bafana’s quiet determination, Bruce’s Einstein-like curiosity, and my eagerness to hold everyone together over a shared meal and an unrelenting argument. Those traits haven’t vanished, they’ve simply scattered themselves across continents, timelines, and adult responsibilities.

I no longer mourn the shrinking of our once-bustling circle. Of course, I miss the noise the chaos of being 19 and mistaking laughter for immortality. But I recognise that time is a tide, and we each must adapt to its ebb and flow. The truth is the demands of adulthood fatherhood, careers, grief reroute us, not out of deliberate separation, but out of necessity.

In the end, love is not diminished by distance. It’s tested in the silent stretches between texts and phone calls, shaped by the demands of daily life, and ultimately redefined by the realities we each must face. If the flame remains, even as embers, it’s evidence enough that the light we once shared continues to flicker. And sometimes, that glow fleeting, yet brilliant is all we need to remember where we began, and to trust in the strength of the bonds that remain.