A Better Kind of Rich Man
By 2026 the company sold equipment, training, maintenance and suitable replacement components across a wider private customer network. Annual revenue was about thirty-eight million emalangeni, with roughly seven million company profit after operating costs and company taxes in that year. It was still Sbu sixty percent and Lulu forty. They had built capacity out of retained earnings and paid orders rather than inventing a distant investor every time a new machine was needed. Some proposed sales were refused, and several experiments never left the development area. The profitable range paid for those lessons and for work the company could be proud to deliver.
Over the years the company had distributed thirteen million emalangeni from profits after retaining what it needed for operations and obligations. Sbu's sixty percent gave him seven million eight hundred thousand. A comfortable home cost him two million two hundred thousand, while personal taxes, other spending and reserves used about one million six hundred thousand. Four million remained in separate cash and investments. His company stake was additional unsold property, not another payment he had already received. Lulu's five million two hundred thousand of distributions were hers, and the firm had its own buildings and equipment. Success had become large without needing to count the same money twice.
Sbu helped his mother buy a modest house near people she wanted to see, using part of the personal spending he had planned. She chose it herself and moved the old kitchen clock before he could offer to replace it. When he asked about a better one, she said a woman who had survived his early cooking could survive seven missing minutes. The painted birds looked cheerful in the new room. Sbu stood beneath them with a bag of groceries and remembered returning with a job letter he had been afraid to refuse. He was rich enough now to carry food without bringing fear home with it.
He and Dudu chose a shared life without turning a wedding into a condition for enjoying it. They made the household commitments that suited them and left the shop and teaching decisions hers. Sbu paid his agreed share of their home and did not describe her independent business as a hobby his money had kindly permitted. Dudu liked him more for the mornings he arrived on time than for the figures somebody else repeated about his company. When he asked whether that was an unusually difficult way to impress a woman, she smiled and said she had deliberately avoided setting a price he could pay once and forget.
Lulu came to dinner after enough time had passed for friendship to stop feeling like a task somebody had assigned her. She had a partner, her own home and the authority at work she had earned before either relationship became easy. Dudu admired her new design, and Sbu listened while the two women discussed an idea for a reading space that did not require his supervision. Lulu caught his expression and asked whether the man from the future had finally discovered a useful way to remain quiet. He said he was testing one. She said the first results were promising but needed repetition.
The anniversary gathering happened at the workshop, with paid catering and a workday arranged so the team could actually enjoy it. Gugu arrived after seeing her own customers. Busi supplied food through her business. Thandi came with friends, Sindi wore a dress from a collection she was proud of, and Noli threatened to leave if anyone turned the speeches into a surprise financial meeting. Zama photographed what she wanted and put the camera down. Tina, Thembi, Noma and Fifi brought news and jokes from lives Sbu no longer needed to interpret as responses to him.
Bheki sent a note asking to discuss a regional parts arrangement. Sbu read it, smiled and put it aside until the next proper workday. A younger version of him might have made the rival's change of tone the center of the celebration. The older younger man had employees to thank, a mother who wanted him in a family picture and a woman waiting to dance. He chose the dance. Dudu put a hand at his shoulder, looked at his expensive new shoes and asked if wealth had improved the feet inside them. Sbu said the matter remained under review. She laughed and agreed to provide further testing.
The old future ran out inNovember 2026. There was no dramatic noise from the clock and no second letter offering to explain what happened next. Sbu opened his first notebook and saw Lulu's early corrections, a price he had once found frightening and the date of a declaration that had proved his memory was more than a dream. He closed it with gratitude rather than hunger. Knowing the future had given him a head start. Listening to people had given him something to do after the remembered road ended. He had become wealthy enough to stop treating every uncertainty as a threat to dinner.
Dudu found him in the kitchen of their home, staring at an ordinary clock that kept perfectly good time. She wore a loose blue shirt, leaned against him and asked if he was waiting for another decade to fall out of it. Sbu said one had been enough trouble. She kissed him, laughed at his attempt to pull her back for another and said food was ready before philosophy. He followed her to the table. Outside, the next season would bring weather they still had to face. Inside, there was warmth he no longer needed to postpone until a more convenient future.