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(Please note that this story is based on an imaginary site. Anyone searching for the Lovers’ Crossing will be disappointed!)
The Lovers’ Crossing

There was nothing special about it. Khumo had come to the railway crossing maybe eight times in the past month, but still she couldn’t see it, whatever it was. She walked towards it, keeping an eye out for passing cars, and took in the surroundings. The tall woman selling maize by the side of the road, a good distance from the tracks. The children skipping back and forth across the railway line out of sight of the security post, flirting with danger. The stray dog sniffing at litter near the bend in the road leading away from the tracks. The red and white barriers, raised high in the air for now, the large traffic sign that read “20” and the cars, most of which paid no attention to the speed limit.
The parking lot on the left was only half full, and she could see a few tourists milling around, cameras at the ready. Because they were tourists they followed the rules. Khumo watched them walk up to the large placard and stand there for some time, reading the instructions. From there they moved to the small structure that housed one belligerent security guard. He emerged with his big clipboard and made them register, and Khumo watched them ruffle inside their bags and hand over the politely requested donation.
Then she looked away, turning back to the tracks. It was just a normal railway crossing. Despite all the legends and all the lore, all the stories she had heard growing up. She couldn’t see the magic. She couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. It was nothing but some meaningless stories that got the tourists excited. Metal and dust and weeds. Nothing special.
Yet here she was again, and she couldn’t explain why. She knew better. She didn’t believe in ghosts and even if she did, she would certainly not expect to find them at a railway crossing, of all places. Ghosts belonged in cemeteries and old houses, in abandoned churches and the sites of terrible tragedies. The idea that this ordinary, unremarkable crossing could house any wonders was laughable.
Yet here she was. Again. Khumo heard the whistle and backed away, even though the train was still far off. She stood beside the maize hawker and watched the immense metal creature roar past. She looked at the cars waiting patiently – a white Toyota Hilux, a maroon Audi, a green Corolla, a silver Nissan March, and a bright yellow monster that looked more like a gadget than a vehicle.
The train screamed into the distance, and the cars continued on their way. Khumo glanced at the tourists, who had begun snapping their photographs, capturing whatever it was they had come to capture. They picked positions, posed, moved around to get shots of the track further away from the road. Silly people. It was just a railway crossing.
Khumo looked at the maize seller. The children had been chased away and were now running off into the distance, along the side of the road. Everything was as it should be – as it had always been. There was nothing to see here. She knew that, and yet she kept coming, in the hope that…
The hope that what? She could change things? She could find a clue, a secret doorway into the past, a way to go back and make everything all right again? She put her hands into the pockets of her jacket. The sun was high in the sky and the chilly winter morning had melted away into a pleasant afternoon, but she was still cold.
Her phone vibrated against her thigh for the third time in the last hour, and for the third time she ignored it. She glanced at her pocket, detached from the sensation of the small bump in her tight jeans, thinking vaguely that she should have left the phone at home. It was her mother, of course, or maybe her grandmother, or her cousin, or her best friend. It was somebody who didn’t want her to be there, at Benson’s famous crossing, someone who wanted her to forget. But she couldn’t.
With a deep sigh of resignation, she walked to the security post.
“Dumela Rra,”she said.
The guard scowled at her as though he wanted nothing more than to be left alone. “Ee, mma.” He tapped the clipboard. “You must register.”
Nodding, Khumo flashed her Omang, filled the form and ignored the donation box. She had put in over twenty pula already on her previous visits. She was about to turn away when the guard grunted.
“Ao, mma. Not even five pula? You don’t have some small change? Kana this is your country. You should support.”
Khumo turned back. She reached into her handbag and pulled out a few assorted coins. Nothing significant; ten and twenty-five thebes, maybe a couple of fiftys. She slid them into the small slit on top of the donation box.
“Mmm,”said the guard with satisfaction.
Khumo turned away again and followed the tourists down the dirt path beyond the parking lot. They were all being very careful, keeping their distance from the tracks as if they expected a train to come rushing past at any moment.
Khumo waited while they took another photo, then crossed their path. They greeted her in Setswana, and she replied politely. There were a few more visitors up ahead, though these ones looked like locals. What they were doing here, Khumo couldn’t imagine. There were three adults and five children. The adults spoke amongst themselves in Setswana, but the children spoke only English. Perhaps the adults were trying to teach their kids about Tswana culture. In Khumo’s opinion, a supposedly magic railway crossing didn’t seem like best place to start.
She walked around them, coming to a stop a short distance away, near the fence, and looked around her. In a desperate attempt to create a tourist attraction out of a centuries-old scandal, the city council had put up the fence around the place where the tragedy occurred. It was about 500 by 200 metres, and there was enough space left on either side of the tracks for a car to pass through. The space was allocated for trains, but that didn’t stop people from using it as a thoroughfare, security post or not.
Khumo knew little about the scandal. It had happened long before she was born, a messy love triangle that led to what people used to call a passion-killing. All three people involved in the triangle had come to a grisly end on these tracks, and for an entire week afterwards every train that touched the places where their blood was spilled was derailed. But only for a week. After that the trains ran as normal, as if nothing had ever happened. A huge debate had raged over the cause of the accidents. Some people said it was a technical fault. Others said the train conductors were spooked by the murder/suicide. Far more chose to believe that the ghosts of the three lovers had bewitched the place.
Ever since then, on the anniversary of their deaths, the crossing would close from ten p.m. to three a.m. As a sign of respect, officials said, but everyone knew it was just another tourism ploy. The tourists loved it. They lapped up the funny African superstition, and suddenly the big five wasn’t the only thing Botswana had to offer.
But Khumo didn’t care about three random people who died years ago. She wasn’t here because of superstition, or tourism, or “respect” for the dead. She was here because one year ago her brother Benson had crossed this railway track and died. She could still remember the moment she saw his body for the first time, lying in the coffin. Not a scratch on him. He had been examined twice, but there was no sign of trauma. He had simply stepped over the railway track and dropped dead on the other side.
It made no sense, unless one believed Benson’s crazy theory that the ghosts of the three lovers had been calling him for months. He had told her so, more times than she cared to remember. He had said he could hear them every time he was near the crossing. They wanted him to come and join them on the other side, and one day they would take him.
When Benson’s body was discovered, the old stories came back to life. Suddenly everyone believed in the crossing again, and there were more tourists than ever. But after a while some new scandal reached the headlines and people forgot about the boy who was killed by ghosts. Everyone forgot, except Khumo.

She glanced over her shoulder, then, when she was sure no one was looking, she walked towards the gap in the fence. Taking a deep breath, she crossed the tracks. Her feet moved over the metal, landed on the other side, and kept going. There was no moment of realization, no funny shiver down her spine, no sense of being watched. Nothing.
Frustrated, she turned around and walked back again. She focused hard. She tuned everything else out and allowed herself to feel. The sunlight on the back of her neck. The slight breeze sweeping into her jacket. The feel of the raised metal lines beneath her feet…
She stopped. There was something. She clung to the gate, pressing herself against it in case a car came by, and closed her eyes. It was a jolt, not like electricity, but like waking up suddenly from a dream and not knowing for sure whether you were awake. It was like coming out of a reverie and remembering that you were in a lecture, but not knowing what lecture it was or what the person in front of the class was talking about. It lasted a fraction of a second, and then it was gone.
Khumo stood there, trying to understand what had happened. Was she imagining things? Was it Benson, trying to reach her from the other side? No, what nonsense! Benson was dead and there was no such thing as ghosts.
She crossed the track again, and again, but nothing happened. Eventually she turned away and walked back towards the security post. This was pointless. She shouldn’t have come, and she would never come again. She had to accept that she would never know what had really happened to her brother.
As she walked, she thought she heard someone call her name. Instinctively she turned back, looking at the crossing over her shoulder. There, standing right on the tracks, was Benson. He smiled at her, waved, and then disappeared.
Someone pushed past her, mumbling an apology, and Khumo was jolted back to the present. She stared at the crossing, searching for him, but there was no one there. She looked all around her, but all she saw were tourists with cameras. The Sun shone down on the tracks, and a bird hopped in the dry grass nearby, searching for food. There were no ghosts. No Benson. It was just an ordinary railway crossing.
END

The Lover’s Crossing, Gaborone
• The Lover’s Crossing is a railway track on the outskirts of Gaborone, 5km from the Game City Shopping complex. In the early hours of May 15th, 1989, Samuel Sebego tied his long-time girlfriend, Serame Phutego, and her lover, Katlego Jansen, to the railway tracks as punishment for their betrayal. He then lay down on the tracks between them, a few minutes before the arrival of the next coal freight. The oncoming train was unable to stop and all three lovers were killed. In the seven days following the tragedy, every train that passed the site was derailed before reaching its destination. Although the vehicles were thoroughly examined, no technical faults were discovered. Many Batswana believe that the spirits of the deceased were to blame. No explanation was found for the train accidents, and subsequently there were no further derailments. Three years after the tragedy, the Lover’s Crossing, a name coined by the local papers, was separated from the rest of the track by a fence. The fence measures 500×200 metres.
• The crossing is closed on May 15th every year between 10pm and three am as a way of commemorating the tragedy and raising awareness about domestic violence.
• The crossing is open to the public during the day for sightseeing. While there is no tour guide, there is a placard at the site explaining the history and significance of the crossing. Visitors are required to register and pay a donation of any amount.
• Visitors are expected to exercise caution while at the site, and to maintain a safe distance from the tracks even when there is no train in sight. Children cannot enter the site unless accompanied by an adult.