​When the Gate Closes: The Lodger's Last Morning

WHEN THE GATE CLOSES

Stories of Service, Silence, and the Unwritten Exit Plan

By Lawson Chiwara

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INTRODUCTION

In Zimbabwe, retirement often arrives not with celebration, but with silence. Across

ministries, parastatals, NGOs, private companies, and informal ventures, workers who

gave their lives to the system find themselves unprepared—financially, emotionally,

spiritually.

When the Gate Closes is a serialized anthology that explores these exits through the eyes of

eight characters. Each story stands alone, yet together they reveal a haunting truth: the

system retires you, but doesn’t prepare you to retire.

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EPISODE 1: The Lodger’s Last Morning

Sector: Ministry of Social Welfare / Pensions

Character: James

James wakes to silence—no kettle, no radio, just the stale breath of last night’s regrets.

He’d spent his pension in a haze of defiance. Now, the landlord’s knock is coming. 

The knock finally came—three sharp, impatient raps that shook the thin plywood door. It wasn't the respectful knock of a subordinate at the Ministry. It was the sound of a gate closing. James looked at the empty bottle on the floor, then at the ironed shirt hanging on the wall—his last vestige of dignity. He realized then that the system hadn't just retired him; it had erased him.

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