My friend tells me she’s recently moved and is not adjusting well to the new food. I sympathise because I know what that feels like.
“Give it time,” I say. “Most tastes are acquired.” Continue reading
flash fiction
Before toilet paper
“Check out this hoarder,” Adam leans over to show me his smartphone screen.
It’s a van, packed with rolls of toilet paper. The caption says the driver was fined for overloading.
I am transported back to my childhood, to a pit latrine on top of an anthill in the middle of my grandparent’s compound. The door was partially hidden by the boldo plants that grew around it – our toilet paper.
With the manure in the ground, we never ran out.
I smile.
Those were simple times.
I return to the shopping list in my hands and write ‘toilet paper’.
April showers make me cry
Tears flow down my cheeks and I blow my nose into an already wet tissue. I’m burning up and my eyes are getting redder by the second. I feel another sneeze coming. This is why I don’t like the rainy season.
The incessant showers have washed the dust back on to the ground. All around town, green things are springing back to life, but me? I feel like I’m dying. Continue reading
Mother will never know
Mother does not know where I am going, and she never will.
All she ever does is make me work. Before sunrise, I mop the house and polish the floor. I dust the seats and sweep the carpet. When the sun rises, I fetch water from the village well and wash clothes. I clean and clean and clean. By the time the sun is overhead, I go with Mother to the market, and then I get dinner ready, as Mother sits on the verandah, waving to the neighbours and beaming with pride when they tell her what a good daughter she has. Let her think I am still her good girl. Continue reading
I wish the neighbours would fight
Last night was peaceful. You’d get my meaning if you knew my neighbours. They fight. They fight often. It’s loud. It’s ugly. It keeps everyone up.
Last night we all took the night off. I was happy to hear my own heartbeat again. I drew the blinds. I dimmed the lights. I got my bowl of popcorn. I burrowed into the couch and started the film.
And then I heard that eerie sound again: the kitchen door opening, distinct footsteps slowly coming my way. I froze. My pounding heart rose to my throat. How I wished the neighbours would fight.
Vegetarian for a day
A distant vibrating sound rouses me from my deep slumber. For a few seconds, I think I’m dreaming. And then I hear it. The hooves of a herd of cattle, pounding the stony earth road, the whoosh of a whip cutting through the still air, the deep bellow of a full-grown bull. My sleep disappears with the moon. The herd disappears through the gate to oblivion. Onward to the slaughterhouse that supplies the city with fresh beef every morning.
I drag myself out of bed and through the day in a sleepy daze. On my way home, as I wait to be served at the local butchery, my thoughts are drowned by that staccato sound of hooves, and I walk away in a stupor, to my dinner of salad and fruits.
Are you looking at me?
“Are you looking at me”
I start violently. The kettle tips and spills hot tea on my cousin’s foot. She shrieks and glares at me.
Am I the only one hearing grandpa’s booming voice?
We’re in his bedroom, or more accurately, what used to be his bedroom. You see, we’re at his wake. His corpse lies in the front room, in a home-made wooden coffin, atop three stools placed in a neat row. Continue reading
