Matchstick lived with mommy in a blue door’s shack. The boy kicked his bowl and Oros’ bottle after he scored a nil in ‘My Family’ topic. Since then, he threw up after spotting a tapeworm inside the noodles. Apparently, he’ll eat if he played PlayStation while riding on daddy’s lap. Matchstick refused to eat, painted mom’s face pink, as she had been searching for the scratch-n-win paper through newspapers and the radio.  Now the once pillow-cheek boy’s legs looked like toothpicks, and his peeling lips were like autumn’s leaves. Mama lost her ironing and washing zulas in order to feed him. By now, the child’s ribs were sticking out of his grey shirt. Luckily, Uncle Tomato saw his sister’s straw-like child on TikTok and hitchhiked a diesel tanker. That Friday, he kicked the creaking blue door and found his twin sister wiping her swollen eyes with a tears-soaked towel. She had been babysitting the bone-and-skin boy, and the black-market make-up could no longer hide her tearstained cheeks. “Why are you refusing to eat?” Uncle T asked, hammering the child’s zipped lips with a toy lollipop. The child’s sloppy arms couldn’t wave the houseflies partying over the dried-up porridge on his lips. Suddenly, the shaking hands child took out a picture. Matchstick had shaded mom and sister in pink, but vomited black ink over his father’s picture and a plus sign. Uncle T waved a plastic kitchen knife at the sobbing child. “I’ll cut your throat if you don’t eat!” he said, slashing the plastic knife at his own throat. The next day, Uncle T came with a 750ml bottle of tomato sauce. “Just put the child on a white bedspread,” Uncle T said, and grabbed the feather-light boy on his toes and threw him on the whining bed.  “Tomorrow he’ll eat,” he said, feeding the child maize soup through a hosepipe. The ballooned tummy child fell asleep, and Uncle T smeared tomato sauce over his throat. Then, he spread the sauce around the child’s nose and chest. It was 2 a.m. and the boy woke up crying. “Mom, it’s raining blood!” Matchstick said, switching the light.  “Meaning, Uncle T cut your throat?” Mommy asked, blocking deep-belly laughs. She wiped the sweetened blood with a white dishcloth. Before the alarm went off, Matchstick sneaked into the kitchen, spread a mountain-size peanut butter on eight slices of bread, and drank six litres of coffee. Later, he licked a bowl of offal and drank 10 litres of Oros crush.

Footnote: Not his real name