Author: Ruben Kapimbi (Ruben Kapimbi )

Mr Peter was wearing a white protective gown and nylon shoes that matched the tiles. In front of him, ballooned eyes followed his hand gestures.  Afterwards, he waved a grasshopper and an armoured cricket. The teacher clicked the tape recorder, and played chirping grasshoppers, alongside peeping crickets.  Then he flashed a red pointer at the...

Festus flogged his skin-and-bone daughters for stealing buttered milk that was reserved for the ballooned-tummy dogs. Then he checked his snare for any long-tailed mouse. The hunter wiped his tears after spotting a pipe-long nose animal caught by the twisted wires.  “I’ll braai the sizzling liver,” he whispered, choking on his saliva. “Your wife will...

A fortune-teller told Kao that he’ll have as many cows as the chirping crickets.   The next day, the miser exchanged forty red cows for a sky-touching house. The beer-tummy man bribed the plumbers to fit milk-spraying pipes for the washbasins and his drizzling shower. In fact, a bottomless manhole was dug near the milk...

In the summer of 1806, a stranger whose lips had been peeled by thirst strayed into Chief Karuru’s compound. The knife-sharp rocks scraped his blistered feet.  In fact, the dry sweat on his forehead had sketched a cross.  The sweat-draining sun roasted his feet, while the wild dogs barked at his jutted guitar-like ribs. That...

Mike, the charcoal smuggler, hitchhiked to the village after his girlfriend dumped him for being bankrupt. That morning, he strolled through the grass and spotted a dry-rotted tree. Then, he raised his bushy eyebrows and flashed a camera at the bottle-shaped tree.  The wood-lice tree reminded him of the ‘fig tree’ that a televangelist had...

Kambangane’s heart skips a beat, and he falls from his cheetah-skin armchair. Rumours had spread like bushfire that the worn-to-strips trouser Katjemambo had won R20 000 after spotting a ticket while stirring a three-legged pot of porridge. This was the first time that Katjemambo bought maize meal, as he often begged Kambangane for churned milk...

A reddish streak cuts across the dark sky, stirring the popped-eyed villagers to look skyward. Thereafter, breastfeeding mammas in sleepwear flogged the preschoolers, yelling at them to hide inside the thatch-roofed huts. Luckily, the bright moon glowed over hills. The next sunrise, the knobkerrie men shuffled their feet towards the 700-year-old tree.  Soon, they quarrelled...

The handclapping clouds floating over Rakutuka’s head blew puffs of air against the microwaving sun. Then the woollen-sandals man tiptoed behind the cream and red cows. He raised a shepherd’s stick, and the cows galloped towards the feathery grass. Rakuu’s sling pinched his hips while fixing a fin-like arrow over the bowstrings. Suddenly, cupful raindrops...

Heinrich curled his bone-and-skin frame under the bridge and peacefully snoozed. The rain-blocking spot he called home was cosy, and he nicknamed the cardboard boxes duvet covers. Each week, he bought new blankets by collecting cartons of cornflakes. His pillows were Crocket’s shoeboxes.  The boy weighed 20kg and attended school because of the stew soup,...

Kanomora lived in a hostel made from rusty train carriages. During the home weekend, he brought math homework.  “The circlet objects are the huts, the moon and the kraal,” he said. Kanomora’s mom was a talkative woman, so he put on his headphones. This time, he shook his head right to left, and plotted every word...