Author: Ruben Kapimbi (Ruben Kapimbi )

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...

The brownish-yellow shirts men assembled under an umbrella-shaped tree. Here, a crowd of white-bearded men quarrelled, while the wind flogged the barbed-thorn branches on their baldheads. Between the thorny branches, bee-eaters protested that the meeting was irritating the chicks.  Even the cup-shaped nests swayed in the wind, dizzying the temperamental men. Instantly, a woodpecker landed...

Komondjira needed a lift to visit his absentee father. He was born after his father’s contract of grading the bumpy gravel road had expired.  Komoo, as his single mother tickled him, walked the thorn-infested footpath until the T-junction. Then he pinched his ears, fighting to separate the roaring wind from the vrooming cars.  Suddenly, the...

Sam squinted at his first-class wristwatch, and the tick had struck 12 minutes past midnight. Then he rubbed his fingers on the mac-rims of his Gold  Six. He grabbed the coffee-brown bottle, twisted it, and turned towards the driver’s seat.  “Don’t, you’re tanked-up!” shouted his buddies. The moneyed guy stuck out his tongue and revved...