Rino was born under a sunburned tree. Seconds later, the shadows journeyed under the trees, and a single-horn rhino showed up at the borehole. As a tot, he hunted grey pigeons with catapults, while nana tickled his upward-pointed nose. On his fourth birthday, he strangled a day-old calf suckling his cotton nappy. Later, Rino was...
Tjijetuombaze pressed the knob of the window, and waved his palm through the buffeting wind. Then he changed into gear seven, while his greenish-yellow eyes scanned a carpet of grass next to the road. Somehow, he flashed the oncoming trucks shaking his car as they snail passed by. Soon, he pressed his golden eyes at...
Tom was driving uphill when he spotted a storybook on the charcoal-black road. First, the grass-flogging wind flicked the book’s pages, and he skimmed through the looped letters, as the tyres rolled over it. Secondly, he glanced at the rear mirror and scanned the title, ‘Diary of a Magician. “Do you believe in ghosts?” asked...
Andreas pressed the pedal, as the oil-leaking engine pulled the Datsun up Dune 13. Suddenly, the car jerked and the tyres punctured into powdery sand. The driver swung the wire-hooked door, and his boots crushed an orange-headed lizard. Then, he buried a dipstick into the engine, and shook his head left and right. Later, his...
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...