Member-only story
Love, She Said?
a short story written by Liso Zenani
The two young women startled each other as they appeared suddenly out of nowhere a few yards apart on the footpath. Then, each recognising the other, they wiped sweat off their ochre-covered brows and steadied the empty waterpots on their heads. Their copper armbands clanging and their breasts standing proudly against the scorching sun, they turned and walked briskly in the same direction, careful to avoid the thorns and brambles along the narrow path.
‘Heh! Can you believe it, Ncebakazi?’ exclaimed the podgier of the two.
‘Of course, Sisi!’ responded the other, perfectly satisfied with this new style of greeting. ‘Have I not said it before, Vuyelwa, that no amount of perversion is beyond that girl?’
To the casual observer, it was a day like any other, and the tiny village of Ntabozuko — its huts resting contentedly across the gentle Mpako Hill, shielded from the sea by the imposing EsiKhaleni Mountain — was as perfectly ordinary as any Bomvana village could be. As per usual, the rooster had announced the time for young women to wake up and prepare breakfast, the sun had risen up on the east as it did every other day, the women had woken up and gotten ready to weed the gardens, young boys had been yelled at to stop playing marbles and drive the livestock out to graze and the men — their breakfasts…
