NDABA SIBANDA
★ ★ ★ ★
FLASH FICTION
‘There Is a Method to Her Madness’
“Does this bring food to my little table? How many times should I tell villagers here that I no longer want to hear about that name? Do you want my granddaughters and sons who are sweating it out in foreign lands to starve me after getting wind that I am attending useless meetings arranged by the same crazy and clueless fellows who ran everything down and—as if that were not enough damage—chased good citizens through violence and hunger? Look at you: unemployed, starving and coming here with: Gogo, there’s a meeting. What! Wake up. You want me to vomit? Get out, out!!!” Granny Masuku’s stick landed hard and severally on an image emblazoned on the front of the visitor’s worn-out shirt.
The visitor was sent packing. For the first time, he asked himself whether over the years he had really benefited from organizing and terrorizing people or whether he was just being used by the big greedy officials. He felt naked, foolish and embarrassed.
That incident sent the village wagging tongues. Some people said it was because of senility or madness or both. All agreed that whatever it was there was a mantra and a method to it.
Gogo: IsiNdebele for “grandmother”
Ndaba Sibanda is a Bulawayo-born poet, novelist and nonfiction writer who has authored more than twenty-eight published books of various genres and persuasions and coauthored more than 100 published books. Some of Ndaba`s works are found or forthcoming in Page & Spine, Piker Press , SCARLET LEAF REVIEW , Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the Pangolin Review, Kalahari Review ,Botsotso, The Ofi Press Magazine, Hawaii Pacific Review, Deltona Howl, The song is, JONAH magazine, Saraba Magazine, Poetry Potion, Saraba Magazine, The Borfski Press, East Coast Literary Review and Whispering Prairie Press. Sibanda has received the following nominations: the national arts merit awards (NAMA), the Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize, the Best of the Net Prose and the Pushcart Prize. See: Amazon.com, pagespineficshowcase.com and ndabasibanda.wordpress.com.
0 Comments