NARRATED POV
"Shuu, how can you sleep in such a stuffy room? Are you trying to suffocate yourself to death?" Basani asks when she walks in her sister's room. The temperature in this room is too high like it's competing with bell's fire yet she's couped up in here, wrapped in two blankets and a duvet and all windows are closed, also, there's this stuffy smell that's irritating to the nose.
The first thing Basani does after closing the door is to head for the windows where she pulls apart the curtains to let some light in, just as she's about to open the windows, Fanisa yells at her.
"Wa penga? (are you crazy?), why would you walk in my bedroom and start doing as you please? Who asked you to open the windows?"
"It's hot in here, sesi,"
"Do I look like I'm feeling hot to you?"
Basani stops to assess the state that her sister is in. Indeed she doesn't look like someone who is feeling hot because how else would she have so many blankets on her? This isn't normal, no, it can't be because how is she wrapping herself up like this when the Limpopo sun is showing off today?
"Ey, now that you mention it. You're contrasting the weather outside,"
"Mxm, I always tell you that you are slow,"
Basani doesn't take this insult to heart. She knows that her sister isn't a nice person anyway, even on a normal day.
"What's wrong? Are you catching flu?"
"Flu would be so much better. I don't feel good, Basani. My head is pounding and these noises won't stop,"
"What noises?" she tries to listen but there is nothing out of the ordinary.
"You won't hear them, they are here for me,"
"But I thought you said you got help, even though you came back with burns," that was one strange evening. Her sister left looking fine and returned looking like she had gone through hell.
"I thought so too but things are only getting worse and these burns aren't getting better,"
"Maybe go back to him and explain that his things are not working," Basani suggests and Fanisa shakes her head to disagree.
"No, it's pointless. I'll just nurse myself back to health,"
"Eh, you're letting your health deteriorate right in front of you? Do you want to die?"
"Is this the right time for you to be asking me stupid questions!?"
"Sorry ke, there's no need to use the bit of energy that you have to shout at me. I just came to check on you and bring you food, I'll be going out this afternoon,"
"Where are you going?"
"I have a date,"
"A what? Our brother is sick and you're going on dates?"
"Hayi, what does one have to do with the other now? I visit boti and there is nothing that I can do to change his situation. Him being in hospital doesn't mean that our lives have to stop and it's not like I'm bringing a man in here,"
"And whose going to check things around the house because you see that I'm also not well?"
"That's why skhwiza and makoti are here. Kasi why should I be couped up in this house? I haven't dedicated my life to the throne like you. I'm not even forty and I still have hope for a husband and children, I can't sit here and guard the furniture all day long. "
" Mxm, famba (go). Just don't bring back a fatherless child here because I know you, you are dumb and will fall for the first man who smiles at you, next thing you're letting him leave you with a baby that will be dumb like you,"this digs deep at Basani, no one likes being repeatedly called dumb.
