Swirl

9. A Bad Joke.

Hey y'all. I figured I'd start putting pronunciations for the names of my characters.

Achim: A-k-eem.
Lerato: basically, the way it's spelled.
Thato: T-a-t-o.
Dumisani: D-oo-me-sa-ny.
Bhebhe: B-e-b-e.
Mandla: the way it's spelled.
Ubuntu: Oo-boo-n-too (Def: humanity)
Nogogo: the way it's spelled. (Def: grandma)

Introducing Angela Basset as Patience.👆🏾

"Dumi?" Patience inquired in obvious astonishment.

Thato had panic written all over his face as he stood up from the bed out of respect and dropped the cover to the ground, aches and pains all but forgotten. "Auntie Patience, I can explain."

"Mama, why are you calling him Dumi?" Said Lerato before turning to Thato, "Explain what? How do you know my mother? Lay back down to rest." She reached out to try and push Thato back down but his built frame was rigid.

Achim narrowed his eyes at her level of disrespect towards him. How dare she touch Thato that way in his presence? His stare caused her to stumble and retract her arms from Thato's body; embarrassment creeping into her blood.

Thato ignored whatever the hell was going on between Lerato and Achim, having not even felt Lerato's futile attempts to get him to lay back down; it was far less important than the situation that was about to unfold.

His eyes doubled in size as he finally shifted them from Lerato's confused face to her mother's bewildered one. Achim was reduced to a spectator with front row seats after Lerato heeded to his wish for her to keep her hands to herself. Therefore, he quietly watched the exchange before him. He was more than interested seeing as the tension in the room could be cut with a knife.

Could this be a way for me to get rid of this guy?

"Baby, is this the nice man you were telling me about?"

Lerato nodded.

"Did he tell you about himself? Do you know who this is?" Patience's body was facing Lerato's direction but her eyes stayed steady watching Thato for signs of digress in his character.

Thato's entire stance was rigid. Gone was the anxious brut that was glaring daggers at Achim a few seconds after his entry. It would appear that he forgot far too soon that Patience was entering the room when he and Lerato began bargaining for what he'd get for his compliance.

Patience and Thato were not strangers. This tidbit of information had left him on edge after he initially woke up and found himself locked up in a room. Only after going through some of Lerato's personal items had he realized it was her room that he was in.

It was not a good thing when he found out, and it sure as hell wasn't a good thing now.

This was not how his plan was supposed to go.

He wasn't meant to meet Patience again so soon; at least, not yet.

Of course, he let all of this fly out of the window when she entered the room. As pissed off as he was at her for what had happened to him, he couldn't help but become some sort of pubescent teenager when she walked in.

What was it that they said about teenagers in grade school and attraction? Oh yes, the more you bully someone, the more you like them.

During their exchange of insults earlier, he admired how she didn't take his insults idly and was ready to throw up her own shields as a defense. He wasn't used to people speaking back to him so aggressively, true, but he kind of liked that she didn't care that he was about to die a few hours ago.