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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 April 2025
zenzile pushes the wheelchair downstage centre before taking a seat and describing her interaction with a Home Affairs worker (referred to as pink nails) whom she imagines is sitting in front of her. Throughout this scene zenzile relays events from memory, jumping between playing herself and pink nails in conversation. Lighting isolates the scene from the more general setting of the hostel room.
zenzile [remembering]: That child, chewing gum, looked up from her computer while tapping her keyboard with long pink nails.
pink nails: I’m afraid, Mrs Maseko, we are unable to help you.
zenzile: Ngobani?
pink nails: Our system is saying you are deceased.
zenzile: Angizwanga? [Beat.] ‘Deceased,’ said this girl again, as if it was a normal thing for this child to be sitting there and speaking with isipoki!
‘Ufile, Gogo!’ my grandchild Nqobile repeated.
‘Their system is saying you are dead!’
Hayibo, dead? For how long have I been this way?
pink nails [tapping lethargically on her keyboard with a single finger]: It says here, um … um, for eleven years now.
zenzile [laughs maniacally]: Then I laughed. A laugh so loud that all of the people in that place turned to see what was happening. [Back to speaking to pink nails.] Hayibo, wentombazane! But I’m right in front of you! How does this work, eh? Ngife ngiphila?
pink nails: It says here on my system that you died of natural causes in uMzimkhulu eleven years ago.
zenzile [shocked]: Hayibo! I’ve never been to uMzimkhulu even once when I was still alive … Tell me why, child, why would I decide to take a holiday there when I’m dead?
pink nails [tapping at her itchy weave with the side of her hand]: I’ll lodge a complaint here on the system to say that it has confused you with someone else. [Beat.] You know, Ma, you’re not the first person this mix-up is happening to.
zenzile: Wooooh, from then on I let Nqobile do the talking ngoba ngase ngizwa ukuthi ikhanda lami liyagxabha ke manje. Yah, that child was very lucky that, in my old age, I’ve learnt to control my anger or else she would have met a very different person that day.
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