Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

Professor Khupe rubbed his hand along the sand dunes of her windswept form. The static charge made her skin feel like the surface of a cactus. He recoiled. How he wished he had gone into the priesthood when he had had the chance. Embracing celibacy was far easier than battling the consequences of shunning it.

Professor Khupe felt his chest swell with pride. It was doing so without his encouragement. If an electrical fault had stopped the elevator from rising, his inflating ego would have powered the remainder of their journey to the twenty-second floor.

You keep distracting from the main point, Vaida. I did not come to Harare to study other people’s scars. I have my own to worry about. They make me sick. I will never recover from the events that carved them into my body. You should focus on healing yours instead of creating new ones.