GLITCHES
Gothataone Moeng
"I willed myself to disappear into the darkness behind my closed eyes, but the low murmur of music coming from the hall kept me awake."
Mpho watched me through the windows of the sky-blue phone booth outside our school gate. She twirled the handle of an open bright red umbrella to the left, to the right, to the left again and leaned in. "Remember what I said," she told me, in a low, slow voice, as if to a child. My father picked up the phone. "Papa," I said. "Heeeey, Mme," my
father said. Mpho rolled her eyes at my wide smile. I was named after my father’s mother, so he called me "Mother" in his good moods. I was fourteen and learning to take advantage of him. It was so hot that November, that a man had become a national hero after swimming in the fountain pools in front of parliament. Newspapers called him "The parliamentary swimmer". Pictures of him, with water
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