Dear Method by Noviolet Bulawayo

  Here is a short story I found on Noviolet Bulawayo's Blog. I thought it was rather funny.  Here's a link to the blog if you want to check out more of her writing. 

http://novioletbulawayo.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2012-12-25T21:23:00-08:00&max-results=11&start=11&by-date=false

 

P. O. Box 3

Dear Method

If waiting killed I would be dead by now, dead from waiting for a letter from you, a letter that never comes. I have wept and prayed and hoped; I have gone mad, I have suffered, I have everything. Now I do not know, I just don’t, except maybe that if waiting killed, I would be dead. All I want is to know you are well, Method, that is all. Not more than that, no, not more than that. Even if its one sentence, one word, I do not care, just as long as I know how you are keeping. Tell me shuwa Method, utshukuthi you cannot even find time to write just one word, one word to your own mother? Kambe sibili have you forgotten? Forgotten who carried you, who chose to carry you even if those doctors advised against it, even if they said, woman, you are old and you are unhealthy, you may not survive this pregnancy, it will kill you. Yes, maybe you have forgotten who chose to die for you, forgotten who gave birth to you at Mtshabezi Hospital, forgotten who walked all the way with you on her back to Mfundisi Gatsheni’s home when you were sick and couldn’t talk, couldn’t eat, couldn’t cry, couldn’t nothing, forgotten who prayed for you, who cried for you, who lived for you, who suffered for you. Have you forgotten Method, sukhohliwe? If I wasn’t a woman of God I would be saying things to you right now, Method. I have words and words inside me that I want to say but I cannot because I am not an ordinary person anymore, I am with Christ now, but if I wasn’t I would say them. Yes, I would spit them on this paper, then maybe you would understand what I am feeling, then maybe you would know that no, what you are doing is bad, it is very bad what you are doing, akulunganga sibili. It is uncultured, it is disrespectful, it is dishonorable, it is not supposed to be done by sons to their own mothers who carried them. I don’t even know what you think you are doing; what are you doing Method? Answer me that, just answer me that. And whatever it is that you doing, know, again, that it is dishonorable, and that Jesus is watching your every move and he knows it all.

Your mother, MaS’thole