Hello, dumela, it’s been a while, how’s it going, o tsogile? I know you mocked me for what you called my village seTswana; but then there was the night in the winter I got so drunk on beer and crappy peanuts and nearly died of exposure in that outside toilet and you found me and saved my ass; then later on to add insult to injury when that shebeen thought that it was me who stole their precious fucking riempie chairs which I hadn’t because it didn’t occur to me it was you who assured them .. ja, what interesting times those were, one can say, with everything going on, and spies and pissgats all over the place, and us in ‘the struggle’, or so it was we thought but frankly these days I don’t think I know who you are anymore. I switch on my phone, TV, whatever; and there you are, the online fabulist, smiling, cellphone cameras circling you like ticks looking for the right spot to land on a cow: so what are you really up to, comrade? I’ve never seen such a load of adulterated conviction!

I guess we all get tempted to take ourselves too seriously; flirt with words until we are spokespeople for some idea that could lead to killing: but most of us then end up distracted – have a coffee, scratch our crotch, watch soccer, then forget about it: we don’t have the nerve for such tasks as those your ego gives the world. Your profile never flinches: has there ever been an image of you with your mouth entirely shut? Huckstering yourself as a model hero (modelling an Armani suit, but I don’t think those three pieces suit you at all, my guy!) and now it seems there’s no one who will vote you down, or think how much the values we once had are demeaned by your every breath. There seem to be a lot of calculations made beforehand about the songs of praise that rise up from that gaggle of web-warriors you keep just close enough to marvel anew each day at your righteousness and anger: and the guiding formula of every speech you craft seems a tautology, time after time. An eye for an I, performing a performance you drone on and on, hoping to ward off anyone peering at you long enough as to not be dizzied by the spin you give to skin, to see what lies beneath. I remember when it was ‘the whites’: but now the circles of your blaming widen, the pebbles dropped off your lips into our puddles of discontent and poverty. ‘These foreigners steal what is meant for you. Keep them from the clinics! Block their children from our schools!’ Please tell me: what is it that really skulks under all this bluster? To me it seems your mouth does not begin to free anything but the faint odour of decay, a foretaste of bodies decomposing in our future that festers already on your tongue.