A rumble of thunder outside as the storm begins to circle back. As rain patters down, zenzile shuffles towards the stove, keeping her eye on the building storm.

zenzile: In the summer, Nkulunkulu, your rains came. They would turn those valleys in Ipharadesi into rivers of mud. [Chuckling.] Ugogo wami wayehlezi ethi uma kufika izimvula, lezantaba zazimila imilenze zibaleke. [Beat.] We thought we would always be safe in that home. Umkhulu wami wayewakhile lowamuzi. Wawukotele ubambelele ngezinzipho entabeni and awukaze nakanye unyakaze.

She puts a battered old kettle on the stovetop and switches it on. Rain intensifies outside.

zenzile: Ugogo wami only told me many years later that a story in the newspaper said that when the lightning struck our home, it was so bright and hot that it melted all the spoons, knives and forks in the kitchen drawers. Angiqambi amanga. When the police arrived and turned that drawer upside down, a big block of metal fell out on the ground. I’m telling you, I still get headaches … even to this day … The light still hurts my eyes.

Music begins merging with the sounds of the storm. Hot white lightning flashes outside the window. zenzile clutches a pillow and revisits the scene.

zenzile: I should have buried my face in my pillow … turned away … but it was too powerful. That big, big bird … a demoni stretching out its wings of burning white feathers inside our room. Its tail was the green-blue colour of the sky … umlomo nezinyawo kubomvu tebhu njengomlilo ovuthayo. I watched as it flew through the house saying nothing but touching everything: tin … walls … thatch … skin.

The lightning flashes now appear to be moving inside the room. Rain rushes down the windowpane, subterranean shadows streaking across zenzile's face. Her expression is a mixture of horror and awe.

zenzile: Then it went dark and silent. [Beat.] I remember the smell of burnt hair … the feeling of boiling water being poured down my back.

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.

zenzile continues her conversation with Nkulunkulu.

zenzile: Ufile? … Dead? … Mina? Can you imagine? [Chuckles derisively.] No, that child didn't know me, Nkulunkulu. If she did, she would have known she can't get rid of me that easily. And now what, eh? What must I do? My grant money was no longer coming. How was I going to eat? Pay my rent here? How was I going to send money to Dudu, who still lives there in Ipharadesi and is helping me to finish my house? You remember, I’m rebuilding a two-room in the rural areas where I was born, but that house, that house of mine hayi bandla ayipheli.

Especially now with these rains you have been punishing us with, Nkulunkulu … eish, they say those floods washed away half of my house. That's why I turn to you each night, Nkulunkulu, and I beg you … please, Nkulunkulu … please just switch off those taps in the sky … please, Nkulunkulu, grant me the strength to return home now and finish building my house.

For too many years I waited on that list for a RDP house … twenty years. Angiqambi amanga. No, I couldn't wait any longer. Yah, I’ve seen too many people waiting their whole lives and it never happens.

Before this, I was sending Dudu money at the end of the month so she could buy bricks and get her sons Dumisane and Sizwe to lay them for me. I was making my beadwork and selling my bracelets laphaya ebeachfront. With the money I was making, I was paying off those bricks one by one. My social grant money was also helping, but after the Home Affairs told me I was deceased, I haven't been able to send anything for a long time.

Ey, Nkulunkulu, it's difficult for me to visit Ipharadesi to go and see the work Dudu's boys are doing on my house. [Beat.] It's expensive to travel all that way in the taxi and the floods have washed away the road.

In this scene zenzile plays herself as well as taking on the voices of her childhood friend musa and his friends.

zenzile: But the stories people were telling got so bad that my gogo kept me from going back to school for many weeks. When I finally did, you would never believe what those boys did to me there! Ai, ai, ai, Nkulunkulu, kubuhlungu uma ngicabanga loluyasuku.

A rumble of thunder. The musical underscore takes a darker turn.

zenzile: They caught me in the playground … pushed me into the toilet and pinned me down. The other children were crowding around. Musa was at the front telling them each to pay him fifty cents. After he collected their money he tore my shirt off. Buttons went spinning across the tiles. I stood there … nginamahloni … covering my chest.

zenzile tears her jersey off and clutches it to her breast. As she makes this sudden movement, she turns her back to the audience. The lights dim, revealing an intricate pattern of lightning projected and smouldering across her back. The lightning scar resembles an upside-down tree.

zenzile: ‘Bheka … bheka … Ngangiqinisile,’ said Musa, pointing. ‘See, I’m telling you the truth. Look how Impundulu has licked her with its tongue of fire!’ ‘Hayibo!’ said another. ‘She even wears the marks of its wings on her back.’

‘Ungumthakathi,’ they chanted. ‘She's a witch … Ungumthakathi … Ungumthakathi.’

Lights come up as zenzile turns her attention skyward, ranting now at Nkulunkulu.

zenzile: Why must you punish me like this, Nkulunkulu? Why must you make me stay in this ugly city for so long while my house is never finishing? Is it for those things I did in my past? [Beat.] Was it because I was rude? Yah, I was rude when I was younger. I used to say and do whatever was on my mind. That lightning left me with a terrible temper. My head would overheat like an old car engine and I could no longer keep my thoughts to myself … They would just fly off my tongue and fall on someone else's lap before I had the chance to catch them.

zenzile's focus now shifts from Nkulunkulu to the memory of musa on the road in front of her. She eyes him bitterly.

zenzile takes on the role of gogo in this scene. As the scene opens, zenzile sits on the edge of her bed.

zenzile: I remember how ugogo wami used a wet cloth to cool the scars that the lightning bird had scratched into my back.

She retrieves a wet cloth and mimes the action of her grandmother cooling her scar with the cloth, dabbing cold water tenderly across it. Lighting shifts to isolate the scene and the dialogue between the two characters.

gogo: Shhh … shhh, ngane yami.

zenzile [as child]: Kodwa kubuhlungu, Gogo.

gogo: Shhhh … shhhh … Amanzi azokupholisa.

zenzile [as child]: Why is everything hurting me like this, Gogo?

gogo: What is hurting, ngane yami?

zenzile [as child]: Izinto abazishoyo, Gogo.

gogo: What are they saying?

zenzile [as child]: Ukuthi ngiyathakatha … that I was using umuthi … that's why umama nobaba are gone and I am still here.

gogo: Ay, and you pay attention to this nonsense?

zenzile [as child]: Musa has been telling all the others that the morning before the lightning came, he saw me speaking with that bird on the riverbank.

gogo: Yiphi inyoni?

zenzile [as child]: Impundulu … the one that has a hammer for a head.

gogo [firmly]: Ay, Zenzile, you must not name this thing in my house! This creature has nothing to do with you, ngane yami! Nothing! It only has an appetite for destruction. Wherever it lands it guides the lightning there. [Beat.] Umtshele uMusa ukuthi uzoba nesibazi esingaphezu kwesakho esinqeni uma eqhubeka nokuhamba eqamba amanga. Ngeke ngiwubekezelele mina ushidi.

zenzile [as child]: How do I wash away their lies, Gogo? … How do I make sure this bird never visits me again?

gogo: There's little you can do to destroy this idemoni. If you try, it only comes back stronger than before. No, you cannot shoot it or stab it … drown or even poison it. The only way to kill it is by fire! [Beat.] But I know a secret which I must share with you, ngane yami.

zenzile: Yah, I’m telling you, Nkulunkulu, I’ve seen more plagues, floods and diseases here in KwaZulu than even Moses did during his time on this earth. Angiqambi amanga. [Beat.] Even this Covid, what-what … There were many older people dying around me in this hostel. I got sick with it too. My results were positive, but it was only for a few days before I was better again. Yah, even Covid version 2019, version 2020 … 21 … 22 visited my body and then decided it was not safe for it to live in there … It packed its bags to move in with the next-door neighbour instead. [Chuckling.] Even that thing was scared of me. Ngiyakuchazela!

She applies Vaseline to her arms and legs before covering herself in the dressing gown.

zenzile: I’m still here after all these things. Ma Twala says, ‘Ay, Sis Zenzile, you are not made like the rest of us. You will live past the Judgement Day. Uma sekuphele konke uyosala wedwa la.’

The other day I even asked one of Dudu's boys, Sizwe, while he was helping lay those bricks for me there in Ipharadesi, to also dig my grave for me. Angisenawo amandla okuyimbela umgodi ojule ngaleyondlela. I asked Sizwe to dig it there next to my new house beside the graves of my ancestors. Ngamtshela ukuthi akomba umgodi oshona phansi ngempela ngoba ngiwumuntu onenkani … ngiyoba nayo ngisho sengifile.

I’ve given my child instructions that – if she does not go before me – then she must pack that soil very tightly and pour concrete on the top so not even the summer rains can release me. No, they must make sure that once they put me inside … that is that … I never return to life again. Yah, kuyofanele benze isiqiniseko sokuthi bangilalisa ngibheke phansi ebhokisini ukuze ngingabuyi nje ngizoba idlozi elibi.

zenzile: Day by day, Nkulunkulu, you are helping me … helping me to wash away all that dirtiness. A woman who once lived the life of a man … You are cleansing me. [Beat.] When I see a person feeling sorry for me, I say no, no, no, that's not how my God wants it. I, the person who had this stroke, am not feeling sorry for myself, so why now must you? It's not your business to feel sorry for me. No, I don't want anyone to pity me. Ngenzeni ke mina ngalokudatshukelwa? Ngeke ngikuphuze, ngeke ngikudle, ngeke ngikubheme, ngeke ngikwazi ngisho ukukudayisa … inonsense nje yento engenamsebenzi.

zenzile begins her bathing ritual. She lugs a bucket of hot water from the stove and pours it into a plastic tub at the foot of her bed. She removes a dressing gown from the washing line and lays it beside her. As she removes the gown she notices a frilly bra hanging on the line and inspects it suspiciously.

zenzile: Yah, Nqobile, my granddaughter, she has been hiding from me for many days now. Is it because I embarrass her with my rudeness? [Beat.] I’m telling you, it's her behaviour she needs to be embarrassed by, Nkulunkulu. Yah, all those different men … And what must happen? … The next time she visits it will be to tell me she has HIV, just like her mother.

zenzile undresses down to her petticoat. She sits on the edge of the bed and dunks her cloth into the tub of water, wringing it out.

zenzile: Wooooh weeee, I’ve seen too many women cursed by this thing in the past. Yah, Nkulunkulu, I feel that pain when a person gets sick and the world turns away from them. Kubuhlungu kimina ukubona lokho. I told you that my daughter Thuthukile has it. When I first learnt she was suffering from this thing, my aunty had died two months before, so I knew what it was. It wasn't like it is today, where someone can live a normal life … Back then it was very different.