Idris looked at Brenda irritably. “Why don’t you keep your nose out of other people’s business? It’s like you’re only happy if you can talk kak about others,” he stated.
Brenda’s face instantly purpled and turned splotchy in rage. She was a large woman in every way: large butt that stuck out there; large eyes that glared daggers now at Idris; extra-large boobs that jiggled very threateningly as she leaned forward, the better to intimidate the gardener.
“It’s not like you don’t listen to my ‘kak’, isn’t it? Why is it that you’ve never before told me you don’t want to listen to gossip, or stopped me from sharing any news with you? You now want to act all uppity and skyn heilig, but you’re nothing but a busybody, too!” she nearly shouted.
Idris was in his early forties, married with two kids and another on the way. His shaved pate was perspiring slightly from having been exposed to the sun for most of the morning. His extended belly attested to the fact that he loved his wife’s cooking; luckily for him, his work as a gardener kept his body from dissolving totally into a blob. Although he was a mild-mannered man, unfortunately for Brenda, she had just frayed his very last nerve.
“Listen here,” Idris said as he leaned on his rake, “I didn’t wanna hurt your feelings, but enough is mos enough. You wanna hou yourself sterk gevriet now, but you don’t scare me. I’m not Ronnie who you told off so kak when he checked you about not cleaning all the toilets in your area.”
Ronnie was the previous cleaning staff Supervisor who had left a month ago when a better opportunity had arisen. Brenda could never get along with him because he was slightly OCD about most things. She hated how he avoided eye contact whenever he spoke to anyone, but what she detested most about him was how he had constantly watched her like a vigilant hawk. The last straw had been when he had confronted her about her laziness. Instead of simply simpering in fear at the possibility of being fired from her job, Brenda had gone on the offensive.
“Excuse me?” she had sneered at Ronnie. “Don’t you come and nogal tell me that I’m not doing my job. If there’s anyone here who’s lazy, then it’s most definitely you. What do you do all day long except sit in your office, or walk outside to smoke blerrie twenty times in an hour, or have coffee all the time and then leave early to fetch your child from crèche? So think twice before you accuse me of not doing my job,” she had shouted at him before walking off in a huff.
Because she was the self-assigned company skinnerbek, she knew everything about everyone, and Ronnie knew she had him over a barrel. He had backed off instantly and since then, Brenda had had free reign.
“Ja,” she had said to Yolanda, her closest friend at work, after her confrontation with Ronnie, “I put him in a poep storm. He thought he could scare me, but I showed him who’s baas and who’s klaas,” she had bragged.
“Djy lieg! What did you say to him? Did you really vertel him?” Yolanda had asked in disbelief. She knew Brenda had a mouth on her, but she never thought she would talk back to their Supervisor.
“God se waarheid, I told him lekker junk because somebody had to stand up to that vetsak. He mos thinks he’s a Dik Ding,” she had said, forgetting that Ronnie was, in fact, an important person, seeing that he was her immediate Supervisor.
Brenda now glared murderously at Idris; she was filled with wrath, the veins in her temples swollen and appeared dangerously close to bursting.
“Hey, jou ma se…” Brenda started to say, but right then Idris let go of his hold on the rake. With nothing holding it up, gravity pulled the implement forward to smack Brenda squarely between her eyes. Thwack!
Pretending that it had been an accident, Idris quickly said, “Yoh! Sorry, Brenda! Jirre, my hand slipped, man. Are you oraait?” he asked in mock concern. Inside, he was laughing and thinking, “Serves you right, meit!”
Brenda’s eyes were big as saucers, but a red spot blooming between them made it look like she had suddenly sprouted a third eye. Idris couldn’t contain his amusement any longer and burst out in loud guffaws, which only further enraged the already seething Brenda.
“Fok you,” she said, then stomped off in a righteous huff. She had hardly taken five steps though before she tripped over a hidden tree root.
No tree had ever fallen in any forest as rapidly, as straight down, as hard or as unceremoniously as Brenda did. She met the ground with such force that she sent plumes of dust and tiny pebbles flying into the air.
Idris ran to her aid, shocked at the violence of her fall. He was not in the least surprised when he reached her to find that she had been knocked senseless.
“Yassis,” he said softly to himself, “when God decides to step in, He soema trap a person plat.”
Glossary
Bliksemed – beaten up; kak – shit/crap; skyn heiling – sanctimonious; mos – slang word used for emphasis; hou – keep; sterk gevriet – brave; nogal – moreover; blerrie – bloody; skinnerbek – a gossip; poep storm – literally: fart storm, but means to confuse or confound someone; baas – boss; klaas – servant; Ja – Yes; Djy lieg – You’re lying; vertel – tell off; God se waarheid – God’s truth; lekker – extremely; vetsak – fatso; Dik Ding – important person; jou ma se – your mother’s; Yoh, Jirre, Yassis – expressions of surprise; oraait – all right/ okay; meit – slang for girl; Fok – Fuck; soema – just; trap – step on
Image: Almani (www.unsplash.com)
