MAYBE it’s good I am having to deal with nightmares like my older sister, Mbikazi being infected with a sexually transmitted disease by my best friend, Stakes “Girls” Chitambo, and her husband, being a beneficiary of the same infection by virtue of marriage, getting so peeved he was almost exposing his vital statistics to me so I could see for myself the agonies my sister had imposed on him!
It’s good such things are happening, you know.  I mean, if there weren’t such distractions to punctuate my sheer boredom at home, what would stop me getting convinced that suicide was acceptable as a pass time?
I have heard of loons who have put string around their necks and attempted to hang from the ceiling who said they were so thoroughly bored of life what for were they being rescued from hanging till death only for them to continue sitting and staring at fat passersby who had already had the second of three meals while they themselves (candidates for self-immolation) had no idea why God who promised to feed man had neglected to look after them!
These mad antics of my sister, the resultant reactions of her several husbands and former husbands keep me busy.
You should be there when I am either summoned to the township to go and try and restrain Mbikazi from setting one of her husbands on fire (because the entire neighborhood have either failed to hold her down or they are too scared to intervene)!
That old man, her current hubby, who drives a rickety old tipper truck, has been such a victim of humiliation by Mbikazi I really wonder why he still hangs in there!
She almost set him on fire one day.  She did actually buy a few litres of paraffin and had already tied his hands behind him after punching, slapping and kicking him senseless following one of those incessant differences of theirs.
As usual, my sister was in the wrong, but being who she is, as stubborn a daughter of our father, Mr Chichayeni Padadzi, retired headmaster, Republic of Zambia, she was insisting he must apologize, the hubby!
When he stood his ground, I am telling you, she just went berserk and …if he didn’t scream for help, hah! He would have been roasted alive!  Maybe she wouldn’t have gone that far but thus she threatened to do.
I drove my wife’s little Starlet like a rally champion and got to the township in time to see him nodding his submission, admitting that he was always wrong and she right, and that he must never bother her again over matters like the one over which they had differed, whatever they were.
She gave me a cursory glance, undid the knots on his wrists and said welcome to me as if there had been no bad show of serious indiscipline on display around.
The entire neighborhood was there watching!  I advised that they should conduct their quarrels inside their house but she interrupted and asked if that was why I had come, to just tell them to fight quietly and peacefully.
She argued that by the time she had reached the stage where she became physical it was no longer possible to conduct whatever business ensued as if she were in a library.
It was time to attack every faculty of her enemy: the physical body, his mind and even his ears through the noises that expressed her displeasure.
There would be no quiet fight in her house, she declared.  In fact the noisier the better so that the neighbors could see the humiliated fool, her husband and know as they saw him walk past, that they lived next to a fool, a dunderhead, a weakling who was easily clobbered by his wife.
Ah!  This woman, I tell you!  She has no sense of shame about unleashing such miserable scandals on her neighborhood.
What did young ones make of her behavior and what lessons did they learn from it?  Anyway, like I said, the only good thing about Mbikazi and her woes is that they keep me awake, they keep alive and interested in the world around me.
The same goes for that pastor at my wife’s church.  Each time I begin to imagine that it would be a good idea to die and eliminate this boredom and lack of finances, I quickly remember him who wrote a very endearing message to my wife as he autographed her copy of his China-printed daily prayer guide.  This man is after my wife.
If I kill myself, he will lock himself in his bedroom and jump and hop around over and over in jubilation that I had cleared the way for him to now have a field day with Amake Pachikani doing unthinkables without interference.
I know him!  He would put on a fake sad face throughout my funeral, probably even offer to do the sermon at my grave but straight after all those gathered at my house have departed for Chipata, Kitwe, Livingstone and wherever else sympathisers would emerge from, he would brighten up and tell my wife, “We have come a long way”!
Because I wouldn’t be there, especially that HE, that ka pastor, would have insisted by way of advice that they should mix cement and stones and pour it over my coffin in the grave to ensure my coffin is not stolen when in fact he wants to ensure I don’t make the mistake of resurrecting, pushing the grave open and returning home to find him in excessive bliss with my wife!
I would kill him of course and bury him in the very grave I would have resurrected from.  Let this be a warning to you who may be eyeing Amake Pachikani that my death alone is no passport for you to go for her.  There is no guarantee that I will not emerge from somewhere and harm you.  I love that woman too much don’t take it for granted that death can stop me from sorting you out!  I don’t know how, but I am 100 per cent sure I would discover what you have started doing and quickly conjure some way of beating you up.  Or setting you ablaze Mbikazi style!
But I am not dying yet so don’t worry about my ghost chasing you all over the city.  I am actually narrating how that pastor’s foolish autograph helps me to stay alive and sober.  Just remembering his foolish desires for my wife keeps me from becoming insane with boredom.
If you think I am too possessive, what’s the trouble with that?  I remember a few fights between our gigantic mother and her tiny husband, our father, over suspicions that one or the other had developed affections for someone else.
I truly didn’t think there was any woman other than my mother who would seriously be interested in an affair with our father.  What would interest a woman in our father?  Small body, very short, small voice, poorly shaped head I felt so ashamed about it and …why mum even felt insecure about him!
She once put her huge frame onto her lady’s bike and cycled several kilometers to another school where she used the heel of her shoe to knock a few holes on the forehead of a school mistress that she suspected of enjoying bits of our father, whatever bits those were.
Now I know it was a scandal, the talk of the place!  If only mum could have seen her husband for what he really was, she could have saved herself the trouble of puffing all the way on that bike to Mahlalela just to panel beat a beautiful young teacher who probably would never even look twice at our father.
But our father too, although he got beaten up by mum for the suggestion, did have his own worries that some other man here and there might have accessed certain forbidden affections from her.
He tried to express his anger and even tossed a slap.  But…maybe that’s where the Mbikazi thing comes from!  She beat up our father.
No.  Not really beating.  She just wrapped her arms around him, shook him about and tried to squeeze all gases out of him.
He was helpless, could not move and was pleading with her to let go of him…with the ridiculous threat all the same that if she didn’t let go, he would teach her a bitter lesson once he got out of her grip!
They used to fight, mum and our father over suspicions of infidelity.  Who am I not to feel jealous over my own beautiful wife?  Just stop it and stay away or else….!