ESTHER

Chapter 17 of the book-“NON-CONTRADICTORY CONTRADICTIONS”

XVII Esther

5  On the third day Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the palace, in front of the king’s hall. The king was sitting on his royal throne in the hall, facing the entrance. 2 When he saw Queen Esther standing in the court, he was pleased with her and held out to her the gold sceptre that was in his hand. So Esther approached and touched the tip of the sceptre.

3 Then the king asked, “What is it, Queen Esther? What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be given you.”

4 “If it pleases the king,” replied Esther, “let the king, together with Haman, come today to a banquet I have prepared for him.”

5 “Bring Haman at once,” the king said, “so that we may do what Esther asks.”

So the king and Haman went to the banquet Esther had prepared. 6 As they were drinking wine, the king again asked Esther, “Now what is your petition? It will be given you. And what is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be granted.”

7 Esther replied, “My petition and my request is this: 8 If the king regards me with favour and if it pleases the king to grant my petition and fulfil my request, let the king and Haman come tomorrow to the banquet I will prepare for them. Then I will answer the king’s question.”

Esther: Chapter 5:1-8 (The Holy Bible, New International Version)

In this chapter we continue the story from chapter 11-1 Kings-where we left Tambudzai in a hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa where she was expecting to give birth to a baby boy. We also know that after her “strange dream” she had resolved to call the baby, Nelson in honour of Nelson Mandela.

1

To everybody’s relief, despite all the problems that Tambudzai had experienced during her pregnancy, the actual birth of the baby went smoothly without any complications whatsoever. Her husband, Jabulani was present in the delivery room during the process.

A little later, Jabulani watched mother and child as the baby was being fed from the breast. It was a pleasant sight.

“He is a big boy,” Jabulani said proudly. “He is going to run this country one day.”

Tambudzai was amazed that Jabulani should say this. She told him about her strange dream in which she had dreamt “re-living” Nelson Mandela’s triumphant release from prison. Jabulani agreed to name the baby, Nelson as he was also a great admirer of Mandela, as were, of course, a lot of people in the world.

2

Tambudzai’s mother, Chipo came to the hospital later on that day. She was accompanied by her husband, Richard Rawlings.

When Chipo held her grandson in her arms she was filled with great emotion. She felt her eyes water as she thought back to the time she had given birth to her own children. First, had been the difficult birth of Tambudzai’s brother, Nhamo. Chipo had only been twelve years old at the time that she had given birth to her first child. She remembered the pain she had experienced and how close to death she had come because she had been too young to be a mother. Now she was a grandmother at the age of forty but filled with tears of joy.

Tambudzai watched her mother closely but was not concerned because she knew that the tears that dropped from her mother’s eyes were tears of joy. She, of course, knew how her mother and both her brother and herself had struggled in the early days of her childhood. But Tambudzai also remembered that her mother had managed to give the best care she could to her two children under very difficult circumstances. She hoped that she was going to be as good a mother to Nelson as her mother had been to her.

3

Chipo and Richard managed to stay with Tambudzai and Jabulani in Johannesburg for a period of three weeks before they had to go back to London. It had been one of the happiest periods in Chipo’s now joy-filled life. Chipo was determined to come back and visit the young family as soon as she could because she knew the importance of being close to one’s loved ones.

On the day that the Rawlings were to leave for London, it started to rain quite heavily early in the morning. Jabulani called the South African Airways office to make sure that the London flight for that evening had not been cancelled. Jabulani could have been forgiven for being concerned because thunderstorms had built up just before they were about to leave for the airport. The airline, however, assured him that the London flight was expected to take-off on time despite the bad weather.

Tambudzai decided to join her husband, Jabulani on the ride to the airport as she wanted to continue seeing her mother up to the very last moment. They left the baby home with the maid and drove through the rain towards the airport.

The rain continued to pour down quite heavily and it was now affecting visibility. Tambudzai prayed silently, asking that they be delivered to the airport and back home to Sandton safely. Just as she was thinking and praying for their safety, she suddenly found herself screaming as their car was hit by a truck coming from an opposite direction. The car was hit directly on the driver’s side and rolled over twice before coming to a rest with its wheels up in the air.

Tambudzai felt blood all over her face as she struggled to get out the car. She had been sitting at the back with her mother as Richard sat in front with Jabulani who was driving. Tambudzai could see that her mother was also trying to struggle out of the car and so was her step-father, Richard. The only person who seemed not to be moving was Jabulani.

Finally, Tambudzai managed to crawl out of the wreckage. She turned back to see if the others were managing to free themselves. This is when she saw that Jabulani’s neck was turned at an abnormal angle, suggesting that it could have been broken. She also noticed that Jabulani’s eyes were wide open but they seemed to be staring unseeing into empty space. She knew straight away that she had lost a husband and the father of her young baby.

She rolled towards the car and let out a loud scream as the true realisation of what had just befallen them came to her in full force. Jabulani was dead!

The next chapter-Job- will be published not later than Sunday, 1 May, 2011

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NEHEMIAH

Chapter 16 of the book-“NON-CONTRADICTORY CONTRADICTIONS”

XVI. Nehemiah

9 7 “You are the LORD God, who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and named him Abraham. 8 You found his heart faithful to you, and you made a covenant with him to give to his descendants the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Jebusites and Girgashites. You have kept your promise because you are righteous.

9 “You saw the suffering of our forefathers in Egypt; you heard their cry at the Red Sea. 10 You sent miraculous signs and wonders against Pharaoh, against all his officials and all the people of his land, for you knew how arrogantly the Egyptians treated them. You made a name for yourself, which remains to this day. 11 You divided the sea before them, so that they passed through it on dry ground, but you hurled their pursuers into the depths, like a stone into mighty waters. 12 By day you led them with a pillar of cloud, and by night with a pillar of fire to give them light on the way they were to take.

13 “You came down on Mount Sinai; you spoke to them from heaven. You gave them regulations and laws that are just and right, and decrees and commands that are good. 14 You made known to them your holy Sabbath and gave them commands, decrees and laws through your servant Moses. 15 In their hunger you gave them bread from heaven and in their thirst you brought them water from the rock; you told them to go in and take possession of the land you had sworn with uplifted hand to give them.

16 “But they, our forefathers, became arrogant and stiff-necked, and did not obey your commands. 17 They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them, 18 even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, ‘This is your god, who brought you up out of Egypt,’ or when they committed awful blasphemies.

Nehemiah: Chapter 9:7-18 (The Holy Bible, New International Version)

In this chapter we continue the story from chapter 10-2 Samuel-where we left Sipho Dlamini contemplating a decision he had just made about doing something to satisfy his lust for the teenager, Nokutula who also happened to be the farm manager’s sister.

1

Sipho Dhlamini had hardly slept at all that night. He kept on seeing those “bouncing breasts” and thinking how he was going to enjoy fondling them at long last. He “made love to Nokutula several times that night.” This was, of course, all in his obsessed mind. He could have done what he had been doing the previous three days, that is, make love to his wife whilst imagining “doing it” with Nokutula. But tonight he did not want to do that. He wanted to conserve all his strength as he was determined to ambush Nokutula during her jogging run in the morning.

Morning came at last and Sipho quickly got out of bed. He mumbled something about “work” and “early” to his wife but if she heard him at all, she did not show any acknowledgement. In effect, she was really still soundly fast asleep. This was not wholly unusual, Sipho leaving the house so early in the morning. Farm work sometimes demanded that one wakes up in the early hours of the morning to attend to one thing or the other.

The sun had not come up but it was beginning to get clear with darkness disappearing by each passing second. Sipho wanted to make sure that he would be well ahead of Nokutula so that he could choose a perfect spot along the jogging route to way-lay her.

2

Because it was still very quiet that early in the morning, he heard her coming when she was still a long way off. His heart began to beat extremely fast and he started experiencing shortness of breath. “This was it,” he thought to himself. This was one experience he was going to enjoy tremendously.

Nokutula saw him standing in the middle of the path at a distance of about 40 or so metres away. He was so confident of himself that he had not made any attempt to hide amongst the trees. Although he was still a bit too far away to clearly make out his features, Nokutula knew who it was because she had noticed the way Sipho Dlamini had been looking at her these past few days. There had been no mistaking what his intentions could turn out to be.

She did not break her stride as she was prepared for this encounter. As she came near him and muffled a “Saubona” greeting whilst trying to side-step around him on the narrow path, Sipho grabbed her by the hand. She did not scream out or attempt to pull away her hand and Sipho thought that his friend Peter had been right after all. This girl was ready for action!

As he tried to pull her close to him, already drooling with anticipation, he found himself violently tripped to the ground. He had not seen that coming but somehow this girl had found a way of wrestling him to the ground. What he had not known was that Nokutula was actually a judo expert. She stood over him as he lay on the ground not knowing what was to come next. Unbelievably, she started taking off her track suit top, exposing a bra that was holding “those massive breasts” in place.

“Let’s do this properly, Mr. Dlamini. Take off your pants, I want this as much as you do,” she whispered.

Sipho could not believe his luck. He quickly took off his pants and shirt and in no time at all, he was just in his boxers. Nokutula pretended to come towards him but in one swift motion kicked him hard in the groin and Sipho doubled over in pain. Before he could recover, this mad girl was holding his hands behind his back and tying them up with a rope that came from one of her trouser pockets. He tried to struggle but she knew what she was doing. She forced him down onto the ground, face down and tied one leg to the rope around his hands behind his back.

“Now Mr Dlamini, don’t go anywhere because I am going to call my brother and your wife so that they can figure out what you are doing naked, lying around on the ground in this lovely orchard,” Nokutula said. She ran off leaving him struggling in an effort to free himself.

The next chapter-Esther- will be published not later than Sunday, 17 April, 2011

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