MUSHAKABVU, I may be in a tough spot, but I am more worried about you. I have never experienced anything close to a sense of kinship with any of my clients, let alone those I have never met. However, the world you sent me to investigate has inspired a selfless concern that is uncommon between strangers. I hope you are just a curious, distant observer in the affairs I have been probing ... But something tells me this hope was frustrated long before our acquaintance.

— Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

Never is a man prouder than when he shuffles paper in front of an illiterate person.

— Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

Not all diseases come from bacteria and viruses, Professor. The worst often come from things you cannot see under a microscope. This plant is infested with an aggressive strain of such invisible germs.

— Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

Nothing prepares you for hiring a person whose only contribution to the workforce will be killing people!

— Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

One candidate who considered applying for the position explained his change of heart: “That job is like unprotected sex. It feels amazing at the time, but there is a good chance you will pay for it later. None of the benefits are worth the pleasure.

— Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

Poetic words are usually more stimulating than accurate. Taking them too seriously is a mistake.

— Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

Professor Hope felt his chest swell with pride. It was doing so without his encouragement. If an electrical fault had stopped the elevator from rising, his inflating ego would have powered the remainder of their journey to the twenty-second floor.

— Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

Professor Hope rubbed his hand along the sand dunes of her windswept form. The static charge made her skin feel like the surface of a cactus. He recoiled. How he wished he had gone into the priesthood when he had had the chance. Embracing celibacy was far easier than battling the consequences of shunning it.

— Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

Professor, when people say such things after impossibility smacks them in the face, we call it denial

— Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

The funnel of my family’s salvation must continue narrowing towards the gallows. That journey cannot begin at the parted tips of another woman’s toes

— Taona Dumisani Chiveneko