Sizwe arrives home at night and is a little tipsy from drinking some of the beer before they tossed the rest into the river. He still has the calabash in his hand, as a trophy and as a reminder that today Buhle got a taste of vengeance more sour than the beer they stole. He places the calabash on the floor next to his place of sleep and he closes his eyes and hopes to sleep like he hadn’t in the last week or two.

However, the night is nothing close to what he’s hoped for and his dreams punish him.

He has nightmares of the yellow bucket floating in the river and he sees himself gulping the beer out of control to a point where he can’t take no more and regurgitates. He dreams of being strangled by faces he does not recognise and he hears deep voices he’s never heard before. At last, he dreams of the calabash by his side, staring and taunting him.

By the time he wakes up the sun is almost out and he’s breathing like he was drowning in the river from his dreams. Sweat drips from all parts of his body. He tries to wipe the sweat off his face but upon seeing the red, painful looking rash on his arms and feeling it on his face, he panics.

He throws his blanket away, picks up the calabash and he runs out of the hut.

“Mfana wami, where to so early in the morning?” his uncle yells, but Sizwe runs out.

It is by the river where he finds Bab’Nkunzi, the village’s spiritual healer, who had just finished praying before the sun rises.

“Bab’Nkunzi,” says Sizwe. “Please,” he cries.

As calm as always, Bab’Nkunzi turns and faces him.

“Mmm, the ancestors told me you would come,” he says. “Your rash,” he touches it, “looks worse than I thought,” he says. “What you need to do my boy,” he holds Sizwe’s shoulder, “is to go back to that homestead and give them back their calabash.”

Sizwe nods.

“Confess to what you did and ask for forgiveness,” he adds, before he can put another word in, Sizwe sprints to the Mbangeni household.

Tell us: What do you think will happen next?