Hold: An Observer New Face of Fiction 2018. Michael Donkor

also?’

      ‘I suppose I will let you.’

      ‘She has no fears. So when she has to climb on the step ladder to get to the dirty ceiling corners or to wipe the fans, even though inside she is trembling a little, she can still do it. And another one of her favourites is cleaning the glasses.’

      ‘Why would any human being on earth choose that one?’

      ‘She, she loves how the glasses all look when they lined up on the shelves. She calls it perfect: with the light … She sees them and she thinks of heaven, like her angel name. And, yes, the cloth can hurt her fingers a bit sometimes. But the tingle tingle is good. It means that she’s not a lazy person, like all the old men from her village who are drinking on the road and then crying for their wife to get their food for the evening when the bottle is empty. She’s a doing person –’

      ‘Adjei! We have left Cynthia homeless and without a hometown! That’s very bad of us. We call her Fante, for that nice yellow-yellowy skin. Maybe she is from some small place by Takoradi.’

      ‘Main point is Cynthia likes the hard work. It gives her a pride, to, to feel as though she is doing something not nothing.’

      ‘Is she pretty?’

      ‘Very. Miss World 2002.’

      ‘She has very nice white teeth, all neat, and a nice dress with all patterns on the arms that was very expensive to sew.’

      ‘OK.’