Lord Balah and the Witches: An Epic Tragi-Comedy in 14 Parts

Dear Reader!

Below is the 14 chapters of my epic novella entitled "Lord Balah and the Witches"!

Prologue

Hello dear reader and welcome to the story of the legend they call “Lord Balah” and his gaggle of whores they call “the Witches”.  Lord Balah is an African sangoma who was adopted at birth by an old aristocratic English couple who were holidaying in the foothills of Lesotho one winter day a long time ago.  Found abandoned by a river by Lord Chisselton one dewy morning whilst out hunting the rare and elusive Dingbat pigeon (a rare delicacy amongst the European royal classes and most often eaten raw on a bed of creamed spinach, the Dingbat pigeon has since become an extinct species), Lord Balah was quickly accepted into their family as their own, and was subsequently raised in great opulence and grandeur in the English countryside of Derbyshire, where- as the name suggests- the townspeople hold a lot of derbies throughout the year.

After turning 18 years old, Lord Balah (then called Edward by his adopted family) began having strange dreams and visions which he could not explain.  When he informed Lord and Lady Chisselton of these, he was immediately sent to the most expensive psychiatrist in the nearby city of London, where he was promptly diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic and put on an immediate cocktail of anti-depressants, anti-psychotics and anti-hallucinogenic medication.  Despite this, however, the dreams and visions persisted until one fateful evening an apparition appeared before him…

The person standing before Edward (which was his name at the time) introduced herself as his mother, Thembi Kwokwo.  She told him how she had died giving birth to him on that dewy winters morning:  she was at the river fetching water to wash the dishes with, when she suddenly began having violent and forceful contractions- her uterus quickly spewing the baby from within her womb onto the side of the river.  Thereafter she lost consciousnesses from shock and loss of blood, and fell unceremoniously into the river, never to be see or heard from again.  She went on to tell him that although she was just a simple peasant, that his father was a very powerful and influential Sangoma, and that it was his destiny to follow in his father’s footsteps.

When Edward woke up the next morning, he suddenly and without question felt ready to fulfill his destiny.  All his life he had never felt like he belonged in the English countryside- or even Europe for that matter- and so it was without hesitation that he packed his Abercrombie and Fitch backpack, bade farewell to his adopted parents, and made his way to the country of his birth:  South Africa.  Armed only with a suitcase full of clothes and a heart full of hope, Edward changed his name to Lord Balah and began his quest to fulfill his destiny.

Chapter 1

Having forgotten that you need money to survive in the world, Lord Balah arrived in South Africa with not a penny, nickel or dime to his name.  After announcing his intended change of name to the Chisselton’s, they had wasted no time in quickly disinheriting him from the family fortune and removing all photo’s of him from the Mans (which was short for Mansion, dear humble reader).  Lord Balah was not much bothered by this, however, knowing instead in his heart that all he really needed was his dream, and for everything else the universe would provide.

It must be pointed out here, dear reader, that as a boy Lord Balah was home schooled, and thus had always lived a solitary, somewhat lonely life within the Chisselton Country Estate.  From as early as he could remember, his only friends were the horses the family kept in the stables, where he would spend every afternoon feeding them carrots.  It is for this reason that when Lord Balah entered the arrival gates of the large and imposing OR Thambo airport that his senses were soon overcome by the sights, sounds and general anarchy  that is characteristic of daily South African life.

At first Lord Balah was overwhelmed by the noise and chaos which greeted him, but with the help of some cotton wool he happened to have remembered to pack in his toiletry bag which he proceeded to stuff into his ears he was soon fine.  Unsure of where to go or how to get there, Lord Balah decided to sit in the waiting area for a while to gather his thoughts and decide on a plan of action.

Before he could even remove his backpack from his shoulders to sit down, Lord Balah found himself being violently accosted by an angry man who seemed to be accusing him of something which he could not quite make out, since he still had wads of cotton wool stuffed in his ears.  Unsure of what to do or even what was happening, Lord Balah stood motionless pressed against the wall, staring down the barrel of a menacing fist whilst being yelled at by someone he had never met or even seen before in his life.  Timid by nature and a pacifist by choice, the thought of retaliating or even attempting to defend himself never once crossed our hero’s mind.

After what seemed like a significant amount of time had passed and Lord Balah remained pinned to the wall by his anonymous accoster, Lord Balah noticed a woman standing a few meters behind the angry man.  She seemed to be watching in quiet curiosity, although this emotion (Lord Balah could perceive) was being masked by a façade of tears and faked concern.  Being the sensitive soul he was, it was a curious gift Lord Balah possessed that he was very easily able to discern people’s true motives and intentions- sometimes when even they themselves could not.

Within a few seconds of seeing the mystery woman, Lord Balah had realized the meaning of the scenario playing out before him:  having been accused by her boyfriend of infidelity, the frightened woman had pointed to the closest man in sight in order to protect her clandestine lover’s true identity.  To any rational person it would not make any sense at all that said clandestine lover would be at the airport with the unhappy couple at that exact moment, but unfortunately as Lord Balah knew when one is overcome with passion it is of necessity that all reason falls away.  He knew this not because he himself had ever been in love or experienced passion in any way, but he had learnt about it from Shakespeare whilst studying for his A and O levels.

After realizing what was going on, Lord Balah- who had been a practicing Buddhist since his fourteenth birthday- decided to talk to the angry man and help to quieten his nerves.  He quickly removed the cotton wool from his ears and spoke…

The pontsy English accent which emanated from Lord Balah’s mouth soon drew a sea of fascinated stares from passers-by who had never seen a black man talk in such a manner before.  In fact, his angry accoster soon grew quite frightened by this startling anomaly before him and ran hastily out of the airport, whilst his girlfriend (or shall we now presume ex-girlfriend) stood staring at Lord Balah, frozen in shock.

Unsure of exactly what to do about this recent development, Lord Balah stood for a moment keeping an eye on the ex-girlfriend whose name he now discovered to be Trudie from a locket which bore that name hanging around her neck.  Although they were standing a considerable distance from one another, it is well known within the Chisselton family that Lord Balah has excellent eyesight.  Once, when Lord Chisselton was having an affair with one of the stable maids, it was Lord Balah who had spotted the evidence- a lone piece of hay- hidden discretely beneath his shirt collar.  Of course, Lord Balah never told anybody of this forbidden liaison, but every member of the Chisselton family had been caught red-handed at one time or another-either in the act or soon thereafter- of performing some or other debaucherous deed by Lord Balah’s excellent eyesight and prodigious eye for detail.

Lord Balah decided immediately that the next course of action was to console this poor woman whose name he now knew was Trudie.  Soon, Trudie had opened up to Lord Balah completely, and was 2 hours into telling him her life story when she remembered why she was at the airport in the first place:  she and Johnny (Lord Balah’s angry accoster) had traveled all the way from their home in the East Rand that fateful day to fetch Trudie’s two young twin sisters who had just finished high school and were coming to visit their older sister on what was to be leg 1 of their 7 continent, 56 country world tour.  After narrowly scraping through their end-of-year exams, the twins Fei-Ying and Fei-Yang had decided that life in communist China was not what they wanted for themselves, and so they had decided that even though they had no idea what they wanted to do with their lives that traveling around the world, one city at a time, would surely help them to figure it out.  Having been born to a Chinese mother whilst their (and Trudie’s) father had been in the country on a business trip some 18 years before, the tech-savvy twins had found Trudie on Facebook some 3 months before and had organized to stay with their long-lost half sister in Boksburg for a few weeks.

As Trudie explained to Lord Balah the reason for her whereabouts at that time, he turned unexpectedly to see the twins standing suddenly at her side.  Dressed in obscenely revealing tight pink matching skirts and tops, and draped in cheap fake gold jewellery, even Lord Balah could not mistake the resemblance between the half-siblings.  Granted they didn’t have the same skin color, body types or facial features, but they certainly had the same lack of modesty and general inappropriateness when it came to their fashion sense.

And so there the four of them stood:  Lord Balah watching as Trudie tried to introduce herself to the twins for the first time in person.  As it turns out, the twins couldn’t speak a word of English, and had been using an interpreter during their Facebook conversations with Trudie.  Also unbeknownst to their unsuspecting half-sister, the twins had escaped illegally from their communist country, where- as it turns out- traveling outside of its borders is illegal except for diplomats and foreign ambassadors.  Unbeknownst to all four of our characters as well, the Chinese Secret Service had just discovered the twins’ escape and had deployed an undercover agent to find them and return them to within the country’s barbed-wired borders…

Chapter 2

After making their way out of the airport and into a mini-bus taxi, Lord Balah and the Witches soon found themselves in the heart of the city of Johannesburg:  in the place they call Hillbrow.  Convinced that accommodation in the area would be cheap, Trudie had persuaded Lord Balah that it was in their best interest to find somewhere to sleep before the sun went down.  Johannesburg at night, they all knew (except for the twins, who at this point were quite oblivious to the dangerousness of their now unfamiliar surroundings) was no place for innocent souls like themselves to be.

Without hesitation Lord Balah and the Witches found a small room in a cheap, ramshackled hotel.  Unfortunately, their room only had one bed, and so it was decided that the twins and Trudie would sleep head-to-toe whilst Lord Balah slept at the door in order to provide protection against possible (and probable) intruders.

As they began unpacking their things, Trudie noticed a set of papers the twins were staring at with what seemed like an unnatural amount of concentration.  Stepping forward to read what was written on them, Trudie saw with horror that it was a marriage certificate.  Speaking in unison (in Chinese, so that neither Trudie nor Lord Balah could understand what they were saying), the twins explained how in order to escape their homeland they had married a South-African man via the internet, and that it was he who had organized their untimely illegal escape.  Of course, their story went un-understood amongst their half-sister and Lord Balah, who stood perplexed and disorientated as the twins jumped around enthusiastically and with great expression as they described how they had applied prosthetic masks, donned devious disguises, and dodged deadly bullets on their journey to the southern tip of the African continent.  After twenty minutes of acrobatic story-telling, they twins gave up hopelessly and fell sleepily onto the small single bed for their first rest since their heroic journey had begun 3 days prior.

Exhausted himself from his long journey from England, Lord Balah decided to have a nap himself, only to be startled back to consciousness by a loud knocking at the door.  The man on the other end forcefully stepped into the room and offered to purchase the twins for R5000.  Fearful and reluctant, Lord Balah politely declined the Nigerian man’s offer but promised to consider it further and get back to him in a few hours.  By this time, Trudie has nestled herself quietly under the bed for safety- which is where she would sleep for the rest of their stay at the godforsaken inn in which they found themselves.

Although neither Lord Balah nor Trudie had understood the twin’s story about their escape to South Africa, they did recognize the fact that the pair had in their possession a marriage license with their names on.  Familiar with the explosion of online marriages to particularly Chinese and Eastern European girls in the Boksburg area since the advent of the internet, Trudie understood that her innocent half-sisters had probably been purchased by a lonely motor-car mechanic with a wonky eye named Kobus, and quickly decided that that was no life for them.

Determined that her sisters deserved a better life than a tacky arranged marriage, Trudie decided there and then that Fei-Ying and Fei-Yang were getting a divorce from Kobus Jansen Van Rensburg just as soon as they could find the nearest place where they do divorce proceedings.  Lord Balah informed her that such procedures could be performed by any government employee (he was not sure if he was correct in his assumption but was nevertheless a good improviser and indeed thoroughly convincing in his improvisations), and so Trudie without hesitation scurried down the stairs to the police officer who just a few minutes earlier had offered her R50 for a hand job and asked him to dissolve the twin’s marriage. 

High on a mixture of LSD-laced marijuana and crack cocaine as Trudie approached him, the unsuspecting police officer- besieged by fear and paranoia at this sudden and unexpected appearance within his peripheral vision- quickly pulled out his gun and shot three times at the stack of papers which Trudie now stood holding out at him.  And so it was that the twins’ marriage was dissolved, and they were once again single and ready to mingle amidst a cold and indifferent world, whilst somewhere in the East Rand sat a broken and unhappy man realizing that once again his heart had been broken by a woman.  Two women, in fact.  And it was in that moment that Kobus Jansen Van Rensburg decided that he would get his revenge…

Chapter 3

Trudie returned to the room from her ordeal with the police officer shaken and suffering from the beginnings of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, and silently crawled under the bed to escape into sleep for a while.  By this time, Lord Balah himself had succumbed to exhaustion and was lying curled up uncomfortably on the floor, as the twins snored expressively on the bed.  Gunshots rang out in the distance as, presumably, a drug deal turned sour, or an angry pimp found his whore sleeping on the proverbial job.  For Lord Balah and the Witches, however, the night passed smoothly and without incident, as they all lay lifeless recovering from the day’s excitement- which, unbeknownst to them, was the beginning of an epic and now legendary journey which will forever be remembered in the annals of history.

It was unexpected, then, that Lord Balah and the Witches would be unceremoniously awoken by an angry mob of Afrikaans men sporting hideously unfashionable mullets and mean expressions on their faces.  In the middle of the circle, looking down on the panic-stricken and slightly confused twins, stood their now ex-husband Kobus Jansen Van Rensburg.  Having vowed to never again be belittled or emotionally abused by a woman the way his mother used to when he was a child, Kobus Jansen Van Rensburg had spent the last 24 hours hunting the twins down by using his rottweiler, Killer, to sniff the pair of G-string thongs the twins had sent him in their attempt to woo him into financing their intrepid escape from communist China.  Hell bent on finding them and exacting his revenge, Kobus Jansen Van Rensburg had easily rustled up a group of unemployed, washed-out drinking buddies to join him on his quest.

As you, dear reader, are familiar with by now, Lord Balah is a particularly sensitive and evolved soul who is against violence in all its many forms.  Despite this fact, however, it is a closely held secret within the Chisselton family that for five years- between the ages of 8 and 13 years of age- that Lord Balah had been unnaturally obsessed with Bruce lee movies, and had watched “Enter the Dragon” at least 30 times.  Somehow mysteriously during this time, the boy then known as Edward had somehow absorbed everything he had seen on the television screen, and without even throwing one roundhouse kick or performing a single kata, had learnt the basic art of fighting.

Although at this moment in time his pacifist ideals were being challenged to their limit, Lord Balah quickly remembered back to a scene in one of Chuck Norris’s (another childhood hero of his) movies in which he says something about violence being justified if it is in self-defense.  In fact, as Lord Balah recalled, Mister Meyagie had said exactly the same thing to Daniel-San in the Karate Kid.  And so it was without remorse that Lord Balah graciously opened up a can of whip ass, which resulted in every member of the East Rand gang lying face down in their own blood.  Thereafter it was unanimously decided amongst Lord Balah and his female companions that it was time to (immediately) leave the humble, godforsaken inn and find another place to stay.

Without even grabbing their bags containing the few belongings they possessed, Lord Balah and the Witches ran silently from the hotel and stepped into the early morning summer sun.  Already the streets were lined with mini-bus taxi’s, and so Lord Balah and the Witches hopped unhesitantly into the closest one and Trudie gave the driver the name of their next intended destination:  a place she had heard about and seen depicted in a movie once but had never been to herself (despite the fact that her mother had been born and raised there)…  Their next port of call, ladies and gentlemen, was Sofia Town.

Chapter 4

Out of harms way from Kobus Jansen Van Rensburg and his redneck lynch mob, Lord Balah and the Witches sank quietly into their seats in the mini-bus taxicab.  As they hurtled dangerously through the streets of Johannesburg, the twins took it upon themselves to convince the large African woman sitting next to them to braid Lord Balah’s hair.  Preppy and well groomed in appearance at that moment, Lord Balah still looked remarkably like that irritating character Carlton from popular 90’s TV show “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air”.  Intent on giving him a make-over like the ones they used to watch illegally (its illegal to watch American TV in communist China) on pirated DVD’s they would buy from bootleggers in dark alleyways, the twins skillfully cajoled the large woman into performing their request.

An entrepreneurial pair if ever there was one, the twins Fei-Ying and Fei-Yang had begun concocting money-making schemes from a young age.  They were the only children of a single mother who worked two jobs- one sowing rice in the rice fields during the day and another making Nike sneakers in a sweatshop at night- in order to put food on the table.  Not exactly dutiful daughters but yet still aspiring businesswomen, the twins had begun their now exhaustive list of money-making schemes in order to help their mother pay the bills and send them to school.  Groomed on re-runs of “The Apprentice”, the twins dreamt of the day that they too would own a large multibillion dollar corporation like their hero, Donald Trump, and get to sit behind a desk all day telling people that they were fired. 

Lord Balah stepped out of the mini-bus taxi a changed man.  Maybe not spiritually or even emotionally, but he certainly looked very different: his hair was now a large mane of Rastafarian-like dreadlocks which had random, colorful beads littered within the strands like the lights on a Christmas tree.  In addition to this, the twins had swapped his Polo golf-shirt and khaki pants for a large animal-skinned coat, which Lord Balah now found himself wearing.  Not a modern, conventional look by any means, the twins had “gone with their gut” (as their other hero, Heidi Klum, likes to say when it comes to fashion).  All in all it was agreed amongst the group (Trudie silently nodded her head but as yet was unable to speak due to the steadily mounting Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which was in the process of ravaging her fragile psyche) that Lord Balah indeed now looked like a Sonoma.  Feeling a bit uncomfortable in his new outfit, especially since he was no longer wearing pants, Lord Balah quietly convinced himself that the twins had done him a great service.  He was on a quest to become a powerful Sangoma like his father, after all, and he knew that in this day and age- where image, quite literally, is everything- that in order to fulfill his destiny he would eventually have to look the part.

Arriving in the not-so-sleepy but still unconscious town they call Sofia, Lord Balah was greeted by a sea of stares as he and the Witches stepped uncertainly through the busy shopping center.  To stand out in a place like Triomf, dear reader, is indeed a very serious accolade, and it was with great intrigue that the locals watched Lord Balah and the Witches make their way through this new and unfamiliar territory.

The history of Sofia Town (also now called Triomf for some curious, unknown reason) dates back many years.  Once the bustling Jazz capital of the world, it is often rumored that Mariah Carey lived there as a teenager, where she learnt how to find her “inner voice” and become the sensational singing super-star she is today.  Lord Balah was a huge Mariah Carey fan, in fact, and had read this informational tit-bit about her once on Wikipedia.  However, looking at the townspeople as he stepped through the crowd that day, Lord Balah couldn’t help but feel that the story was nothing more than a vicious rumor, for all he could see here were zombie-like creatures possessing varying degrees of Down Syndrome dressed in clothes that Elizabeth Taylor would have worn sometime in the 1970’s had she been born colour-blind and raised in a trailor park.  Indeed, nothing in his life before this could have prepared him for what he saw today…It was as if he had fallen straight into the Village of the Damned because, truly, by the looks of these inbreds Lord Balah could not help but feel that the town as a whole was being punished karmically for some great sin they had obviously once committed.  As a once-practicing Buddhist, Lord Balah knew that life is not innately unfair, but rather the case that when it does become so its probably because the person (or town as a collective whole, in this case) in question did something to deserve it.

As the unlikely foursome exited the shopping center and made their way through the parking lot, they were suddenly approached by a carguard who swiftly produced a large open suitcase before them and began to hawk a cacophony of cheap, thoroughly useless items.  An enchanting salesman nonetheless, the carguard proceeded to offer them special discounts on a vast array of stolen  and/or cheap imitation products.  Unfortunately, none of them had any money on them, and so it was within a blink of an eye that Lucky the carguard had closed his seductive suitcase and disappeared from before them as if an apparition dissolving into the night.

Before they could proceed forward in their journey (they did not know where they were going but Lord Balah had once read that it was always better to go forward, not backward, and so he had decided that they would proceed forward), another relentless hawker jumped unexpectedly into their path.  This intrepid entrepreneur- with distinctly Chinese features, the twins thought but were not sure- quickly introduced himself as Solomon and presented them with his product:  “Mucodo Cream” which, it said in small letters beneath the title on the  tube, was “for enlargening the penis, making it big and strong on a permanent basis”.  Being a virgin himself, Lord Balah’s face soon had turned bright red, which- together with his chocolate-brown skin- served to cause him to have turned a dark shade of purple and to look like a purple smurf.  The twins, not understanding the dialogue taking place before them nor the fine print on the Mucoco Cream tube, looked on curiously at the man named Solomon, feeling in their gut that they had seen him somewhere before.  As this all took place, Trudie stood at their side watching people walking in and out of the shopping center, understanding for the first time the negative biological consequences of interbreeding, and said a silent prayer of thanks that that one time her and her second cousin Jaco fooled around that they didn’t get any further than second base.  Lord Balah by this time had grown more embarrassed than he had ever felt in his entire life, and suddenly and without warning yelled out to the Witches to run for their lives…And so the four of them ran out of the Sofia Town shopping center, looking forward but not backward, unsure yet again of where to go next.

As the man named Solomon watched Lord Balah and the Witches escape from his near grasp, he stealthily moved his hand over his face and pulled away the prosthetic mask which hid his Chinese features, and pulled out his Secret Service Walkie Talkie in order to contact “Mother Goose” (the code name for the Secret Service Headquarters) and inform his Lieutenant that he is close to capturing the twins.  Hot on their heels, Secret Agent Hudson Hawk knew that Lord Balah and the twins could not outrun him forever, and so he changed his disguise and proceeded to follow them to their- as yet unknown- next destination. 

Chapter 5

As Lord Balah and the Witches ran fleeing from the godforsaken Sophia Town shopping center parking lot and turned the corner onto the passing main road, a speeding white Mazda 2 with the music blaring turned in front of them and unexpectedly clipped the side of poor Trudie’s torso.  The driver- a ghastly lesbian by the name of Harriet, was in a rush to buy dog food before her lesbian lover, Tabita, got home from work.  As it happens, the young lesbian couple were at the difficult 18-month hump in their relationship:  where the intimacy-inducting hormones have worn off and the relationship has been unwittingly reduced to a monotonous routine of work, sleep and feeding the dogs (also known to those in the know, dear reader, as Lesbian Bed Death).  Harriet had already forgotten to feed the poor creatures thrice before that week, and after a long, 2-hour coffee-fuelled therapy session with her mother/BFF, Tabita had decided that should it happen that Harriet forgets to feed her “kids” again, that it would mean their love has died and their relationship would be over.  And so it was that Harriet, fearful that Tabita would actually follow through with her threat this time, rushed out to the nearby Sophia Town shopping center in order to buy the dog food she had forgotten to purchase the previous day, and in her haste hit poor Trudie who now lay broken and bleeding on the sidewalk.

Lord Balah stood motionless as poor Trudie lay moaning in pain on the ground before them.  Unsure of what to do or where the nearest hospital was, Lord Balah watched hopefully as Harriet pulled into the parking lot.  Expecting her to rush over and assist them, Lord Balah was unfortunately disappointed, as her watched her hurry desparately into the Shoprite supermarket in search of her coveted Pedigree meat-stew flavored dog bites.  During this time, the twins had mysteriously managed to communicate with a passing petrol station attendant, who had indicated to them using a complicated diagram drawn in the sand next to the sidewalk, that there was indeed a hospital just meters away from where they stood.

It was at this moment that Lord Balah was grateful for all the years his adopted parents, the Chisseltons, had sent him on rigorous summer camps as a child- where his body was crafted into a tough, well-built machine.  A reluctant athlete (despite his innate prodigious athletic abilities) at best, Lord Balah had always preferred to live a life of the mind- spending his free time immersed in the books that filled the Chisselton Country Estate library.  All of that physical exercise he was subjected to as a child, however, had finally come in handy- and so it was without effort that Lord Balah swiftly picked poor Trudie off the ground and onto his shoulders, and they made their way to the nearby Helen Joseph Hospital.

Nothing in his opulent, aristocratic upbringing could have prepared Lord Balah for the carnage that met his eyes when he entered the Helen Joseph Hospital.  As he would later be informed, Helen Joseph Hospital is a government-funded hospital, and since the government had stopped funding it sometime back in the late 90’s, the result was that the Helen Joseph Hospital is today nothing more than a cargo hold for the diseased and dying.  In order to deal with the lack of funds required for medical stock and functioning equipment, the doctors and nurses of Helen Joseph Hospital had desperately turned to alternative medicine in their effort to continue saving lives.

After one of the student doctors had read an article on the healing power of positive thinking- in which a Japanese man had put labels on bottles of water with  different words on each one and it was found that the bottles of water with the positive messages became better (in molecular structure) and the bottles with negative messages became somehow worse- it was agreed by the rest of the hospital staff that their primary method of treatment for their patients would now consist of applying sticky labels inscribed with positive words and phrases on patients heads.  As a result, Lord Balah could see, every patient that lay in a bed- and even the ones lying on the floor- had a small white label stuck to their forehead.  Some labels had simple, generic messages such as  “get well soon”, whilst others had more serious messages such as “I really hope you make it through the night xxx”.  Doubtful of the efficacy of this eccentric healing technique, Lord Balah nevertheless decided to hand Trudie over to the nurses.  Delirious and slipping in and out of consciousness by this stage, Lord Balah hoped that the happy thoughts and positive phrases of this tireless team of underpaid medical staff would somehow manage to heal the broken bones in poor Trudie’s lifeless body.

Despite the unfortunate setback of poor Trudie’s seemingly untimely demise, Lord Balah decided that his journey must go on.  After agreeing with the twins to meet back at the hospital in three days time, Lord Balah and the twins parted ways in search of their destinies.

Chapter 6

Alone for the first time since exiting the hallowed gates of OR Thambo International Airport, Lord Balah took a moment to process everything and decide where to go from here.  It might be a good idea, he decided, to have a nap before continuing his journey forward (but not backward).  He quickly found a patch of grass to lie down on in a small semi-wooded area just a few meters downhill from Helen Joseph Hospital, and soon fell into a deep sleep.

It was at the exact moment that Lord Balah’s brainwaves entered stage 4 of the REM sleep cycle that his mother’s apparition appeared again before him.  This time she was more purposeful in her tone, and instructed Lord Balah to find his father who, as it turns out, now living in Johannesburg.  She instructed her son to “follow the money”, for there it would lead him to his father.

When Lord Balah woke up from his 3 hour-long nap, the sun had already begun to set on day 2 of his epic journey.  Again unsure of where to go from here but knowing the only way was forward, he began walking uncertainly through the streets, until he noticed that all of the expensive cars were all traveling in the same direction.  Convinced that this was the sign he was looking for as he recalled his mother’s words of “follow the money” echoing in his mind, Lord Balah immediately began walking in the direction that the expensive cars were traveling in.  Remember however, dear reader, that the sun had already set by this time, and so it was a long and treacherous journey through the night to the place (although Lord Balah did not know it yet) they call Santon City.

At the same time in another part of town- Melville, to be exact- the twins Fei-Ying and Fei-Yang had befriended a small, unassuming group of gang-bangers known as the Rough Riders.  Obviously oblivious to the fact that “Rough Rider” is also the name of a particular brand of condoms, the Rough Riders seemed to think they owned the streets of Melville, and it was not for nothing that the other gangs in the surrounding areas left them alone:  the Rough Riders had a secret weapon which struck fear into the hearts of all who had suffered from the dreaded Rough Rider computer virus, which cruelly prevents the computer user from ever accessing Facebook, and in fact deletes the individual’s Facebook profile for all of eternity- a fate worse than death, many have exclaimed in fear.

Because the Rough Rider gang consisted mostly of computer hackers and maths prodigies, it was a given that almost all of them were Chinese.  Or Chinese-South African, as they preferred to be called.  For the twins this was their opportunity to communicate with people for the first time, and so it began that they appealed to the Rough Rider gang for a position within their informal organization by telling the group of their own very interesting and colorful journey to the small, incredibly dingy bar/ restaurant aptly named “Ratz” in which they found themselves sitting in that night…

The twins explained to the gang how at a young age they had decided to help their mother pay the bills by brainstorming ways to make money for themselves.  After their first venture, “Fei-Ying and Fei-Yang’s Magical Lemonade Stand” failed, the twins realized that Chinese people don’t really drink lemonade, and so they went in search of other entrepreneurial options.  After doing online research and conducting 7 separate surveys of their own after school, the twins came to the conclusion that sex sells.  And so it was with this thought in mind that the twins- at the tender age of 11 years- entered the seedy, underground world that was the Adult Entertainment Industry. After 5 tireless months and having starred in 250 kiddy-porn videos, the twins were successfully able to afford to buy their mother a nice house in a nice area and pay the bills for the next couple of years.  A job well done (pardon the pun), the twins then settled back into school life and left their kiddie-porn days behind them.

As the Rough Rider gang sat mesmerized by the twins and their story, it became apparent that the gang had found a new leader.  Just a few days before, their existing leader had disappeared mysteriously under suspicious circumstances, and the gap it left within the group was now being serendipitously filled by the ambitious twins.

Determined to become rich and powerful business moguls like their hero Donald Trump, the twins decided that their first plan of action was to make sure their gang looked the part, and so the whole group was scheduled for dual facial reconstruction and liposuction surgeries the next morning.  The twins, being the only females in the group, went for matching breast enlargements in addition to the aforementioned operations, as well as convincing the gang’s IT specialist, Quintin, to implant small silicone chips in their frontal lobes, which would enable them to speak and understand English.  And so, dear reader, began the process of world domination for the- as yet- small, unassuming Rough Rider gang, as they began phase one of the twins “Extreme Make-Over: World Domination” edition.

Chapter 7

Arriving at his destination, Santon City, Lord Balah watched as all the expensive cars he had been following vigilantly through the night entered and exited the parking lot like ants in and out of a busy anthill.  Filled suddenly with an inner sense of direction and unquestionable knowing, Lord Balah walked steadily through the sun’s early morning rays and entered Santon City as if being pulled by an invisible rope.

Lord Balah entered Santon City through entrance 2- the one by the Nino’s coffee shop- and walked slowly past the shocked onlookers who had all stopped sipping their skinny cappuccinos and were now collectively staring at him wide-eyed and fearful.  Lord Balah had forgotten about his extreme makeover, so tired was he, and now as he stood looking at his reflection in the glass door of Clicks, he realized why the rich people looked so scared:  in the 3 days that he had been in South Africa he had completely transformed physically, and now looked like a cross between Moses from the Bible and a hobo.  Still too tired to process this information, Lord Balah turned forward and proceeded to make his way through the crowded shopping mall.

Lord Balah had only taken a few steps forward when he felt a pair of eyes staring wide-eyed at him from within the Woolworths display window.  Unlike the others, these eyes seemed to recognize Lord Balah, and as Lord Balah stared back an inner knowing took hold as he realized the significance of the mysterious pair of eyes:  they were his fathers.

It was as if fate had directed him there, Lord Balah surmised, as he walked slowly towards the man who now had joyful tears in his eyes.  Dressed impeccably in trendy, tight-fitting clothes, Lord Balah’s father looked much younger than his 45 years, although their facial features were identical.  Confused as to why his father would be standing inside a Woolworths display window, Lord Balah suggested they sit down and maybe get some coffee or something.  Godfrey (that’s what his name badge said) had known Lord Balah was coming to find him (for he too had been visited by Thembi Kwokwo in his dreams) and had been expecting this visit, but yet still was overwhelmingly overjoyed by his son’s appearance, and so suggested that they rather go to MacDonalds and get a Happy Meal- because this was such a happy day for him.

Father and son collected their Happy Meals and found a quiet corner in the back of the restaurant where they sat down to eat.  Aware of the thoughts floating through Lord Balah’s mind, Godfrey began to speak and tell the story of how he- once a powerful sangoma revered and respected by all who knew him- ended up as the Creative Director of the Santon City Woolworths display window.

Godfrey spent the next 8 hours in that small McDonalds corner explaining to Lord Balah how his life as a sangoma was a difficult one.  He explained how, as a child, he had always known that he was different, and then when the village sangoma at the time chose him as the next successor this feeling was even more strongly confirmed for him.  Happy to fulfill what he thought was his destiny, Godfrey entered the unofficial sangoma training camp as an apprentice to Sangoma Zodwa, and was given the sangoma name of Sangoma Lupapwe.  Under Sangoma Zodwa’s watchful eye, Godfrey trained for 6 years until Sangoma Zodwa’s unexpected death from a heart attack pushed him into the role of Official Village Sangoma. 

Life as the official village Sangoma was a very stressful and high-pressure occupation, Godfrey explained, with people knocking on his mud-hut door constantly at all hours of the day and night, asking him to perform spells, heal illnesses, or perform some or other absolutely urgent miracle for them.  Also, Godfrey told Lord Balah, being a Sangoma can be a lonely life, since they have to take a vow of celibacy before getting the job.

Godfrey told Lord Blah of his conception:  one night, ravaged by uncontrollable thoughts of a sexual nature which he was trying to escape, Godfrey ran to the river’s edge and was about to jump in to cool off when he looked up to see a beautiful young peasant standing watching him from across the river.  In a romantic love scene that really makes no sense at all, the two humped like rabbits for all of 5 minutes (Ok so it wasn’t that romantic), and then Godfrey got up off the ground, brushed himself off, and went back to his mud-hut, never to see the girl again (they lived in neighboring villages which prevented a lot of awkwardness, one might assume).  All of this, Godfrey said, happened when he was 25 years old, and it would take another 10 years before he would finally come out of the closet and admit that he was gay.

As it turns out, dear reader, Godfrey (known then as Sangoma Lupapwe) was a flaming homosexual the whole time- albeit a non-practicing one.  To the trained eye (i.e. those with Gaydar), the writing would have been on the proverbial wall from day one:  the impeccable attention to detail, the trendy fashion sense (Sngoma Lpapwe’s animal hide outfits were always the talk of the village), and even the strange lisp he had had since the first day he could talk…Indeed, ladies and gentlemen, Godfrey was gay.

Having had homosexual thoughts since he was a small boy, Godfrey explained to Lord Balah how he had tried even harder to present a tough, macho, bad-boy image to the village people.  Being gay was a crime worthy of death, and so Godfrey knew he could never tell anyone.  The loneliness of his dark secret soon caught up with him, however, and before long Godfrey found himself hopelessly addicted to peyote and peach-flavoured mampoer.  Sometimes, he said, he would wake up on the floor of his mud-hut covered in his own vomit, and it was at that stage that he realised he had hit “rock bottom” and had to get help.  For 10 years he lived this dark double life:  a powerful and revered sangoma to the people, and a peach-flavoured mampoer  and peyote addict behind closed doors.  At the age of 35 years old Godfrey finally mustered up the courage to do what he knew  he had to do:  he had to leave his village in search of the nearest rehab facility and he needed to confess his tragic secret to another living human being.

Godfrey left his small African village in the foothills of Lesotho and traveled by foot to the neighboring country of South Africa.  There he entered a SANCA-approved drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility and began working the 12 steps.  He learnt important things coping mechanisms such as “letting go and letting God”, and “working the steps one day at a time”.  In addition to getting clean, Godfrey also fell in love for the first time with a recovering heroin addict named Peter.  Unfortunately the relationship did not last long, however, since dating in stricktly forbidden within the rehab facility, although the two men remain on good terms and still keep in touch and recently added each other as Facebook friends.  All in all, rehab was a good experience for Godfrey, and it was from there that he traveled to the nearby Santon City shopping mall in search of a job.

Being gay, Godfrey naturally had a flair for all things creative.  It was for this reason that he was instantly hired as the new Woolworths Display Manager.  Being the Display Manager, it was Godfrey’s job to put stuff wherever the Creative Director told him to.  Godfrey desperately aspired to become the Creative Director.  He eventually got his chance a few weeks later when the then Creative Director, Fabio, choked on a handful of peanuts he didn’t chew properly before swallowing.  Godfrey at this point in the story had now been Creative Director for 3 months, but aspired to even greater things:  he wanted to be the Creative Manager of the entire Woolworths store- all two levels of it.

Godfrey’s story was a lot for Lord Balah to take in, but he nevertheless sat enwrapped in his father’s words, wishing there was something he could do to help procure his fathers promotion.  Godfrey could see that his son was exhausted, and so he suggested that they go home to Godfrey’s shack in Soweto for the evening.  By this time it was about 8pm and the store would still be open for another hour (it was the week before Christmas so the shopping mall stayed open late), but Godfrey was sure his boss would let him off early.

As Godfrey walked into his boss’ office to ask if he could leave early, Godfrey was automatically handed his new name badge.  On it was written “Godfrey Shabalala:  Creative Manager”.  In that instant Godfrey knew what had just happened:  the special Sangoma powers which he himself had once possessed had now been transferred to his son, Lord Balah, who (it seemed) was unknowingly responsible for the job promotion he had only just minutes before expressed a desire for.  In that moment Godfrey decided not to tell Lord Balah of this promotion or of his special Sangoma powers, but instead decided to take the poor boy home, feed him and let him get some much needed rest.  In the morning, Gdfrey decided, he would tell Lord Balah of the changes that would occur, as Lord Balah would slowly transform into the most powerful sangoma in the universe.

Chapter 8

As they sat in the mini-bus taxi on the way to Godfrey’s home in Soweto, Lord Balah took the opportunity to relax and have a quick power nap while Godfrey sat silently next to him and pondered the thoughts taking shape in his mind…

It all made sense to Godfrey now:  the powers he had possessed as a sangoma had left him as soon as he had- in his heart- renounced his life as a sangoma.  But even before that, he realized, his powers had begun fading the day he had performed the sexual act by the river with Lord Balah’s biological mother.  Somehow, Godfrey’s sangoma powers must have been transferred through his ‘man seed’ to the ovary that it then subsequently fused with to create the son that now sat next to him, napping quietly as the mini-bus taxi careened dangerously through the informal township.

Godfrey realized now the reason for the stringent vow of celibacy he had to take at his official sangoma ordainment ceremony:  somehow, and for whatever reason, the powers of a sangoma can only be kept in a vessel that is pure and free from the temptations of the flesh.  Obviously, Godfrey ascertained, the rule did not apply to masturbation, since he had done that many times- sometimes hundreds of times a day- as a young sangoma without ever losing a trace of his powers.

Stepping out of the taxi and into the dangerous streets of Soweto, Godfrey told Lord Balah to follow him and not make eye contact with anyone.  Despite this, however, Lord Balah’s presence in the shanty town that evening did not go unnoticed:  amidst the crowd of Levi jeans and expensive sneakers, Lord Balah’s unusual appearance drew curious stares from the locals as he followed his father home.

Entering the small tin shack, Lord Balah immediately noticed the presence of another man in the far left corner of the room, meditatively stirring a pot of stew.  Godfrey introduced Lord Balah to the man as his life partner, Maurice.  Maurice was a thin man of medium height, and seemed to have a few teeth missing.  As they shook hands to greet, Lord Balah saw a flash in his mind of a young Maurice getting punched in the mouth repeatedly by a bunch of boys who were calling him a slew of derogatory names.  Frightened by the vision but fully aware of the two men watching him, Lord Balah quickly forced the vision he had just seen out of his mind, and took a seat on the floor with his gracious hosts.

While Maurice continued stirring the stew and was getting ready to make a small garden salad to go with the meal, Godfrey explained to Lord Balah how the two men had managed to stay together in that small shantytown as lovers for so long:  no one knew that they were gay.  Granted, Godfrey admitted, people probably suspected it, but until they actually came out and said it- or at least got caught performing anal intercourse- nobody could do anything to them.  Just the other day, Godfrey informed Lord Balah, a woman who had been suspected of being a lesbian finally came out of the closet and told her family- who then organized a small group of men to tie the poor woman to a wooden beam and burn her alive. 

The full extent of the homophobia within Soweto’s borders struck Lord Balah as primitive and somewhat archaic.  Having been raised in Europe, Lord Balah had always accepted the liberal attitude his adopted parents had passed down to him.  Lady Chisselton in particular had always been fond of “the gays”, as she liked to call them.  She would often joke, in fact, that “if it wasn’t for the gays, I don’t know how I would have decorated this Mansion so beautifully!”  Indeed, a large portion of the staff at the Chisselton mansion were homosexuals:  there was Allan the Head Chef, Fabrizio the flower decorator, Montgomery the party planner, and Lucio the pool boy- those just being a few that came to Lord Balah’s mind at that moment.

Sitting there cross-legged on the floor with his father, Lord Balah felt a growing sense of injustice in the pit of his stomach.  The feeling began to flow like fire through his veins as he realized that something had to be done to change these unfortunate and unfair circumstances.  At that very same moment, Godfrey say watching his son, knowing full well the changes that were occurring within his son’s heart:  at that very moment in time, dear reader, Lord Balah was being born anew…and so it was that Lord Balah became a true Sangoma.

Without even eating the delightful meal Maurice had prepared for them, Lord Balah got to his feet and left the small tin shack he had been sitting in.  With an unbridled sense of purpose and determination, he began walking the streets of the township.  Saying nothing, but making sure to meet the gaze of every onlooker, Lord Balah walked the entire length and breadth of Soweto that night.  In the morning as the sun rose, he went back to his father and told him to announce to the people the grand occasion which would take place that afternoon:  Godfrey and Maurice were getting married.

Godfrey knew what had happened and did not question his son’s directive.  And, as if by magic, the entire township accepted the homosexual couple’s domestic union with open hearts and minds.  Within a few weeks, Maurice was enjoying wine-fuelled book club evenings with the other wives in the area and Godfrey was going on weekend fishing trips with the other husbands.  All in all, the happy newlyweds (whose commitment ceremony was presided over by Lord Balah himself) lived happily together in wedded bliss from there on after, free from the homophobic prejudice that had once made them fear ever achieving that dream.

  

Chapter 9

After saying goodbye to Godfrey and Maurice and promising to visit again soon, Lord Balah decided to make his way back to Helen Joseph Hospital in order to check on poor Trudie… 

As Lord Balah walked into the ward where he had left poor Trudie three days before, he was pleasantly surprised to see that she was still alive.  It seemed, Lord Balah surmised to himself, that the sticky labels had worked, and so he made a mental note to himself to google “alternative medicine” and read up about it the first opportunity he got.  Also, he remembered, he needed to check his email and Facebook profile, since he hadn’t been online in what seemed like years.

Standing next to Trudie as she lay in her not-so-comfortable hospital bed was a large, bear-like man sporting a shaved head and a goatee around his muscular face.  Trudie introduced Lord Balah to the man.  His name was Fernando, and the happy couple had met two days prior when Fernando had walked into Trudie’s ward carrying an injured woman he had found lying in an alleyway.  Fernando stood silently watching Lord Balah as Trudie told Lord Balah how their eyes had met that fateful day and that they were now deeply in love and were making plans to get married.

Fernando, as it turns out, worked as a paramedic in the greater Johannesburg area, and had always had a thing for damsels in distress.  The only child of a Maunchhausen mother, Fernando had spent the entirety of his youth caring for his hypochondriac of a mother, ensuring that she took her medication on time and driving her to the hospital (his mother taught him to drive when he was 10 years old specifically for this purpose) on almost a daily basis.  After Fernando had finished school, it was an easy guess as to what career path he would choose:  indeed, it seemed that Fernando was predestined to become a paramedic, since he had unknowingly been one since the first day his mother had faked an illness to get attention when he was 3 years old.  It could be admitted, dear reader, that the love between Fernando and poor Trudie bordered more on severe co-dependency, and it could also be argued that poor Fernando has some serious mommy issues, but let us not needlessly tarnish their burgeoning romance just for the sake of cynicism.  Whilst certainly no relationship expert himself, it was clear to Lord Balah that the happy couple had formed some kind of pathologically symbiotic bond, but he decided nonetheless to be happy for them.  The fact that poor Trudie was still alive, Lord Balah thought to himself, was a miracle in itself.

Curious as to where the twins were, Lord Balah asked Trudie if they had come to visit her at all.  As if she had almost completely forgotten they existed, Trudie shook her head uncertainly and looked up at Fernando with a confused and fearful expression on her face.  It seemed, dear reader, that the acute Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which had begun ravaging her psyche in Hillbrow some two days before, had begun the slow, insidious process of eating away at her brain.  Much the same as Alzheimer’s disease, Fernando knew that it wasn’t long before all of poor Trudie’s memories would be erased forever.

It was at this point that Fernando spoke for the first time.  Looking down at both Lord Balah and Trudie (Fernando was very tall), Fernando explained to Lord Balah how for the last two days- since the first day they had met- the pair had been trying to get pregnant.  Unfortunately, and despite their best erotic efforts, it seemed that try as they might, poor Trudie could still not conceive.  Lord Balah could see the pain and disappointment in poor Fernando’s eyes as he spoke, and wondered curiously why the huge olive-skinned man was so desperate to have a child with a woman who would probably a vegetable in a few weeks.  If you are wondering, dear reader, how Lord Balah could have possibly known this without ever being informed of poor Trudie’s “condition”, then it is time to let the proverbial cat out of the proverbial bag:  our hero had, at this time, begun to develop the dual mental powers of clairvoyance and mind-reading.

Clairvoyance, dear humble reader, is the ability to see the future.  For Lord Balah, however, his power did not consist so much of envisioning future occurrences so much as seeing into the hearts and minds of individuals whose eyes he looked into.  From this ability, Lord Balah was able to then predict how individuals would react to different events and circumstances, and in this way be able to “predict the future”.  As with the other abilities he would later develop, Lord Balah never questioned them, but rather just accepted them as if they had always been there.

The story Lord Balah’s new paranormal ability told him now as he looked into poor Trudie’s eyes was a sad one indeed…After she and Johnny (remember, if you will, Lord Balah’s angry accoster at the airport) had gotten married, they had settled down and bought a small townhouse in Boksburg, where they had planned to start a family immediately.  Having been high school sweethearts, it was almost a given that they would have at least 5 children and undoubtedly live happily ever after.  Unfortunately, however, no matter how hard they tried, poor Trudie could not fall pregnant.  Johnny knew that there was nothing wrong with his sperm, since he had impregnated Trudie’s best friend Vicky a few years back after they had had a fight and were “on a break”, so he quickly blamed Trudie for their inability to conceive.

Life in the Theron household grew unpleasant as Johnny began to drink heavily and Trudie spent more and more time at her mother’s house.  Trudie was at the store buying cigarettes one day when she ran into an old childhood friend, Pieter, and the two decided to go for coffee at the nearby Wimpy.  It wasn’t very long (mere minutes, in fact) before the two had fallen in love and were on their way to a nearby motel to spend the rest of the evening together.

From that first day her extra-marital affair with Pieter had begun, Trudie felt happier than she had in years.  Johnny, on the other hand, grew more and more angry as he realized that he was no longer the sole cause of his wife’s happiness.  As it so happens in matters of the heart, dear reader, circumstances beyond the couple’s control had caused them to grow in separate directions, and the pain of that impending separation caused them to behave in separate ways:  Trudie having an affair, and Johnny drinking himself into an angry stupor every evening.

It wasn’t long after Trudie’s affair had begun that she discovered that she was pregnant.  Knowing the child wasn’t Johnny’s, she feared his reaction should he find out.  Unfortunately, however, the women in Trudie’s family had a genetic condition, which often resulted in fetus’ spontaneously aborting, which is what happened to poor Trudie’s as well.  Shortly thereafter, Pieter ended the affair and Trudie never saw or heard from him again.

Having read all of this information just from looking into poor Trudie’s eyes, Lord Balah understood the unspoken agreement between Trudie and Fernando (which it must be added here, dear reader, that even they themselves were not consciously aware of): he would look after her until the day she no longer recognized him in return for her producing a child for him.  Granted, dear reader, that such an arrangement is somewhat disturbing on a deep, visceral level, but let us not judge them- lest we be judged ourselves.

Slightly overwhelmed by the pathological co-dependency he was witnessing at that moment, Lord Balah decided to bid the not-so-happy (as it turns out) couple goodbye and set off in search of the twins.  Having agreed to meet him there, they had not pitched up, and so he decided to would find them and make sure they were alright. Although he had no idea where they could be- or even if they had survived the dangerous streets of Johannesburg (which was voted the “crime capital of the world” by two independent polls)- Lord Balah set off in search of the terrible twosome.

Chapter 10

As Lord Balah made his way out of Helen Joseph Hospital, he wondered to himself about the nature of love and relationships.  What he had seen between Trudie and Fernando had disturbed him deeply, but as the idealist he was, Lord Balah continued to hold onto his romantic notion of love as being the perfect union of two perfectly complementary souls.  Perhaps Trudie and Johnny had fit perfectly at the time, he wondered, and maybe Trudie and Fernando did now too.  Whilst Lord Balah walked and pondered these ideas, he decided that, should the day come that he was to meet his complementary soul mate, that he would make sure he never fell into the trap of co-dependency he had just witnessed. 

It wasn’t long before Lord Balah had left the hospital that he saw a short Chinese man sitting on the side of the road.  As if by chance, Lord Balah inquired whether the little Chinese person had heard of or seen the two young twins, to which the young man nodded his head vigorously.

Notorious already at this stage, it seemed that the twins’ reputation preceded them.  The short little Chinese man explained to Lord Balah how the twins had been captured by the Chinese Secret Service just hours before, and were being held captive in a secret location before being sent back to their homeland of China to be imprisoned for “Lewd and unpatriotic behavior”.  At the time of their capture, the rest of the Rough Rider gang had been sleeping off the bloatedness and swelling caused by their surgical procedures the previous day and were high as kites on painkillers.  As soon as they had woken to the realization that their leaders had been captured, however, they had sent out urgent high-priority emails to every gang in the area to find them.  Lost without their leaders and determined to find them, the Rough Rider gang had offered a reward of R10 000 and a really cool Apple MacBook Pro laptop to whoever found them.

Lord Balah stood startled by this unexpected news, but immediately knew that he had to find the twins.  Unlike the uncertainty he used to feel, however, this time Lord Balah could feel himself being lead- as if being pulled by an invisible rope tied to his solar plexus- to the place where the twins were being kept.  Although Godfrey had never explained to him the changes which would occur, Lord Balah nevertheless knew that he was developing powerful abilities that would one day make him the legendary healer he was destined to become.

The invisible rope tied to Lord Balah’s solar plexus lead him to a small house in a quiet street in Melville.  In the house lived an elderly couple (whom, suspiciously, no-one had seen for months) and two young tenants who were both students at the nearby University of Johannesburg.  The one tenant, a 22-year-old woman named Elmarie, had been beset by a crippling social phobia as a child, and so very seldomly ever left the house.  The other tenant- a 24-year-old male named Wayne- was from a small rural town in Mpumalanga, and suffered from an equally crippling Obsessive Compulsive Disorder which caused him to wash his hands hundreds of times a day, and perform strange rituals which would serve to quieten the disruptive voices he would constantly hear in his head.  Despite their handicaps, however, these two young tenants nevertheless had a lust for blood and a hunger for murder, which would cause them to leave the house every evening in search of victims to violently torture and kill.  It was in this way that they had met the Chinese Secret Service agent (codename Hudson Hawk), who had blackmailed them into letting him keep the twins in their basement torture chamber.  And so with the help of Wayne and Elmarie, special agent Hudson Hawk had captured the twins and now kept them locked and chained in a small medi-evil looking basement torture chamber.

Lord Balah quickly found the house and made his way to the basement.  The twins’ captors had gone to the restaurant Koi in 7^th street to get something to eat, and so the twins sat alone in their dungeon cell.  As Lord Balah walked in, he was frightened by what he saw:  the twins’ faces and most of their bodies were covered by thick layers of bandages, giving them the appearance of embalmed mummies.  Seeing his shock, Fei-Yang quickly spoke and told Lord Balah that the bandages were covering the surgeries they had undergone the previous day, and assured him that their captors had not (yet) harmed them. 

As Lord Balah was unlocking the shackles tying the twins to the metal bench on which they sat with a hairclip (he had learnt the trick from a Chuck Norris movie), the tenants and the Secret Service agent appeared at the dungeon door.  Never before being in such a deadly and threatening position (the Secret Service agent had a gun pointed at them and- Lord Balah was certain- the tenants were bearing prefrontal molars which looked remarkably like fangs) in his life.  Sure, he could open up another can of whip ass, but that would go against his pacifist ideals.  No, he decided, this situation he would handle the right way.

As if by magic, the second Lord Balah had decided not to use violence as a solution, his attackers disappeared as if into thin air.  Surprised as much as the twins were by this, Lord Balah nevertheless casually unlocked the remainder of their shackles and they made their way out of the house.  Unbeknownst to the twins (but which Lord Balah knew), they had just been spared from becoming one of the hundreds of rotting corpses which lay buried beneath the house.

Chapter 11

As they left the small house in Melville, Lord Balah could sense that the evil presence that had occupied it before was now gone.  As a child he had always enjoyed vampire movies, and would watch “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” religiously every week, but never in his wildest dreams did it occur to him that such creatures actually existed.  Although he knew the Chinese Secret Service agent was human, the other two- he was certain- were not.

Unbeknownst to Lord Balah and the twins at that time, the minute Lord Balah had vanquished the Secret Service agent into the ether, the fall of China’s communist regime had begun.  Through a curious process which no nuclear physicist could possibly ever explain, it seemed that Lord Balah’s powerful ability to heal had now extended to healing an entire country- although he himself was not yet aware of it.

The twins suggested that Lord Balah go with them back to the Rough Rider headquarters.  So grateful were they towards him for saving their lives, the twins had unanimously decided that they would not let Lord Balah leave (in pursuit of his destiny) until they had paid him back in kind.  As it so happened, the rest of the Rough Rider gang were equally as grateful, and so they and the twins began to tirelessly execute their carefully crafted plans for world domination.

By this time, dear reader, it must be pointed out that the extensive plastic surgery, which the twins and the gang had undergone, had done wonders for their image- both internally and externally.  Not only did they all feel an inner sense of superiority, but this inner knowing was now confirmed by the attention and affirmation they all now received for being so incredibly good looking.  Unfortunately it seems, dear reader, that the 21^st century is no place for ugly people.  And now that the twins looked like Paris Hilton-esque plastic Barbie dolls, they knew that the world was their oyster. Indeed, dear reader, it was only a matter of time before they had reached their dream of becoming powerful and influential businesswomen.

Within a matter of days (artistic license, dear reader, allows your truly- your Humble Narrator- the privilege of condensing time), the twins had become world-renowned business moguls.  The Rough Rider gang had registered a company- which they named Rough Industries Inc.- on the Wall Street stock exchange and had become instant billionaires.  Soon the twins were traveling the world in their leer jet, hob-knobbing and doing business with the world’s elite.  They even decided to buy Trump Towers from their childhood hero, Donald Trump.  Indeed, it wasn’t long before they had poor Donald on their payroll, after season 56 of “The Apprentice” had bombed and the series was called to an end.  All in all, the twins had successfully achieved their dream, and were even voted the second (like all twins, the two of them consist of one person) most influential women in the world.  One day, they knew, they would eventually get to number one in the world, since it was inevitable that Oprah would probably comfort eat herself into a coma eventually.  And when that day came, they smiled mischievously, they would be ready.

Despite their sudden rise to power and fortune, however, the twins did not forget the debt they owed to Lord Balah, nor their promise to repay him for saving their lives.  And so they held a top secret boardroom meeting with the rest of the Rough Rider gang in order to collectively brainstorm ways that they could repay Lord Balah and assist him on his epic journey to realize his destiny…

Chapter 12

During the twin’s top secret brainstorming session, it was decided by the group that the best way to repay Lord Balah for having saved their lives was to help him achieve his dream of becoming a sangoma.  Being the rich, powerful business moguls the twins now were, they knew that it would not be difficult to achieve, and so phase 1 of “Operation “make Lord Balah a famous sangoma” had begun.

Within days, Lord Balah’s face had been plastered on billboards, magazines and pamphlets all around South Africa.  Not content to just keep it local, the twins decided to make Lord Balah famous on a grand, extravagant scale.

Soon, Lord Balah was being interviewed by all the most world-renown journalists:  Larry King, Anderson Cooper, Oprah Winfrey, and he even did a quick segment on “The View” with Barbara Walters and the rest of the angry, sexually frustrated women on the show.

Everywhere he went, Lord Balah was being recognized as the world’ most famous sangoma.  And like we all know, dear reader, fame can be a jealous master:  so busy was Lord Balah with interviews and press junkets, that he had all but forgotten about becoming a sangoma.  Indeed- just like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan before him- Lord Balah was now, simply, famous for being famous.

Still not satisfied that they had fully repaid their debt to Lord Balah, the twins decided to buy him a seat on the most powerful and influential board in the world:  the Illuminati.

The Illuminati is a small group of powerful individuals who get together once a month to make decisions which affect the rest of the world.  Established hundreds of years ago by such luminaries as Leonardo da Vinci and Isaac Newton, the goal of the Illuminati was to help ensure that the world did not ever fall into evil hands.  The plan was to recruit members based solely on merit, so that the group would form a panel of philosopher-kings, which would then- not only ensure the human race’s survival- but would ensure that the whole world was moving towards the ultimate goal of self-actualization.

Unfortunately, since then, the human race has somewhat fallen into disrepair, and the quality of individuals has significantly decreased.  The first person to buy their way onto the Illuminati panel was King Henry the 8^th  sometime in the early 1800’s, and since then anyone with enough money has been able to become one of these secret group memebrs.

How the Illuminati worked was that a topic of discussion would be raised, and each member of the panel would vote and give an explanation for their choice.  Usually, however, such meetings often turned into vicious name-calling, mud-slinging matches, where not a lot of decisions were being made these days- hence the dismal state of current world affairs.  From the Illuminati headquarters, orders would then be emailed to all the world’s leaders- who, as it so happens, are nothing more than puppets for the Illuminati.

Today the Illuminati consists of 10 illustrious members, all of whom had no idea the organization existed until they were recruited by existing members.  I’m sure, dear reader, you are anxious to know who these illustrious members are, so here you are:  the twins,Fei-Ying and Fei-Yang; Tom cruise, Madonna, Brad and Angelina Jolie-Pitt, George Bush Jr., Osama Bin laden, the Sultan of Brunei, and last but not least- Lord Balah himself.

Having been recruited by the twins, Lord Balah now found himself sitting next to them around a large, round oak table.  A new member who still had to be approved by the rest of the organization, Lord Balah had been blind-folded on their journey there, so he had no idea what city- or even what country- he was in.  Unblindfolded now, Lord Balah sat watching the other members enter the room.  Unfortunately, that day the organization’s baby-sitter had fallen ill with chicken pox, and so both Tom Cruise and the Jolie-Pitts had brought their children with.

From the minute the others had entered the room, chaos had erupted.  Lord Balah sat motionless as he watched Tom Cruise jump up and down on his seat, shouting obscenities into his cell phone, as his poor daughter sat frightened in the corner sucking her thumb.  Meanwhile, the Jolie-Pitts were having an argument about whose turn it was to change Shiloh’s nappy.  Apparently Shiloh, now 4 years old, has a problem with wetting the bed- which had now extended to wetting her pants every half hour- and Bradgelina stood screaming over whose child she really was.  According to Angelina, Shiloh was Brad’s child, since he was so determined to have biological children, and so Angelina felt it was his turn to change Shiloh’s diaper.  Although Brad didn’t disagree with her, Angelina’s constant immasculisation and unrelenting emotional abuse had caused him to disagree with her- not on the issue itself, he thought to himself, but merely on principle.

The rest of the Illuminati sat inconspicuously in their seats.  Madonna- ever the exercise maniac- had brought her treadmill with her, and so now jogged determinedly while she waited for the meeting to start.  George Bush and Osama Bin Laden, as it turns out, were both shy, introverted men, and sat quietly enjoying a stimulating game of chess.  The Sultan of Brunei could not understand English, and so very seldom contributed to the meetings, choosing instead to sit playing with his small toy cars.

After Shiloh’s nappy had been changed (by Brad) and the rest of the Jolie-Pitt children had been locked in the adjacent room, the power couple sat down and called the meeting to order.  By this time, Tom Cruise had hung up on whoever was on the other side of the phone, and had calmed down and sat quietly in his seat.  Madonna, sweating like a chimpanzee, had quickly changed into a trendy Ed Hardy tracksuit, and was also sitting ready for the meeting to commence.  George Bush and Osama Bin Laden seldomly contributed to these meetings either, and so were allowed to quietly continue their chess game, whilst the Sultan of Brunei played with his toy cars.

First on the organization’s agenda that day, was the initiation of their new member, Lord Balah.  Pleased that they were now fulfilling their BEE quotient, the group happily welcomed Lord Balah into their fold.  As a new member, however, Lord Balah was obliged to undergo rigorous questioning as to what his intended purpose was in becoming a member of their illustrious group.

Unsure and unprepared, Lord Balah had no idea what to say to the rest of the Illuminati, and so it was decided that they would finish the meeting and then get back to him.  First on the agenda for the day was Global Warming.  The Jolie-Pitts voted against it, as did the rest of the group.  And so it had been decided there and then that global warming did not exist.  This decision would then be handed on a piece of paper to the group’s secretary, who would then email it to the rest of the world’s leaders- who would then instruct their scientists, biologists and nuclear physicists to verify this with “scientific facts”.

The second order of the day was the Recession.  This topic, however, was far more controversial than the first, and the room quickly became divided into two opposing camps:  the recession believers on the one side, and the recession denialists on the other. 

The recession believers consisted of Madonna, Tom Cruise, Osama Bin Laden and the Sultan of Brunei.  The recession denialists consisted of the Jolie-Pitts, George Bush and the twins, Fei-Ying and Fei-Yang.  Lord Balah at this time was not permitted to vote, since he had not yet performed his initiation speech.  Soon, the room had once again erupted into a cacophony of shouting, screaming and vicious name-calling.  Being the passionate people they were, it was in no time that Tom Cruise was once again jumping frantically up and down in his seat, and the ever-obsessive Madonna had hopped back onto her treadmill in order to calm herself down (Madonna, as those close to her know, has a violent temper).  Suddenly and without warning, the door concealing the rest of the Jolie-Pitt clan had been bashed down, and the room was now beset by what seemed like hundreds of small children- of every race, creed and color- running around like maniacs screaming and breaking things and causing havoc.

After what felt like hours of unbridled chaos, the room settled down and it was decided that they would not vote on the Recession.  By this time, the children had all fallen asleep, and lay scattered around the room like tiny toy soldiers.  Despite the excitement of the last few hours, however, the group had not forgotten about Lord Balah- nor his initiation speech- and so now they called on him to stand up and proclaim his destiny…