Dear Connie Ferguson

Dear Connie Ferguson – letter from a fan

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Dear Connie…

Ordinarily I would begin with the customary enquiry about your wellbeing. But the traditional “how are you” sounds foolish, because I know that you’re not well. I also know  that it is for love and loss that you are back at work, doing what the two of you started.

I lost my mother a few years back, she passed away after vigorous prayers to God for Him to make her better. When she died, God and I weren’t on speaking terms for at least two years. My mind was a cyclone of whirring questions, chief of which was why God didn’t answer my prayer for Mother’s healing. Perhaps you too are in that phase where nothing seems to make sense. Onto less heavy subject matter.

Dear Connie we missed you

Dear Connie, even though we who love you missed you sorely on The Queen, we understood that you needed time to heal, time alone to make sense of the senseless, time to yourself to rediscover the strength to carry on. And then you found the strength, perhaps in the God who takes us away from our earthly existence, one by one, maybe you rediscovered your willpower in the voice of a close friend, perchance in your beautiful daughter’s poignant words; the Sho goes on.  Whatever the case may be, we are glad to have you back.

Dear Connie, I must apologize. For most of the time that I have watched you perform, as far back as the drug addicted Karabo Moroka, to the all powerful Harriet Khoza, I took in your outward beauty, your graceful stride – flawless and cultured like the madam of a modelling school – your impeccable clothes, your elevated cheekbones, the most prominent feature of a face upon which no man or woman could ever find fault. Your month long absence, which in truth felt like Pharaoh’s seven year drought, served to refocus my attention. And now I appreciate you even more as a thespian, a director, for without you, the child of your brain, The Queen, slowly and steadily lost some of the zest it possesses. Please do not take this as an attack on that which you love. I am merely giving frank diagnosis. Things were not the same without you Dear Connie.

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While you were away

 

Dear Connie, I sense that you will receive a customised, edited version of the morning newspaper when you step back into your work space, with all the news of floods, bomb blasts an disease outbreaks snipped out of the front page with a pair of scissors, for your benefit. Of course I use the word “newspaper” in a metaphorical sense. To dispense with the metaphors, they will keep some things from you. But I, your top fan, who eats avocado with neither sugar nor salt, will tell you the unseasoned truth.

 

Shaka le Brutus, “those two hooligans,” Noma called them, haven’t been on their best behaviour.

I missed Harriet’s trademark hands to the ears intervention – “okay stop it you two” – because Brutus and Shaka were always screaming their lungs out at each other with nobody to quieten them in your absence.

Brutus missed cocaine deliveries and left Shaka to do all the work while he relentlessly pursued Noma, the woman to whom he proposed marriage. But Lungile, MaKhumalo caught wind of the proposed marriage, thanks to that snitch Dingane, the one who didn’t tell Harriet about Siyanda’s cocaine addiction because “angizingeni indaba zabantu”. Where was Ndaba Zabantu when Dingane inserted himself into Noma and Brutus’ business? Anyway, thanks to Ndaba Zabantu, MaKhumalo found her way to Waterfall Park and gate-crashed Noma’s engagement party. After a week of torturing Noma, MaKhumalo emerged victorious when her future sister wife pulled out, something which Brutus should have done rather than populate KZN with his unquantifiable progeny; pull out.

Olerato loses her innocence

Olerato, driving in Shaka’s Jeep, was carjacked. Thankfully she was unharmed, physically that is. Still traumatised, Ntombenhle returned home, the place where she expected safety and comfort, only to be accused of stealing the R2,000,000 worth of cocaine that was in Shaka’s car. While interrogating Olerato, Brutus the hooligan in chief, put a gun to Olerato’s pretty face. Your daughter, Lesedi did a fine job bringing her onto The Queen, by the way

Olerato purchased a gun from an illegal firearms dealer while Brutus the stalker filmed the exchange of brown envelopes that took place at what she thought was a secret location. Brutus, believing Olerato to be conspiring with enemies of the family, showed the video to Shaka who promptly evicted her. He even used the F word as he threw her onto the street with nothing but the clothes on her back. But the truth has a strange way of coming into the open.

While speaking to Noma at the restaurant, Olerato spotted the man who took Shaka’s car at gunpoint. With Noma’s help, Olerato took the carjacker to the Khoza mansion in the hope of clearing her name. Brutus, the hooligan, still had his doubts, he thought Noma and Olerato had picked a random thug off the street just to deceive them. But with Noma’s encouragement – beta, beta, beta! – Shaka beat the crap out of the guy. Still he would not corroborate Olerato’s carjacking allegations. As I stated earlier, the truth is like a hippopotamus; it may stay underwater for ages, but eventually it pops up above the surface for air. In the middle of the beating, the carjacker’s phone rang. Shaka pulled it from his pocket to find a familiar name on the phone screen: SITHOLE.

After further beating, the young thug confessed; he was sent by TP Sithole to carjack and kill Shaka. Having extracted enough information out of him, Brutus shot the man dead, at the Khoza mansion fire pit.

Shaka apologized to Olerato but Brutus, like the rest of the proud, toxic taimas who endured the apartheid police dogs, could not find it in himself to say sorry. Olerato accepted the apology which was never given to her and agreed to move back home. However the four of them, Noma, Brutus, Shaka and Olerato agreed to keep this to themselves. But I, your top fan, who does not defile his avocado with salt, will give it to you straight with no sprinklings on top. Shaka and Brutus threw Olerato out like a dog. Did I mention how sexy Olerato looked with a gun in her hand? She killed Sithole to save Shaka’s life. I guess it was always going to happen. Nobody stays innocent for long inside the Khoza mansion.

Hector conned

A young writer from Bulawayo said Once a Lover, Always a Fool. Perhaps Hector’s secret love for Harriet Khoza has made him a fool because he never saw the con coming, despite warning from his wife, Vuyiswa. Hector’s sister Dodo has regained her ability to walk. But she and her physiotherapist, Johnny, plotted against Hector. They agreed that Dodo would keep faking disability. Johnny suggested an overseas treatment facility for Dodo and Hector, wits dulled by his secret longing for Harriet, transferred R425,000 to the “overseas facility”, little did he know that the money went to an account which Johnny had created which by the way doesn’t make any cents – hehe – because the funds would surely have been British Pounds sent overseas rather than Rands deposited into a local account. The scriptwriters might need a stern talking to for poor research.

Dodo sensed that Johnny wasn’t being entirely truthful with her. If she didn’t strike first, she was going to be “looking for my Johnny” like that Nigerian girl, Yemi Alade. She transferred the money from Johnny to herself before disappearing and leaving a Dear John letter for Johnny – hehe.

The Queen is back!

Dear Connie, thank you for reading my letter. I look forward to seeing you retake your throne at 9:00pm every weekday as The Queen that you are.

I hope you’re now fully up to speed on what happened in the last month on The Queen.

Your top fan

My pen is capped

The Queen airs weekdays on Mzansi Magic at 9:00pm

Connect with the writer on Twitter @RewindMzansi

 

 

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