Motshan was born a traveler, like his father before him, his father’s father, and so on and so forth. In his community, there was an elderly woman, Ethelinda, who had been blessed with a very special gift. People brought their newly born children to her and Ethelinda would predict with one hundred percent accuracy the manner in which the child would eventually die. Not the where and when, mind you, only the how.

Normally, the infant, unclothed, needed to be pressed against the flesh of her bare bosom, but baby Motshan’s destiny radiated from his tiny frame with such a fierceness that the moment he was brought into her tent, Ethelinda exclaimed, “He is destined to hang!”

So fearful of this prediction were Motshan’s parents that they kept anything resembling a rope or cord as far away from their son as humanly possible. And while it made growing up a challenge, for it was not easy to navigate things that could possibly be used in a hanging, it also gave Motshan a superpower. As he grew to maturity, he became fearless and recklessly threw himself into the face of many dangers simply because a man destined to hang could never die in any other way than hanging.

In fact, he was so cocksure that he could defy his fate and live to a ripe old age to die of natural causes, that he paid a tattoo artist, Danior, to etch upon his skin a rope that circled his neck three times, signaling the past, the present, and the future, of which he claimed to be in control of.

When the tattoo was completed, Danior revealed that he was the brother of a Romany woman that Motshan forced himself on one drunken night, who was so traumatized by the assault that she took her own life. The ink used in the rope tattoo was mixed with her blood and Danior exacted vengeance for his sister’s death by imposing a curse upon Motshan. For each day that Motshan lived, the rope tattoo would grow tighter and tighter around his neck.

Motshan denied taking advantage of Danior’s sister and laughed the curse off as an idle threat directed at the wrong man. That night, however, his sleep was interrupted by the sound of a rope squeaking and in the morning, it felt as if an actual rope was digging into his throat.

He returned to Danior’s caravan with all the money he possessed and even dropped to his knees, begging for the curse to be lifted.

“What amount of money can bring my sister back?” Danior asked. “What is more priceless than having the great Motshan the Fearless grovel at my feet for his pathetic life?”

The tattoo artist had a point, he was indeed Motshan the Fearless, and having this man laugh at him and mock him, drove him into a rage. Motshan lunged to his feet and slammed into Danior, sending the pair tumbling out of the caravan to wrestle in the dirt. Rolling on top, Motshan snatched up the tattoo artist’s throat, twisting it so fast and so hard that a panicked whistle escaped the man’s lungs before his neck snapped and his body went limp as a ragdoll.

During the fight, a crowd had gathered and witnessed the savage murder. Motshan tried to explain his side of the story but they were too incensed to listen. Danior was a good man by reputation, grieving the loss of his poor sister, who did not deserve to die in that manner.

The crowd of onlookers turned into a mob out for vengeance and they came at Motshan with stones and whatever was handy that could be used as a weapon, so he ran into the nearby woods. They gave chase but Motshan was a fit man, stronger, healthier, and swifter than most of them, which meant he was able to evade capture.

But he did not get away.

Days later, his body was discovered hanging in midair beneath the branch of a dule tree. According to witnesses, the branch above Motshan’s head bowed as if supporting a weight but there was no rope, cord, or vine visible between the branch and the man’s lifeless body. Head lolled to one side, his eyes bulged from his bloated, purple face and his neck was cinched where the rope tattoo existed. Surrounding the rope were tattooed bloodstains that dripped down to his exposed chest and spelled out the word, VADOMA.

The name of Danior’s dead sister.