Some Local Folklore and Writing News

I follow artist Andrew Baker’s RSS feed and received this stunning (but frightening) piece of a Tokoloshe last week.

"Tokolosh" by Andrew Baker

This reminded me of a story I did a while back. I tried my hand at a story incorporating local folklore and I used an amalgam of beliefs about the Tokoloshe and it turned out as quite a dark piece. But I guess it is a gory subject!

Doctor’s Visit

“You’ve come too late.”

The old woman who had spoken sat on a bed near the back of the hut. It was quite dark inside, but I could make out her deeply wrinkled face, faded red dress and that the bed she was sitting on was raised above the ground on a couple of bricks.

She sat with her legs stretched out in front of her, her feet bound in cloths that were once white. Her arms were folded beneath her breasts as she stared at us. I moved my first aid kit from one hand to the other and cleared my throat.

“Too late for what?” I enquired.

She squinted. “You haven’t been here before. Where’s the other doctor?”

“He went back home. I’m new at the clinic.” I held out my hand. “I’m doctor Smith.” She did not take it but her wrinkled face cracked into a smile. “New, eh? I hope you can do something better for my feet, they’re hurting something awfully.”

I looked at my partner, but he shook his head. “You do it.”

I placed my kit on the dirt floor and knelt down by her feet before asking my partner to get me some light.

“You have very good English,” I said, making small talk. “I was worried I wouldn’t be able to speak to you.”

She harrumphed. “I finished school,” she said. “Worked all my life like an honest person in the city. I came back here to help my daughter look after her children. Her husband’s at the mines, you know, up north. She was left behind here.”

“Where is she now?”

“She passed on. A year ago now.”

“So you’re looking after your grandchildren?” It was a story I had become all too accustomed to.

“They also moved on.” She pointed a gnarled black finger at the far rounded wall where four identical pots stood. “Their dust,” she said.

“Ashes? You cremated them?” I wondered how far the closest funeral home was from this rural village.

“Dust,” she insisted and I left it there.

I started unwinding the blood-caked bandages from her feet and searched for something to say in the stillness while trying not to breathe through my nose. For a doctor I couldn’t handle the smell of blood that well.

“You said we are too late?”

She nodded and cringed as I touched her foot. “He took another one,” she said. “My neighbour only returned with the bricks. The ones we make here are not strong enough for the beds, you know.” She shook her head sadly. “No one cares about the rural people – if this happened in one of the cities the newspapers would be all over it, but here…”

I carefully unwrapped her foot. If she had been in one of the cities she wouldn’t have had to wait for us to travel nearly 100kms to give her new bandages and pain medication in a van that broke nearly every 10km.

At last the bandage came off and I stared in horror at her foot. Where five toes should have been, only three were left. The other two were ragged stumps, one partially healed, the other bleeding again after I had removed the bandage.

“What happened?” I asked, focusing on the wall so as not to gag in front of a patient.

“He came again last night and took another one.”

“He?” I stared at her other foot. “How many?”

“Also two gone,” she said and turned her face away from me.

“Who does this to you?”

“I can’t say or he’ll come back. Can’t say. She looked at my partner and said something I didn’t understand.

I looked at my partner, but he too turned his face away.

I cleaned and bound her feet as well as I could and gave her pain medicine.

“You could go back to the city,” I said, but she shook her head.

“He got what he wanted and I have the bricks now. Nothing can hurt me now.”

I said my goodbyes and stepped outside into the bright sunlight. Around the cluster of huts the hills seemed to undulate forever. Here and there in their green folds there were other settlements with a dozen or so huts. There were no electrical cables to be seen. Nothing modern but our van stood here.

I looked at my partner.

“What happened to her?” I asked, knowing that he had been there before.

He waited until we were locked in the car.

“Her daughter stood up to their healer after he mixed the wrong muti to give to someone. He wanted to keep her quiet so he made a Tokoloshe. She stood up to him and the grandmother told the others about the healer’s deeds.”

I looked back at the hut with unbelief.  “But it couldn’t- that’s just folk tales.“

“Where do you think the tales come from?” He sighed and started the car. “She stood up to him and died, that’s why her children turned to dust.” His voice sounded far-off. “That’s what happens.”

I swallowed hard a few times.

“How can she be sure it’s over – it’s just a couple of bricks!”

He shook his head and pointed to where two or three people stood at a new grave.

“The healer was not liked, he was evil. He is buried now. The bricks will keep it away from her.”

As we pulled away and I looked back to the road that would lead us back to the city, I could’ve sworn I saw a fleeting black shadow out of the corner of my eye, darting away from the houses, but when I looked again, there was nothing.

Some writing news

I’m working on a couple of fiction pieces some which just needs a bit of a spit and polish, but also one (The Dragon Seeker) that ended up needing almost an entire rewrite now that I’ve taken it out of the drawer again. I’ve also finished an Afrikaans translation and partial rewrite of one of the NaShoStoMo stories, now called “Sirenesang” (Siren’s Song). I’m hoping to get it in one of the local magazines, but will first send it to a Top Secret Reader...

I’ve also done a translation of part 1 of The Great Sundering – die vertaling, genaamd

“Die Groot Skeiding van die Lande, Deel 1” kan op my blad by www.woes.co.za gevind word.

Day 15 – April 15 – NaShoStoMo Challenge – How To Hide a Corpse

Day 15 – April 15 – NaShoStoMo Challenge – How To Hide a Corpse

I wished it was a dark and stormy night. It would be a lot easier to hide a body on a dark and stormy night. Rather it was the middle of the day and the sun was shining all bright and merrily. At least on a stormy night the ground would be soaked and I would have been able to dig the grave quicker. Now the sweat was plastering my hair to my head, sticking my shirt to my back and burning my eyes. I plunged the shovel into the ground again and had to climb on top, kind of jumping up and down to get the blade to sink into the ground. Then climb back down, bend my aching back and heave-ho until I broke off another piece of the reddish clay earth. I have watched enough crime shows to know that you don’t just dig a shallow grave. And you didn’t wrap the body in plastic bags or a sheet or anything that could be traced back to you. Not that I searched for a gravesite too long – I don’t think I have the time to meticulously search out the best place. Lucky for me I live next to a graveyard – the sound of digging is not strange. And we have the Jo’burg patented 10 foot tall suburban wall, equipped with razor wire, an electrical fence and CCTV cameras. Of course, I had turned those off. I will delete everything when I’m done here. And, if someone happens to see me digging a large hole, I can just tell them we’re getting a Koi pond. And I’m digging the hole because I need the exercise. Sure.

I climb onto the spade again and jump up and down as best I can. Almost there now. For a moment I glance over at the bundled body next to the wall. It’s still in a sitting position in the corner, but I had closed his eyes and threw a tarp over him so I wouldn’t look at him the whole time. I never thought I’d be so calm if I had a body on my hands I needed to dispose of. I look at my watch. I still had about an hour and a half before my parents would return from work. Thank goodness for peak time traffic jams. There, that should do it. And then I can just put the grass over again and pat it down. This may just work.

I drag the body over to the grave and struggle to get him inside. He’s still wearing the bloodied clothes, but he’s far too thin to fit into anything we have, so that will have to do. I lay him on his back and fold his hands on his chest. It looks most proper. As I cross his hands, I think how wonderfully he would have been able to play piano with those hands if he had lived. Then, in a moment of soppy weakness, I go to the rose bush and pick a couple of blooms to throw into the grave. I also say a few words. You know, earth to earth, dust to dust. Then I sing “Nearer My God to Thee” and start shoveling the dirt back into the grave. Sooner than I expected, I’m finished. I look at my handiwork and smile. No one would ever guess someone is buried here, just in the back of our garden. I dust my hands on my grimy cargo pants and go to put the shovel away. I need to get cleaned up fast.

I had thought that a lot of men in suits would show up as soon as the poor guy in the grave hit the ground bleeding. What had happened to him, I don’t know. All I could figure was that he was hurt on his way somewhere, was attacked and then decided my garden was the best place to hide in. Well, what was I going to do? Go to the police? Then I’ll end up in some loony bin – or to jail because they would think that I killed him.

I look towards the cemetery, to the slight distortion in the air above the graves. You had to look really carefully to see it, so perhaps they would never find it. I hope it works with solar power. I will never be able to explain away an alien spaceship. The Men in Black would be on me in seconds.  

Day 13 – April 13 – The Far-side of the Tree – NaShoStoMo Challenge

I really wish I knew where ideas came from and why stories sometimes turn out very different from the way you though it was going to turn out... I actually do love baobab trees! I hope you enjoy today's piece for the NaShoStoMo Challenge!

Day 13 – April 13 – The Far-side of the Tree – NaShoStoMo Challenge

Damian scratched absentmindedly at the bark of the baobab as he sat and read. Every now and then – the moments when his brain seemed to realize for a few seconds that his body was in another reality than the one it was living – he glanced to where the train tracks disappeared from sight. How he wished and prayed that the next train would show up. It has already been three weeks without any train passing the station aptly called Tussen-hier-en-nergens.

Sometimes he would leave his book for a moment – not long enough for the white ants to find it, mind you – and crawl over to the tracks. There he would crouch down like a cowboy, place his ear to the warm iron and close his eyes. Then, for another moment he could imagine hearing the clack of a train coming. Perhaps even a whistle will sound and his father would come out of his office. Perhaps he could even go to the Wild West for a few moments. But then the iron grew to hot, or a bead of sweat will tickle his neck or cheek and he would open his eyes. The only thing left to do then; was go back to the baobab and pick up whatever book he was busy with and forget about the absence of the train for another while.

Some people from the dorp said that the trains would never come again and that they will all have to move somewhere else to make a living. “Might as well rip up the tracks and sell the scrap,” Twee-oog said one day outside the pub. He probably would have done it too if he had a wagon and more than one horse. These days people were only drifting towards the pub; drifting away from the station house and the counter there that served as a post office. No mail came now. No people travelling up north. No one travelling back south. Damian couldn’t remember a time when he had been this bored or when last he had seen his father smile. Even his mother and siblings seem to keep to themselves. They didn’t even look which book it was that he took off the shelf as they usually did – he was, after all, a laatlammetjie and ten years younger than his sister, Klara, who was the fourth child.

Damian only stopped reading long enough to walk across the tracks, go into the house, get another book from one of the trunks and walk back to the tree. His tree. It looked like a giant crouching next to the tracks with wild hair sticking into the air. It felt ancient. Damian imagined it to be the guardian of Tussen-hier-en-nergens. It was still alive – he was sure of that – but the tree never bore any leaves. It only stood there next to the tracks looking as if some larger being had ripped up a tree and planted it upside down so that its roots and not its branches reached out to the sun. Sometimes the wind sang strange songs when it blew through the root-like branches and Damian stopped reading to listen if he could understand what the wind was saying. Sometimes the tree made a hollow sound like when you blow across the top of a bottle, only much louder. He had an inkling that the hole on the other side of the trunk led into the middle of the trunk and that the tree was completely hollow. But since Thomas – the man who’s books he read – went missing after climbing into the hole, he had not ventured there again. If it wasn’t for the train staying away so long and everybody having other things to worry about, he probably would not even be permitted to sit under the tree.

No trains came for four weeks. His father didn’t even bother dressing properly in the morning anymore and he seldom went into the office. Barely anyone looked up the tracks anymore. It was as if the whole town had forgotten that the town was only built because of the trains. But word had come that there were very bad rains to the south. Apparently some of the tracks were beyond repair and had to be rebuilt – along with couple of trains – before the track will be used again like before. But Damian could not hear how long the trains would still be away. It was a lot more difficult to eavesdrop through a door in real life than in books.

On the day news came of the rains, Damian went again to the Baobab. He walked slowly around it to where the hole was where Thomas had crawled in. He bent down and peered inside. It was large enough for him to easily crawl through… And he would take a flashlight and not a lantern like Thomas did. And he would tie a rope to the outside of the tree and around his waist, just like in the stories. He would find out whether the tree was really hollow. Maybe it would even lead him down into caverns where the baobab grew leaves in the light of a million glittering crystals. Maybe there would be a whole other world down there with dinosaurs and a great lake… But he also remembered the day Thomas went into the tree. He was gone within minutes and even when the men lighted lanterns to try and see inside, they could see nothing. For months after that no one went near the tree and people said that there was something wrong with the tree or that the tree was angry at all the people moving there and building a town.  Damian felt his heart restrict at the thought of his father stopping him before he could venture inside the tree himself. It was his tree after all. He spent every day with it. It wouldn’t hurt him.

He sneaked into his father’s empty office and took a torch and rope from the cupboard. Then he sneaked back to the far side of the tree. He tied the rope around his waist and then to a sturdy rock nearby. The rope was at least fifteen meters long – long enough to circle the tree trunk nearly twice. He put on his flashlight, got down on his hands and knees, took a deep breath and crawled inside. He had never felt so alive before. Inside the tree was hollow after all and he could stand upright. But the torch’s light seemed not to be able to reach the trunk. Beyond his circle of light it was black as pitch. He glanced back and could still see the opening in the trunk and a small piece of the sun-baked ground. He went farther into the tree. Still he could not see the trunk. The whole in the baobab’s trunk slowly creaked closed and the rope snapped. 

THE END

A Baobab tree - a strange beauty

(With thanks to the source of the picture)

Some translations for the curious few:

Tussen-hier-en-nergens = Between here and nowhere (This is a fictional town. I have no idea if there is a real town of this name in RSA.)

Dorp = town

Twee-oog = Two-eyes (A nickname, he has an identical brother that wears glasses while he does not.)

Laatlammetjie = an informal way to refer to a child born much later than his/her siblings.

Day 11 – April 11 – Part 1 – He Who Throws Down - NaShoStoMo Challenge

Seeing as I've been quite lax over the weekend with NaShoStoMo posts... here's the first one for today - just in time for morning tea (if you are in S.A., that is...). Today's first piece is loosely based on some Khoikhoi mythology.

 

Day 11 – April 11 – Part 1 – He Who Throws Down

“You dare ask why the people here have no use of your weapons? Go east; go over the sand for two days until you reach a great chasm in the earth. The air there is thick and warm; heated from below in great caverns. There he sits, the one called He Who Throws Down. Face him and tell me that those weapons you carry harm him at all. Go now, but do not expect that you will return.” The old man held the other’s gaze until it faltered. Rivulets of sweat made their way from his brow and neck, but that may just have been because of the heat here.

The man shifted his gun from the crook of one arm to the other. 

“There is nothing this black powder cannot undo. I will face this Thrower if you wish me to. I will return with his head and claim the Killer’s Inheritance.”

The old man laughed. “Yes, yes, they always say that. In my young days many men also said that.” He paused for a moment. “You must bring proof you were there even if you don’t bring his head.” The old man’s voice took on a strange tone. 

“Proof? What do you want me to bring? A bag filled with sand?”

“Look for a string of red glass beads. They are old and strung on a string of pure gold. Bring it to me and I will know that you were at his lair.”

“I will bring the creature’s head,” the hunter grinned.

And so Ewald walked across the burning sand for two days and saw nothing but sand and rocks and a few snakes burrowing into the soil, seeking comfort from the sun. Soon his legs and arms grew tired and he wished for more water than he had. On the second day he reached the great chasm; a rent in the earth that came upon the unwary traveler and would swallow him if he did not keep his eyes on the ground. Nothing but sand was near it, but he could see many white human skulls and bones at the bottom. Some of the skulls were broken. On one of these bones he saw the red beads and he climbed stealthily downwards to retrieve it. The stones and gold would also reap a good price. He reached the top again and looked into the face of one of the most horrible creatures he had seen in all of his life. It was large and bloated with black markings like that of a leopard upon his skin. His face seemed more animal than human, as did the claws he dug into the sand. His bulging red eyes were like that of a reptile. A scraggly mane hung in clumps around his neck. The monster sat parched and scorched in the sun next to the great hole and laughed when he saw the man. His voice rebounded between his ragged teeth and the great black hills in the distance.

“Have you come to kill me?” he asked in a hissing, growling voice.

“I…I have,” Ewald said, taken aback that the nightmarish creature spoke to him. He remembered the unwavering and unbelieving gaze of the old man and pointed his gun at the Thrower. The creature showed even more ragged teeth as Ewald pointed and pulled the trigger. 

The bullet ricochet from the creature’s baked skin and struck Ewald on his arm, leaving a deep gash.

The creature laughed. “No mortal can kill me! No metal can pierce me, no sun can kill me!” he said. “Come, come, and aim again! Take a rock and see if you fare better with it! See if you can win the inheritance!” He took up a rock that fit into his palm and, as he did so, looked down into the hole and realized how so many human bones came to be there and he grew frightened. He let the stone fall and retreated, making sure to keep his face to the creature until he could see him no more.

Ewald bound his arm as good as he could with cloth torn from his shirt and hastened back through night and day to the old man. Reaching him, he showed him the red beads that he took from the bones. The man took them and placed them upon the table in front of him before giving the man some water.

“You have not brought his head,” he said and Ewald shook his head. “I could not.”

The old man smiled again. “No one will ever kill that monster, though they will try. But it does not matter, for now I am unbound,” he said and stood. He took the beads and slipped them into his pocket. “You won’t have use of money for a long time. Maybe someone else will be kind enough to bring you your own string of beads.” Ewald tried to follow him, but could not get further than ten steps from the shack’s door.

Twenty years later Ewald welcomed a young man into the shack. It did not take long for the young man to speak. Ewald touched the beard grown over many years. Then he spoke: “You dare ask why the people here have no use of your weapons? Go east, go over the sand until two days pass and you reach a great hole. The air there is thick and warm, heated from below in great caverns. There he sits, the one we call He Who Throws Down. Face him and tell me that those weapons you carry harm him at all. Go now, but do not expect that you will return. “Look for a string of red glass beads. They are old and strung on a string of pure gold. Bring it to me and I will know that you were at his lair.”

Day 9 – April 9 – El Dorado

Day 9 – April 9 – El Dorado

Monomapotapa. The name alone conjured up riches the like of which were only found in El Dorado. Johannes stamped his feet to get some warmth back into them as he waited for the elf to come. The clock in the bell tower tolled the hour of midnight when the cloaked elf appeared in the alley way. He carried a bundle wrapped in a shade-shifting blue cloth. Ah, the dragon egg. It had taken much privatering and a bit of good old pirating to get enough money together to pay for the egg. Especially on the black market. The exchange was made and Johannes was left nearly broke, but with the bundle tucked under his arm. The elf disappeared into the darkness without a word, and a cold shiver ran down Johannes’ spine. Tomorrow he would board the ship for the Cape of Good Hope. On 15 March 1796 he would at last be able to set out on his new life.


On the ship the egg never left his sight or his side. Johannes regarded everyone else on the ship with utter distrust and could barely keep his wits about him for the weeks it took to reach the Cape. If he was to be found in possession of a dragon egg, the people would surely first throw him overboard before smashing the egg. But to his great relief, no one found out what it was that he was always carrying in a rough bag slung across his shoulder.

It was on his third night on land that the egg hatched and he found himself in possession of a bright yellow dragon. Its scales glimmered like gold and its wings were tipped in an emerald hue. Johannes grinned to himself as he fed the young dragon strips of meat. He had read enough about dragons to know that this one would be perfect for hunting gold.

In a couple of months he had bought a wagon, some oxen and provisions and found two men who would accompany him to the mostly unexplored interior. The dragon, which he had named Lalele, had grown extremely fast and already reached to his elbow. He had to get away from the city outskirts before someone found him, and the abundant wild in the interior would make feeding the dragon much easier.

By the time they crossed the Barrier of Spears, Lalele had already grown large enough for Johannes to ride on its back and he set out alone to the north, promising not only payment when he returned, but also a diary telling of everything that would befell him in the coming weeks and months.

**

When his diary was found some five years later, it came to light that he had indeed found his El Dorado, but that he had met his end near the Limpopo River. Some believed that he was caught by a lion, though some maintain that he was rather trampled by an elephant or came down with malaria. Probably we would never know, as his body has never been found. Johannes’ diary was taken to a museum in Bloemfontein to be studied and was hailed as the first fantasy book to be written in Southern Africa. It was published in 1896, but only one of the copies remains in the Literary Museum. It has never been reprinted.

Lalele fled south to the Barrier of Spears and made his home there. It is believed that he took the gold with him to make his bed and that his lair may still be found somewhere in the mountains. He was often seen flying at night and breathing fire at the moon. This is why the mountains where then also named the Drakensberg.

The city made of gold has yet to be found again.

Security – Day 4 – April 4 – NaShoStoMo Challenge

Security

We were one of the last complexes in the suburb to upgrade our security. The Jones’ residential complex across the street was, of course, the first ones to employ a golem to guard their property. Sometimes you could see it behind the wrought iron gate or its glowing, red eyes at night as it peered between the electric fence wires on the wall. The wall spikes below glowed like bloodied spears and I tried not to look across to their place at all and even kept my living area curtains closed the whole day as well.


Scared that the robbers would come to their properties if they were left protected only by wires, alarms and armed response panic buttons; the other neighbours soon followed suit. As golems could be formed out of clay, it was the cheapest choice in New Era Security. Only the excessively rich and politicians could afford cyborgs to patrol their grounds. But none of them lived near this part of town. As the inner city slums had mushroomed, the suburbs were soon taken over; and previous open tracks of land were walled in before sprawling houses were built and their elite clients driven with police protection into the scattered idylls still existing in the Golden Province. Inside those walls were everything a person could want – solar electricity and water, schools and enough access to the internet that no one ever had to leave to go to work or look further than the fifteen foot walls enclosing their part of the world.

So the rest of us – the middle classes and the lower classes – lived outside the sprawling mansions of the rich; supplying their power, water and food and trying our best to stay alive. The golems worked for a while. Crime in the area dropped steeply and the few “unsavoury persons” that did try to enter property without the owner’s consent were found dead in the street the next morning. Some were not found at all. But it still seemed the best option – after all, those whose golems had killed a robber or two argued, they could have seen the “WARNING: GOLEM GUARD” notice on the gate and the glowing red eyes glaring at them should have been a clue as well. So we all took to checking the street for any bodies before letting the kids out to go to school. We figured that the bodies would stop turning up in a couple of weeks any way – word would obviously spread that our area was well-guarded. But our complex still did not have a golem.

Then, about a week after the last corpse was found, my house was burgled. Luckily during the day when no one was home; but almost nothing was left inside. They had even emptied the pantry shelf and left only a box of cake mix long past its sell-by date. We had to face up to it – we had to get a guard for our complex. I called the toll-free Guards-R-Us number, but gave up after twenty minutes of tuneless electronic music. Figuring there was nothing left to steal anyway, I booked a cheap room at a local hotel and waited for the next morning to come and the call centres to open.

I wasn’t there when a couple of teenagers tried to sneak into a friend’s house for a surprise birthday wake-up. I also wasn’t there when the parents found that the golem had taken the task of keeping unauthorised persons from the property too seriously. I was thankful that I wasn’t the first one to check the road that day and that only came home after the paramedics and police had left. The grieving parents removed the letter from the golem’s brow and watched its enormous bulk turn to dust. Probably the others will follow suit.

Some people are talking about getting a troll or two for the whole neighbourhood as they would still be cheaper than a cyborg. At least trolls have more intelligence than the man-made hunk of clay and would only attack on command if their owner’s lives weren’t in danger. I left the neighbourhood meeting early. When Jones talked of trolls attacking on command, his eyes seemed just a bit too bright as he looked at his neighbour; Smith I think his name is. I think I would rather have a cyborg – at least they have voice and face recognition. Of course, as they are only available to the few elite in the mansions, I will have to quit my job and move away. I hope someone in the mansions have need of a live-in maid or nanny.

The Man Who Spoke to the Sea - Day 3 of the NaShoStoMo challenge

The Man Who Spoke to the Sea

Dark thunderclouds packed together above the small, white washed houses behind the sand dunes. Dense shrubs clamored for space on the top and side of the heaps of sand as if to flee from the waves that today pushed foam fingers farther and farther up the beach. Sand-laden wind blew from the wide water over the dunes, today even lashing the houses huddling behind the dune. The storm came, like many on this part of the coast, with little warning. No warning to those not used to the weather. But here the fishermen knew when the wind blew just so to take their boats to the shore and batten down the hatches. Some said Reinard could even hear the storm two days out by the sound of the waves. All knew that he had had the best sea legs of all the fishermen in Vissermanshoek. Some of the older people in the village even said he had come from the waves, washed ashore as a baby when one of the great merchant ships sailed into a squall and sank, taking all other souls upon it to the salty depths.


But not Reinard. He was saved and adopted by old Dan Shoestring and lived the life of a fisherman, as connected to the sea as any could be. They said he heard it speak. “Not in a language you would understand easily, you know” as old Shoestring said. “He listens to all its secrets,” they said. They also said his wife, Sanna, was of the sea-folk, just like they said she had looked the water serpent in the eyes. Like they said he had given her the jewel from his brow to wear upon her neck. Like they said his family was destined for great things. Like they said Sanna went back to the sea-folk when her youngest daughter turned three. Like they said she had moved to Cape Town to live the life of the upper class. Like they said the rich strangers would come. Like they said Reinard’s heart was too broken to ever heal. They were right about three things. That rich people will come and build mansions to block the sea. That Reinard’s children would not be fisherman like generations before. That Reinard’s heart was broken.

The first to come and prospect for land was a certain sir with an unpronounceable surname that came form the city. Not that the home would be his residence, of course, just over weekends and holidays when he wanted a ‘silent retreat’. He drove in teams of builders and built a house the size of a small village, a three storey high monstrosity with a flat roof where he and his friends could go for a cocktail or three and stare drunkenly at the horizon. Not that he wasn’t friendly at first in a sort of speak-slowly-to-people-not-as-highly-developed-as-you kind of way that said he regarded all other people as imbeciles to be tolerated to do menial work, but not quite being able to reach his own level of perfection.

One weekend he even dared to go to one of the houses to quiet the children who we playing outside –five minutes’ walk from his sprawling home. Needless to say that the show of a shotgun and the village driving him back to his own house had his ego bruised enough to stay away from his house in the following weeks. It was during this lull in cocktail parties that The Accident came to the village.

It was a storm like no other – not even Reinard had heard it in the waves, nor saw it in the wind. It was just there, out of the blue, breaking the small fishing boats like kindle and sending Reinard overboard from his. He still survived, though, again saved from certain drowning much like when he was a baby, though this time with a broken leg that wouldn’t quite heal. The village was left in shock. Three of their brothers had been taken by the waves. Five more were in hospital. One thatched roof caved in and the first rich mansion to be built in Vissermanshoek sunk a foot into the sand.

After the house built on sand sunk and one wall was lost to the waves, the village rejoiced that the rich sir Whatshisname would be staying in the city indefinitely. At least now, so they thought, they would be able to live in peace behind the dune, making an earnest living. Unfortunately, this did not stop others from coming to build their own sea-side mansions and host countless people themselves. The working crews were soon transported to the village, shacks spreading out like wild-fire in a few weeks, bringing noise, shebeens and litter.

And Reinard saw it all from his house where he sat on the porch, waiting for his leg to heal and feel the waves beneath him once more. With his children long gone to the cities to work, he felt truly alone, stranded behind the sheltering dune and wishing only to see the sea again. He waited and waited, growing greyer by the day. Most of all he missed the voice of the sea as it spoke to him while he waited for a net to fill.

It was then that the strangest thing yet was said to have happened. Reinard took to walking to the beach every morning, pushing two rows of neatly spaced holes next to his own footsteps in the morning sand as he fumbled along on the old wooden crutches he had been given at the clinic. Then he would sit on the rocks all alone all day until the waters caressed his feet, after which he would silently go back to his empty house before setting out again the next morning. Those that saw him said that he spoke to the sea while he sat there on the rocks. Some said he spoke to himself. Some said he had voices haunting his head. The visit to the hospital had left him pale and wane, but with the sea around him he quickly grew hale again. But he only spoke to the sea. The children of the village took to watching him and poking fun at him, getting an earful from parents who grew scared of the grey old man that only spoke to the sea.

Around him more houses rose from the sand, never heeding the first ill-fated house where it sunk deeper and deeper into the sand. But he never seemed to give a thought to them, simply walking past the row of half-finished houses on his way to the sea.

Erika, the wife of old Shoestring became ever more worried for Reinard, seeing as his children – or anyone else - ever visited anymore. She took to following him to the beach and back, she thought secretly.

Then, the day of his sixtieth birthday, when the rows of houses blocking their view from the sea was finished and filled with rowdy city-dwellers, she followed him for the last time. He walked with his crutches as he always did; his frame smaller that it used to be. Around his neck was the jewel that had belonged to his wife. He climbed into the rocks with difficulty and threw the crutches aside. He held the stone before him and called the name of his long-gone wife.

Now, I know this because Erica told me herself. She said she saw his wife emerging from the ocean looking just like she did forty years ago. She also said he grew young and grew a tail just like a fish. She said he gave her the jewel and followed her into the waves.

They, of course, say it was wishful thinking. They say it was suicide. They say he drowned. The also say there is no water serpent and a fisherman could never own a jewel like he did. But they don’t know the sea’s secrets. They don’t know her language and they still don’t know that a storm is coming when the wind is just so and the waves splash just at that certain angle against your boat.

THE END

The Flight of the Mosquito - Day 1 of NaShoStoMo

I saw yesterday that the talented Dan Wells has decided on a quite insane idea - write a short story a dey - each day - for the month of April. Find more info at: http://www.nashostomo.org/

Well, I couldn't resist, so here is day one... The Flight of the Mosquito.

The Flight of the Mosquito

Gerry didn’t know if he should curse or pray for strength and patience. He glanced at the red numbers on his radio clock and decided on cursing. It was already 2:30am, he had to get up in two hours and still a lone mosquito was buzzing in his ear. One mosquito, unfazed by the plug-in mozzie poison, the mozzie spray and rub-on, the wrist bands and enough citronella candles to make his room look as if some bizarre cult was about to walk in, wearing dark cloaks and chanting. Even his flailing arm and slaps when he tried to figure out where it was, never hit it. He switched the bedside lamp on and looked around the room. As usual, there was just as suddenly no sight of the bloodsucker.


As if she knew he was going to turn on the light.

The buzzing-screech had stopped just as abruptly.

Maybe the thing wasn’t even natural. Maybe it was just that, a bug. Sent to covertly draw blood for some covert government operation. Like the ants they had walking around at school. Sure the other students thought he was a bit crazy for even having the idea, but what better way was there to listen to what the students are saying? And ants could be anywhere – in the quadrant, on the sport fields, in the classrooms and even going into the lockers. Maybe that was why they never had to have big drug busts at the school – the governing body already knew who the culprits were. And now They have perfected a way to draw blood without you thinking about it twice, or even knowing about it. No one would think mosquito bites strange in the middle of summer. It was brilliant, actually.

But how was he to test his theory? He flicked off the light again and heard the buzzing start immediately. Maybe it doesn’t work in a certain level of light? He sat up in bed, leaving his arms above the blanket and waiting for the light tingle when the bug lands to feed.

At last! He smacked his arm and felt something squash beneath his palm. He turned on the light again to see if he really got the mozzie. Sure enough, this time he had the awful thing. And he had got it before it had time to bite him – there was no blood visible. He looked closer at the smudge on his arm. It must be some kind of new substance that could mimic the real thing. The scientists were getting really clever. But he will be them one ahead, Gerry thought. If they come to the citizens in the dark, he will never be caught in the dark again, even if it means that his electricity bill skyrockets. He will find some way to cover it. He lay back down to sleep, pulling the blanket over his head slightly to block out the worst of the light. Just as he drifted off, his heart skipped a beat.

What will happen when there’s load shedding again?

Gerry didn’t think he would ever be able to sleep again. Or maybe he should think about emigrating to Australia again.